He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. Prior to coming to UNC-Chapel Hill, he earned a M.S. degree in Computer Science from Columbia University in 1998. Dr. Yang's research interests include computer graphics, computer vision, and multimedia. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers and registered over 800 citations in Google Scholar. He is a recipient of U.S. NSF CAREER award in 2005, and a member of the IEEE and ACM.