Jennifer Yang, MD

Bio

Dr. Jennifer Yang is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurosciences in the Division of Pediatric Neurology at UC San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego. She completed her medical degree at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, her Child Neurology residency at UC San Diego where she served as Chief Resident, and a fellowship in Neuroimmunology and Neurometabolics at UC San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital. She has formal training in clinical research methods through the UCSD Clinical Research Enhancement through Supplemental Training program.

Dr. Yang specializes in the clinical management of pediatric inflammatory and demyelinating disorders (ADEM, MS, MOGAD, NMOSD), mitochondrial disease, genetic white matter diseases and leukodystrophies. Her research interests include long-term outcomes and treatment of autoimmune encephalitis in children and improving translational diagnostics in mitochondrial disease. She is currently a site lead for a multi-center registry network for pediatric neuroinflammatory diseases including autoimmune encephalitis, Laudau-Kleffner syndrome and Rasmussen encephalitis. Additionally, she is involved in industry-sponsored clinical trials and investigator-initiated studies in pediatric and adult multiple sclerosis, Leigh Syndrome, and mitochondrial myopathies. She has authored several peer-reviewed publications on autoimmune encephalitis outcomes, biological aging and immunosenescence in multiple sclerosis, neurological sequalae after COVID19 and rare mitochondrial syndromes. She has completed research grants from the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Cancer Institute.