Ya-Nong was born and raised in Beijing, China. She got her bachelor’s degree at Fudan University in 2010. She then continued to work on palladium-catalyzed direct arylation of electron-deficient arenes in Prof. Xiu-Feng Hou’s group and obtained her master degree in 2013. In 2014, she joined the Prof. Yu Zhao’s group in National University of Singapore where she worked on palladium-catalyzed higher-order cycloaddition to synthesize medium-sized rings and obtained her PhD in 2018. After another year’s stay as a research assistant in Singapore, Ya-Nong joined Prof Kami Hull’s group in UT Austin as a postdoctoral fellow and is studying anti-Markovnikov selective olefin functionalization. Outside of laboratory, she enjoys reading, watching history documentaries and cooking.
