Dr. Irene Yang is an Assistant Professor and Endowed Chair in Spine and Trauma Biomechanics in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME), Faculty of Engineering and the Department of Surgery, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at University of Western Ontario (UWO). 

Dr. Yang leads the Western Engineering for Spine and Trauma (WEST) Lab located at Victoria Hospital (London, Ontario, Canada). Her research interests include machine learning for medical image analysis, experimental and computational biomechanics of the human musculoskeletal system particularly bone fractures, and medical implant design and development. Her group conducts orthopaedic engineering and biomechanics research in collaboration with the 100 orthopaedic trauma and spine surgeons from the Schulich School of Dentistry and Medicine's Department of Surgery at the Victoria Hospital (London, ON, Canada).

Dr. Yang is a specialty editor for the Bone and Joint Research Journal, a former British Orthopaedic Research Society/Bone Joint Research (BORS/BJR) travelling fellow, where she visited leading orthopaedic research labs across the USA (University of Denver, Colorado Joint Replacement, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Hospital for Special Surgery (NY), Northeastern University in Boston) and in Canada (University of Ottawa). Her work has been published in Nature Scientific Reports, The Knee, and the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS). She is also co-inventor of a novel orthopaedic technology (bone implant) for pediatric coronal plane angular deformities of the lower limb (genu varum & genu valgum) and a wrist arthrodesis implant for fixed flexion deformity in Cerebral Palsy patients (University of Sydney & Westmead Children's Hospital, Australia; OrthoPediatrics Corp., USA). 

Originally from South Africa, Dr. Yang graduated with a Bachelor of Mechanical (Biomedical) Engineering and Bachelor of Medical Science from the University of Sydney (Australia), and a DPhil as a Clarendon Scholar at The University of Oxford (United Kingdom), where she worked on reducing mobile bearing dislocations with the Oxford Knee implant (Oxford University, UK; Zimmer Biomet) in the lateral compartment of the knee. She completed her postdoctoral research training and independent academic research fellowship at the University of Edinburgh focused on developing ultrasound for orthopaedic surgery.