Yijun Yang
PhD student

Profile

Biography

I completed my master’s in psychology at the University of Chicago in 2021. Then, I worked as a
research assistant in the Primate Social Evolution Lab at Northwest University and a field manager in
the Qinling Golden Snub-nosed Monkey Team. Before obtaining departmental funding and starting
my PhD at York in 2025, I conducted two-year longitudinal field research studying a troop of golden
snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus roxellana) in the temperate mountainous forest of Qinling,
Xi’an, Shaanxi, China.

Following wild monkeys on a daily basis taught me that humans and nonhuman animals bear striking
similarities in many behaviors. I am particularly interested in better understanding the extent to
which behaviours in primates and humans are underwritten by similar psychological mechanisms
and, if so, whether these represent instances of convergent or homologous evolution. Such a
comparative approach can help shed important light on the evolution of human mind and
behaviour.

Career

PhD in Psychology, University of York (2025- Present)
Field Manager, Qinling Golden Snub-nosed Monkey Team, Northwest University (2022-2024) (paid)
Research Assistant, Primate Social Evolution Lab, Northwest University (2022-2024) (paid)
MA in Psychology, University of Chicago (2020-2021)
Instructor, Overseas Examination Division, New Oriental Group (2018-2020) (paid)
BSc in Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities (2015-2018)

Research

Overview

Use the comparative method to understand the development of multimodal combinatorial communication in wild chimpanzees.

Projects

My project is supervised by Prof. Katie Slocombe and Prof. Simon Townsend. The project studies the production of signal combinations (vocal, gestural, and facial signals) in juvenile, sub-adult, and adult chimpanzees from different wild populations in Uganda. We aim to examine how these signal combinations emerge across development and whether and how social learning (e.g., imitation) plays a role in their ontogeny.

Grants

Departmental funding from the University of York

Collaborators

Professor Katie Slocombe
Professor Simon Townsend

Available PhD research projects

The development of multimodal combinatorial communication in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Teaching

Postgraduate

Graduate Teaching Assistant (under training)

Other teaching

Instructor, Overseas Examination Division, New Oriental Group (2018-2020) (paid)

Publications

Selected publications

Guo, Y.T*., Yang, Y.*, Zhang, B*. et al. (2025). Evolution of sexual dimorphism in nonhuman
primates. Science China Life Science. 68, 2472–2474. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-024-2796-3
Guo, Y., Garber, P. A., Yang, Y., et al. (2024). The Conservation Implications of the Gut Microbiome
for Protecting the Critically Endangered Gray Snub-Nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus
brelichi). Animals, 14(13), 1917. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14131917
Yang, Y., Yan, Y., Fang, G., et al. (2024). Functional diversification of contact calls contribute to the
cohesion of a multi-level society. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 78, 121.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03539-3
Zhao, L., Ji, S-N., …, Yang, Y., et al. (2023). Dynamic foraging strategy adaptation to heterogeneous
environments contributes to social aggregation in snub-nosed monkeys. Zoological Research, 45(1):
39-54. https://doi.org/10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2023.047

Yijun Yang PhD student