Yaoqin graduated with a degree in B. Sc (Molecular Biotechnology) Honours Class I, from the University of Sydney (2009). He then obtained his PhD with Prof Peter Reeves at the same university (2014), studying the genetic basis of O-antigen diversity using Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica. After a short postdoctoral appointment with Prof Reeves, he took a postdoctoral offer in the lab of Prof John Cronan at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, to decipher the biology of fatty acid and fatty acid derived small molecule synthesis (2014-2016). After he survived from fighting cancer, he returned to research and worked in the laboratory of A/Prof Makrina Totsika at the Queensland University of Technology, where he developed his independent research interests to understand the bacterial cell envelope biogenesis and maintenance to meet challenges from ambient changes, e.g. antibiotic exposure. Yaoqin was appointed a teaching/research post at the James Cook University in 2024.