Yingxi Lin.

Yingxi Li

Professor of psychiatry and neuroscience
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Yingxi Li is professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, and chief of the Psychiatry Neuroscience Research Division at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her research focuses on uncovering molecular and circuit mechanisms in neurodevelopment, memory formation and neuropsychiatric conditions. Employing a broad array of multidisciplinary experimental techniques, work in her lab spans analyses from the genomic and molecular level to synapse, circuit and whole-animal behavioral levels.

Originally from China, Lin studied engineering physics at Tsinghua University and received her Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University. She conducted her postdoctoral research under Michael Greenberg at Harvard Medical School. She was assistant professor from 2009 to 2015 and associate professor from 2015 to 2018 at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to her current role, she was full professor and director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at SUNY Upstate Medical University.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Piggy bank with blindfold.

Future remains uncertain for U.S. federal funding of behavioral, cognitive science

The National Science Foundation did not include any solicitations for its social, behavioral and economic sciences directorate in its latest round of funding opportunities, nor replace any outgoing program officers—which poses an existential threat for the program, says nonprofit executive Wendy Naus.

By Calli McMurray
26 August 2026 | 5 min read

How energy determines where proteins are produced in neurons

Tatjana Tchumatchenko explains how mathematical modeling elucidates whether ion-channel proteins are produced locally in the soma or in the dendrites.

By Gaute Einevoll
26 August 2026 | 104 min listen
A brown mouse between a red cube and blue cylinder looks curiously at the top of the cylinder, standing on hind legs.

Wouldn’t you like to know? A mouse would

Mice seek information for curiosity’s sake—and their desire for knowledge versus a payout is represented distinctly in the brain, new findings suggest.

By Sarah Thau
26 August 2026 | 5 min read