Bing Yang has been named a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society (APS). Yang has a joint appointment in the Division of Plant Science and Technology as a professor, and in the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center as a member and principal investigator in 2018. At Mizzou, he also is an investigator in the Bond Life Sciences Center. 

Over the last 28 years, Yang, his team and collaborators have identified and characterized many effector genes in Xanthomonas oryzae and host disease susceptibility and resistance genes and elucidated the underlying mechanisms of pathogen virulence and host susceptibility and immunity. He has pioneered the development and efficient application of the TALEN technology for genome editing. 

He has contributed to the APS community by serving as a member of the Biotechnology Committee (2009–11), and as a reviewer for the APS journals Phytopathology, MPMI, and Plant Disease. He made his materials and protocols publicly available to a wide number of researchers. Furthermore, he has been training the next generation of scientists through his genome-editing courses and workshops and mentorship of graduate students.

APS bestows the honor of Fellow to APS members in recognition of distinguished contributions to the profession of plant pathology.