Cheng-Yu Lee, PhD, is a Research Associate Professor in the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan. He earned his doctorate at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he studied steroid regulation of autophagic programmed cell death in Drosophila in the laboratory of Eric H. Baehrecke. He continued his training at the laboratory of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Chris Q. Doe, a leader in the field of Drosophila neural stem cell biology at the University of Oregon. Lee's post-doctoral research project focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that allowed neural stem cells (neuroblasts) in flies to choose between self-renewal or differentiation, which was recognized with the Career Award in Biomedical Research by the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation in 2006. Dr. Cheng-Yu Lee’s current research projects focus on understanding the molecular mechanisms by which these newly identified fly genes regulate self-renewal vs differentiation in fly neuroblasts. 

Fei Zhao, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Biosciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned his doctorate at the University of Georgia, where he studied the role of Lhfpl2 protein in reproductive tract development in the laboratory of Xiaoqin Ye. Following completion of his doctoral thesis, Zhao joined the laboratory of Dr. Humphrey Yao at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Zhao's post-doctoral research project focused on studying the role of the Wolffian duct in sexual differentiation of reproductive tracts. Dr. Zhao's lab at UW aims to understand cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying sexual differentiation of reproductive tracts.