As a child, I intended a career in music but also captivated by the mysteries of natural sciences. I received my bachelor degree in chemistry from Tsinghua Uinivesity in Beijing, China. I conducted my bachelor thesis research on thermodynamics of lipid bilayers with Professor Zhiwu Yu.
I started graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, studying quantum chemistry, but was soon seduced by neuroscience because my roommates and the books I saw on their shelves. I did my graduate work in human color perception and constancy of 3D objects with Professor David Brainard in the Neuroscience Graduate Group. In graduate school, I did six lab rotations, ranging from measuring electrophysiological signals in central pattern generators in crabs to simulating small networks of olfactory mitral cells to trying to measure neural signals from mice. I ventured out into courses such as Quantum Field Theory, Artificial Intelligence, 16th Century Counterpoint, and Stochastic Processes.
After my PhD, I worked with Professor Alex Wade at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco to further probe the brain. I investigated early visual processing of color and luminance signals using frequency-tagging and source-imaged EEG methods. Fascinated by the challenging problem of material perception, I did a postdoc in the perceptual science group under the supervision of Professor Ted Adelson in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at MIT. In 2014, I joined the Department of Computer Science at American University, where I currently lead the Computational Material Perception Laboratory and teach a variety of courses in CS.
I am eager to work with students who is passionate about research and have a solid background in cognitive science, computer science, engineering, applied math, physics, and other natural sciences. At American University, we have an excellent CS master's program and a PhD program in cognition and neuroscience. Undergraduate students interested in the lab as research assistants are also encouraged to contact me.