Yejia Zhang MD, PhD

Yejia Zhang is currently working as an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Zhang trained medically at the Second Military Medical University based in Shanghai, China. She received a PhD in cell and molecular biology from Penn in 1997. In 2002, she graduated from the residency training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester, NY. Between 2002 and 2006, she participated in the National Institutes of Health’s Rehabilitation Scientist K12 Fellowship Training Program while she was based within the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Rush Medical College at Rush University in Chicago, IL. She was employed in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia between 2006 and 2008, and then she returned to Rush in Chicago in 2008 where she held dual academic appointments in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Orthopaedic Surgery before joining the Penn PM&R faculty in 2013. While at Rush, she was funded by a National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Mentored Clinical Scientist K08 Development Award to investigate cell therapy for degenerating intervertebral spinal discs as mentored by orthopaedic spinal surgeon, Howard S. An, MD, renown for research investigation in tissue engineering of the spinal intervertebral disc.