Eric Yen received an undergraduate degree from Taipei Medical University and a PhD in nutritional biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His thesis work examined how nutrient availability early in life modulated health later in adulthood. During his postdoctoral fellowship at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, he identified several acyl CoA acyltransferases. He joined the faculty at University of Wisconsin-Madison and leads a research team studying the physiological functions of these enzymes involved in triacylglycerol synthesis.