Yukiko Goda is a Japanese molecular biologist who is a professor and group leader at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.

Goda was born in Osaka, but grew up between Japan and Canada because her father worked in a trading company.

[1] Despite initially considering literature, Goda became interested in science during her undergraduate studies, and spent her summer holidays on research placements in chemistry and biology.

[1][2] She trained in cell biology, and completed her doctoral research at Stanford University with Suzanne Pfeffer, where she studied vesicular transport from endosomes to the Golgi complex.

[3] She completed a course on developmental neurobiology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she learned that Stevens' group were investigating synaptic plasticity in vivo.