Principle Investigator

Yaochun Yu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University. Yaochun joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University as an Assistant Professor in Spring 2026. He earned his Ph.D. (2021) and M.S. (2017) degrees in Environmental Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. (2015) in Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering from Jilin University. 

Prior to joining Stanford, Yaochun completed several postdoctoral training appointments in Switzerland. From 2022 to 2024, he worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) in the Department of Environmental Chemistry , where he led projects focused on mining environmental enzymes for xenobiotic biotransformation, expanding his previous research on biotransformation from the laboratory to field-scale systems. In 2025, he began a second postdoctoral appointment jointly in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology (Food Science and Biotechnology) at ETH Zürich and the Department of Environmental Microbiology at Eawag, where he broadened his research scope from environmental systems to the human gut microbiome. In late 2025, he returned to Eawag (Department of Environmental Chemistry) as a Scientist through the Eawag Academic Transition Grant, focusing on developing Orbitrap Astral–based analytical methods for environmental and human biological samples in preparation for establishing his independent research lab at Stanford. 

In general, the Yu group at Stanford will focus to studying how chemicals (particularly pollutants) interact with microorganisms in natural, engineered, and human-associated ecosystems. Methods span microbiology, biochemistry, and analytical chemistry to uncover how these chemicals are removed, transformed, or even recycled. The overarching goal is to develop biological ways to clean up pollution, recover valuable resources, and design safer, more sustainable chemicals that protect environmental and human health. Beside research, Yaochun is also deeply committed to inclusive and interdisciplinary teaching, and he is passionate about courses in environmental biotechnology, environmental microbiology, environmental engineering technologies, and environmental sustainability.