Yi Ye (Award in Pain Recipient) holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Wyoming, a master’s degree in clinical research from New York University and an M.B.A. from NYU’s Stern School of Business. She was a research fellow in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the College of Dentistry at the University of California, San Francisco, and joined the Bluestone Center as an associate research scientist in 2010. She has been in her current position since 2015. She has received a Travel Award and a Young Investigator Award from the International Association for the Study of Pain, and was awarded both a National Institutes of Health-NYU-Clinical and Translational Science Institute Scholarship and an NYU Whitehead Fellowship in 2015.

Ye’s research aims to understand the neurobiological basis of cancer pain, with additional focus on carcinogenesis and tumor progression in head and neck cancer. The ultimate goal of her research is to develop novel therapies that can be used for both cancer and pain treatment by targeting shared mechanisms. In progression toward this goal, she directs a translational research program that uses multiple approaches including in vitro cell culture, animal models and human studies.