Ye was born in Shanghai, China, shortly after the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

His father was a naval officer and his mother an environmental scientist. He was primarily raised by his grandmother.

Ye graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1989.

He then moved to the United States to commence graduate studies, completing a master's degree at the University of New Mexico under Marlan Scully in theoretical quantum optics in 1991.

He also gained experience in experimental physics under John McInerney working on semiconductor lasers, and spent a summer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

 

Ye then went to the University of Colorado Boulder to begin a Ph.D. in physics.

He was accepted as the last graduate student of eventual Nobel Prize laureate John L. Hall.

His thesis was on high-resolution and high-sensitivity molecular spectroscopy, which he completed in 1997.

He then moved to California Institute of Technology as a Milikan Postdoctoral Fellow, working under Jeff Kimble.

 

Ye moved back to Boulder and JILA as a JILA Associate Fellow and NIST physicist in 1999. John Hall donated most of his lab space to him.

He was promoted to full Fellow in 2001 and has been there since, establishing a research program in AMO physics and precision measurement.