I am a fifth-year PhD student in the Neurobiology program at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). My advisor is Prof. Markus Meister. My research focuses on cognitive flexibility, learning, and memory, with a particular interest in the essence of cortex and hippocampus in these functions. My current project, titled “Mice in the Manhattan Maze,” employs an original massively reconfigurable maze to study rapid learning and flexible routing in wildtype mice and acortical mice.

Beyond research, I am actively involved in teaching and student activities around Caltech. For two years, I served as the head teaching assistant for CNS187 Neural Computation, a graduate-level course requirement for students in Computation and Neural System. Additionally, I am the current president of the Neurotechers (23-), the official club for Caltech graduate students in neuroscience. You can learn more about me in a short Spotlight on Caltech’s frontpage, and a short assay about the best students in class.

In my free time, I enjoy exploring the mountains, hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter. This season I summitted Mt Whitney in one day. I am also an avid bird watcher, artist and wildlife photographer (check my art portfolio!).

Before joining Caltech, I did my undergraduate studies at Cornell University (B.S. in Biological Engineering) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (B.Eng. in Food Science and Engineering). I then obtained a Master’s degree (M.Phil) in Education and Psychology from the University of Cambridge.

News and Announcements

2024/11/14 - I gave a talk to the Harvard Medical School RL and the Brain Seminar about the Manhattan Maze project! Check out the talk content and slides here.

2024/08/20 - My first first-authored review, “the Unbearable Slowness of Being,” is now on arXiv! Also check out a painting for the topic.

2024/08/06 - I presented our latest progress on the Manhattan Maze, featuring acortical mice, in CCN 2024. Check out the most up-to-date project info through the link! I received a full travel grant from the Chen Institute for attending this conference.

2024/06/17 - My Advisor Prof. Markus Meister presented our work “Mouse navigation without hippocampus or neocortex”, of which I am co-first author, at iNAV 2024 in Merano, Italy.

2023/12/19 - With Hristos Courellis from Adolphs and Rutishauser Lab, I won the 2024 Chen Innovator Grant for an independent project by graduate students. We will report our results in 2025.

2023/09/26 - I am the president of the NeuroTechers for this academic year (2023-2024).

2023/06/12 - I am featured in two articles in the Best in Class series on Caltech Magazine’s June Issue! See the two articles here: SoCaltech and Best in Class

2023/05/24 - I won the travel award and presented our latest work on the Manhattan Maze Project at the Curiosity, Creativity and Complexity 2023 Conference.

2023/04/11 - I received the 2023 Chen Institute Diversity and Inclusion Grant Award.

2023/03/22 - I am officially a Ph.D. candidate!

2022/11/13 - With Rogério Guimarães, I presented a poster of the Manhattan Maze project at SfN 2022, titled “Mice in Manhattan: Mastering and Memorizing Multiple Maps of a Massively Modifiable Maze in Minutes.”