Dr. Yi Xiao acquired her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Nanjing University (China) in 2000 under the supervision of Professor Hongyuan Chen. In 2001, she began her first post-doctoral appointment in Professor Itamar Willner’s group at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) developing optical and electrochemical biosensors and bioelectronics. In 2004, she started her second post-doctoral appointment at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), working with Nobel Laureate Professor Alan Heeger and Professor Kevin Plaxco to develop electrochemicalsensors based on oligonucleotide receptors (aptamers). In 2007, she joined Professor H.T. Soh’s laboratory at UCSB as a Research Professor, developing new methods to generate aptamers via SELEX. Dr. Xiao joined Florida International University in 2011 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2017. She recently moved to the NC State Department of Chemistry as a tenured Associate Professor. To date, Dr. Xiao has published 85 peer-reviewed papers and three book chapters, with a total of over 12,000 citations, and has been awarded 12 US issued patents. Her lab receives funding from a variety of sources including the NIJ, NIH, NSF, and USDA. Dr. Xiao’s group works on applications of biosensors and biotechnologies at the interface of chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology. The main goal of her research is centered around the development of aptamer selection techniques and aptamer-based sensor platforms, and the use of such advancements to develop sensitive, specific, cost-effective assays and devices for detection of medically- and forensically-relevant small-molecule targets in real-world samples. Dr. Xiao enjoys yoga and cooking during her free time.