Postdoc Scholars Program Cohorts
2025 - 2026 Postdoctoral Scholar Award Recipients
The 2025 - 2026 KIBM Postdoctoral Scholars: Zachary Whiddon (Pekkurnaz Lab, UC San Diego's Department of Neurobiology), Hao Jiang (Ryan Hibbs Lab, UC San Diego's Department of Neurobiology), Oleksandra Sirozh (Don Cleveland Lab, UC San Diego's Cellular and Molecular Medicine Department).
Zachary Whiddon
Mentor: Gulcin Pekkurnaz
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Neurobiology
Research Areas: metabolic plasticity of neurons, mitochondrial dynamics, metabolic adaptations in aging and neurodegeneration, in vivo imaging of biosensors
Hao Jiang
Mentor: Ryan Hibbs
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Neurobiololgy
Research Areas: structural neurobiology, chemosensory neurophysiology in octopuses, chemotactile receptor function
Oleksandra Sirozh
Mentor: Don Cleveland
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Research Areas: determinants of neural identity, CRISPR screening, neural regeneration in aging and neurodegenerative disease
2024 - 2025 Postdoctoral Scholar Award Recipients
The 2024-2025 KIBM Postdoctoral Scholars: Damion Demeter (Deanna Greene Lab, UC San Diego Cognitive Science Department), Yvonne Hu (Takaki Komiyama Lab, UC San Diego Department of Neurobiology) and Seahyung Park (Sung Han Lab, Salk Institute for Biological Studies).
Damion Demeter
Mentor: Deanna Greene
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Cognitive Science
Research Areas: neural development and plasticity, cortical circuit organization, and excitatory-inhibitory balance
Yvonne Hu
Mentor: Takaki Komiyama
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Neurobiology
Research Areas: neural stem cells, single-cell and organoid models, neurodevelopmental disorders
Seahyung Park
Mentor: Sung Han
Affiliation: Salk Institute, Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology
Research Areas: synaptic and circuit development, sensory processing and plasticity, inhibitory interneurons and circuit dynamics
2023 - 2024 Postdoctoral Scholar Award Recipients
The 2023-2024 KIBM Postdoctoral Scholars: Jingwen Li (Cory Miller Lab, UC San Diego Department of Psychology), Mengni Wang (Jill Leutgeb Lab, UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences) and Junxiang Zhou (Yishi Jin Lab, UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences).
Jingwen Li
Mentor: Cory Miller
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Psychology
Research Areas: neurophysiology of natural behavior, active vision, natural communication, excitation/inhibition balance, brain states
Mengni Wang
Mentor: Jill Leutgeb
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Neurobiology
Research Areas: learning and memory of hippocampus, system neuroscience
Junxiang Zhou
Mentor: Yishi Jin
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Neurobiology
Research Areas: neural development, microtubule organization, mitochondrial metabolism and dynamics
2022 - 2023 Postdoctoral Scholar Award Recipients
The 2022-2023 inaugural KIBM Postdoctoral Scholars: Christopher Lee (Rangamani Lab, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering), Nuttida Rungratsameetaweemana (Sejnowski Lab, Salk and UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences), Jeffrey Jones (Gage Lab, Salk), Donovan Ventimiglia (Asahina Lab, Salk) and Lisanne Schulze (Lovett-Barron Lab, UC San Diego School of Biological Sciences).
Jeffrey Jones
Mentor: Rusty Gage
Affiliation: Salk Institute, Laboratory of Genetics
Research Areas: stem cell culture, human cognitive aging, genetic engineering, bioinformatics, neural development and cellular metabolism
Current Position: Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience, College of Medicine at the University of Florida
Christopher Lee
Mentor: Padmini Rangamani
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Research Areas: actin cytoskeletal dynamics, membrane mechanics, multiscale modeling, cellular shape and signaling
Current Position: Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, Department of Molecular Biology, UC San Diego
Nuttida Rungratsameetaweemana
Mentor: Terry Sejnowski
Affiliation: UC San Diego, The Institute for Neural Computation (INC)
Research Areas: computational neuroscience, decision-making, learning and memory, cognitive modeling
Current Position: Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University
Lisanne Schulze
Mentor: Matthew Lovett-Barron
Affiliation: UC San Diego, Neurobiology
Research Areas: brain-spanning circuits, behavioral adjustment coding, virtual reality systems, genetic engineering
Current Position: Group Leader at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus in Virginia
Donovan Ventimiglia
Mentor: Kenta Asahina
Affiliation: Salk Institute, Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory
Research Areas: neural circuits and quantitative behavior
Current Position: Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University