Yun Ding

Yun Ding is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on the genetic and neural mechanisms underlying the evolution of animal behaviors, particularly using Drosophila courtship behaviors as a model system. She holds a B.S. from Wuhan University (2005), a Ph.D. from the Kunming Institute of Zoology (2011), and completed postdoctoral work at Janelia Research Campus (2012–2019).

Research Interests:

• Evolutionary mechanisms of behavior
• Neural circuit evolution
• Genetic basis of behavioral diversity

Recent work emphasizes how genetic changes translate into neural anatomical and functional differences, with studies on courtship song evolution and modular circuit architecture. Key contributions include developing SongExplorer and SongTorrent tools for acoustic and behavioral analysis.

Advising: Supervises graduate students (e.g., Minhao Li), postdocs (Dajia Ye, Justin Walsh), and undergraduate researchers. Active in training future scientists through lab rotations and mentorship programs.

Labs/Teams: Leads a lab integrating genetics, neurobiology, and computational methods to study behavior-evolution relationships, housed in the Leidy Laboratory facilities.