People

Rui Chang received his B.S. in Biological Sciences and Biotechnology from Tsinghua University, China in 2005. He then studied sensory transduction with Emily Liman and earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Southern California in 2011. He completed his postdoctoral training with Stephen Liberles at Harvard Medical School, where he investigated how boy sensory cues are monitored by the brain through the vagus nerve, and how these internal signals regulate whole body physiology. He joined the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University School of Medicine in January 2018. He received the 2019 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.

Marissa received her B.A. in chemistry from Princeton University in 2016. She then joined Dr. Dmitriy Aronov's lab at Columbia University, where she studied episodic memory in food-caching birds. She joined the Chang lab in June 2023, and is interested in how natural internal sensations are relayed from the periphery to the brain. Fun facts: I like to knit and crochet. I have lived my whole life in the tri-state area. I am a terrible swimmer. I love Broadway musicals.

Yvonne received her B.S. at Taipei Medical University in Taiwan. Her Ph.D. thesis with Prof. John Kuwada at University of Michigan identified the functions and mechanisms of action by the novel Stac protein family in skeletal muscles and neurons. She is fascinated by the organization of neural circuits. Fun facts: Yvonne plays the clarinet for over 10 years. Yvonne loves spicy food. Yvonne did skydiving and bungee jumping in New Zealand. Yvonne enjoys abstract art and layering colors when she paints.

Daniel obtained an A.B. in biophysics at Columbia University in New York City, where he studied neural development, followed by a Ph.D. in physiology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he studied carotid body oxygen chemoreception, and postdoctoral training at both the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, and the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research (MPIMF) in Heidelberg, Germany, where he investigated the modulation by the neurotransmitters GABA and glutamate of the electrical activity, intracellular calcium concentration, and GnRH secretion of GnRH neurons controlling reproduction. At the MPIMF, Daniel helped generate the first successful transgenic GFP mouse model for electrophysiological studies of the GnRH neuron (or any CNS neuron for that matter). Daniel then became a faculty member at the University of Chicago, where he investigated calcium signaling in the pubertal activation of the GnRH pulse generator by the neuropeptide kisspeptin, before coming to Yale where he explored the GABAergic and glutamatergic modulation of the electrical activity and intracellular calcium concentration of MCH neurons involved in energy homeostasis and sleep-wake regulation, while continuing to examine the neurotransmitter and neuropeptide modulation of GnRH neuron activity and GnRH secretion. Daniel recently joined the Chang lab, where he plan to use electrophysiological, calcium imaging, and optogenetic approaches to characterize the electrical activity and determine the functional connectivity and physiological roles of genetically defined subsets of intracardiac neurons in cardiovascular health and disease. Fun facts: I’ve visited 32 countries. I play the cello. I eat at least 10 different fruits and vegetables each day. I enjoy cold weather.

Qian received her B.S. in Biopharmaceutics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2018. As a research assistant, she worked in Dr. Guohong Li’s lab at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where she investigated the chromatin structure organization and DNA centromere sequence for the composition of the artificial chromosome. Qian began her Ph.D. studies at Yale in the fall of 2018 and joined the Chang lab in June 2019. She is excited to study neuronal regulation in cardio physiology and pathology, from molecular mechanisms to system neuronal circuits. She is also interested in modeling the organ physiology. Fun facts: I learned dancing for 10 years. I lived in the Amazon forest with indigenous people. I don’t like meat. I registered for the NYC Marathon successfully.

Chuyue received her B.S. in Life Science in 2018 from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. She studied erythropoietin ‘s role in treating Retinopathy of Premature in Dr. Shigang He’s lab. She also worked at Yale in the lab of Jimmy Zhou to study the function of vGluT3 cells and the W3 ganglion cells in motion detection. Chuyue started her Ph.D. in the fall of 2018 and joined the Chang lab in June 2019. She is interested in the neural mechanisms that underlie the regulation of internal organs’ physiological functions by using calcium imaging and optogenetics. Fun facts: I like my PI!!! I’ve never ever got drunk. Pig brain is my favorite while eating hotpot. I enjoy performing cardiac surgeries.