Academic Staff

Prof. Sonata Suk-yu Yau is an Associate Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). She earned her Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and completed her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong (HKU). Prior to joining PolyU as an Assistant Professor, Prof. Yau received postdoctoral training through research fellowships funded by HKU and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She further expanded her research experience during a sabbatical at Stanford University, where she investigated mechanisms of ageing-associated synaptic loss.

Prof. Yau has broad training in the cellular and molecular neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, and autism.  She has extensive experience using animal models to investigate how environmental factors, such as chronic stress and air pollutants, modulate neural plasticity, affecting mood and memory formation. Her research also explores therapeutic treatment targets, including physical exercise and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), to mitigate neurodegeneration, with a special emphasis on the crosstalk between peripheral organs and the brain.

Prof. Yau has published over 90 research articles and reviews, four book chapters, and holds patent in drug discovery. She has published in Molecular Psychiatry, PNAS, Neurobiology of Disease, Molecular Neurobiology and etc, with an H-index of 35 (Google Scholar Jan 2026). She is recognized as an Expertscape Expert (2022), ranking top 1% scholar in adiponectin research.

• Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Hong Kong