Dr. Yan Liu
Welcome! I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore (joined in June 2026). I am currently recruiting postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and research staff to develop ocular imaging technologies for studying eye diseases. PhD students can enroll in August or January each year, and can work as a Research Assistant before PhD enrollment. To apply, please email your CV to yanliunus@gmail.com.
I obtained my bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University, where I studied Physics and Optical Engineering. I earned my Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University under the mentorship of Prof. Lihong V. Wang, now Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). I completed my postdoctoral training with Prof. Changhuei Yang in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Caltech. I was a research associate at the Indiana University School of Optometry before joining NUS.
Research interest
I am interested in developing tools for biologists and clinicians. A key focus of my research is overcoming the optical diffusion limit that constrains the operating depth of optical techniques, enabling light focusing and high-resolution imaging deep within opaque biological tissues. To achieve this, we have developed optical phase conjugation-based advanced adaptive optics (wavefront shaping) techniques, including time-reversed ultrasonically encoded (TRUE) optical focusing and time-reversed adapted perturbation (TRAP) optical focusing. These approaches enable noninvasive, high-resolution optical imaging, manipulation (e.g. optogenetics, optical tweezers), and therapy deep within biological tissues.
More recently, I have advanced adaptive-optics optical coherence tomography (AO-OCT) for noninvasive, longitudinal imaging of the human eye in vivo at the cellular level. This technology has the potential to transform ophthalmology by advancing our understanding of disease pathophysiology, enabling early diagnosis of blinding diseases such as glaucoma, and improving treatment monitoring to accelerate lengthy clinical trials. These advancements will expedite the development of effective therapies, ultimately improving patient care.
Additionally, my research has encompassed photoacoustic imaging, acousto-optic imaging (ultrasound-modulated optical tomography), and fluorescence imaging.
Broadly, I am passionate about understanding complex systems and developing innovative tools to study them. Please visit the "Publications", "Posters", and "Video presentations" pages to learn more about our work.
News
2026 Yan was invited by Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America) to give a 30-minute talk titled "High-speed Adaptive Optics in Ophthalmology" at the Optica ImageSense congress in the Netherlands.
2026 Yan gave a 20-minute talk at the International Forum on Optical Coherence Tomography in Xiamen, China.
2025 Yan was invited by the Applications of Visual Science technical group of Optica to give a presentation on Point-Scanning Spectral-Domain Adaptive Optics OCT for imaging the living human eye.
2025 At the SPIE Photonics West 2025 conference, Yan presented our work on imaging photoreceptor somas and their loss in disease in the living human eye. This research was selected as one of the five finalists for the 2025 Pascal Rol Award for Best Paper in Ophthalmic Technologies. This nomination was chosen from a pool of 79 submissions by an international committee of 26 experts in ophthalmic technologies.
2024 At the ARVO 2024 conference, Yan presented our work on using adaptive optics OCT to image the photoreceptor somas and other cellular structures in the outer nuclei layer of living human retina, which won the POTY (Picture of the Year) prize given by Prof. Austin Roorda at University of California, Berkeley.
2023 At the SPIE Photonics West 2023 conference, Yan presented our work on ultrafast adaptive optics for imaging the living human retina, which won the highly competitive Pascal Rol Award for Best Paper in Ophthalmic Technologies.
