Elsa Yan was born and raised in Hong Kong and graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She came to the U.S. for graduate school and worked with Professor Eisenthal on nonlinear optics at Columbia University, where she developed second-harmonic generation methods for probing colloidal surfaces. In 2000, Elsa obtained her Ph.D. from Columbia University, and then moved on as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Mathies at UC Berkeley and a visiting fellow with Professor Sakmar at The Rockefeller University, where Elsa combined methods of molecular biology and Raman spectroscopy to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of vision. Subsequently, she joined The Rockefeller University as a research assistant professor to further develop chemical biology and biophysical approaches for studying transmembrane proteins. In 2007, she was recruited as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Yale University, where she was promoted to full professor in 2014. Elsa’s research group focuses on developing chiral-selective and surface-specific vibrational spectroscopy for probing biological functions at aqueous interfaces. Elsa has been recognized with several awards throughout her career, including the NSF CAREER Award early on and, more recently, the NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA).