Mentors

My scientific training is shaped by complementary mentorship in lipid systems metabolism, quantitative multi-omics mass spectrometry, multi-target herbal pharmacology, and predictive tissue systems biology.

Primary Mentor

My PI and primary scientific home at Yale.

Coming Soon

Xiaoai Zhao

Assistant Professor

Departments of Neuroscience and Comparative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine

Research Focus

Dr. Zhao's lab investigates the functional roles of complex membrane lipids in cellular and organismal physiology. Her group studies how phospholipid and sphingolipid composition regulates cellular processes, organelle function, and tissue integrity during normal physiology, aging, and age-related disease.

The lab integrates advanced mass spectrometry–based lipidomics, organelle-resolved lipid profiling, and technology development to uncover how dynamic lipid remodeling contributes to cellular stress responses and systemic metabolic regulation.

Role in My Training

My doctoral focus within Dr. Zhao's lab centers on complex lipids in systems metabolism. I investigate how lipid remodeling contributes to tissue–tissue communication and organismal metabolic regulation across aging and chronic disease.

Dr. Zhao provides rigorous training in quantitative mass spectrometry–based lipidomics, lipid metabolite tracing, and enzymatic pathway inference, shaping how I define lipid effector networks at the systems level.

Thesis Committee

Faculty guiding my dissertation through complementary expertise in herbal pharmacology, quantitative proteomics and lipidomics, spatial omics, and predictive systems biology.

Yung-Chi Cheng

Henry Bronson Professor of Pharmacology

Department of Pharmacology, Yale School of Medicine

Research Focus

Dr. Cheng is a pioneer in antiviral and anticancer drug development and a global leader in traditional Chinese medicine. His work applies rigorous pharmacology and quality-control frameworks to multi-component herbal formulations, emphasizing polypharmacology and network-level mechanisms of action.

Role in My Training

Dr. Cheng guides my development of multi-target treatments derived from herbal medicine. He provides mentorship in formulation design, pharmacological validation, and mechanistic analysis of polypharmacological and synergistic herbal interventions within a network pharmacology framework.

Yansheng Liu

Associate Professor

Department of Pharmacology & Yale Cancer Center

Research Focus

Dr. Liu's lab develops quantitative mass spectrometry and bioinformatic frameworks to define proteome dynamics, protein abundance, turnover, PTMs, and phosphoproteomic signaling states. His group integrates DIA-MS, lipidomics, and MALDI-based spatial omics to construct spatially organized multi-omic network models.

Role in My Training

Dr. Liu provides complementary mass spectrometry expertise across proteomics and lipidomics. He guides my development of DIA-MS workflows, PTM and phosphoproteomic analysis, multi-omic bioinformatic integration, and MALDI spatial omics approaches for quantitative and spatial modeling of lipid–protein networks.

Coming Soon

Hattie Chung

Assistant Professor

Department of Pathology & Center for Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School

Research Focus

Dr. Chung studies cellular heterogeneity and tissue homeostasis through systems biology. Her lab seeks to define the minimal cell–cell circuit motifs that sustain stable, adaptive, and resilient tissues across development, physiological fluctuation, aging, and disease.

By integrating spatial genomics, machine learning, and mechanistic modeling, her group aims to uncover the "grammar" of cellular interactions that governs tissue remodeling, resilience, and failure.

Role in My Training

Dr. Chung contributes predictive systems-biology frameworks that shape how I interpret spatial and multi-omic data in terms of tissue-level circuits. Her perspective informs how lipid–protein network remodeling and herbal interventions are contextualized within higher-order cell–cell interaction motifs governing tissue resilience and disease progression.