MEMBERS
Lab Culture
The Sun lab aims to foster an inclusive and interactive culture where every individual feels valued and respected.
Each trainee is encouraged to pursue their separate project, while collaboration among lab members is strongly promoted, fostering vibrant discussions and innovative ideas. Our environment is inherently multicultural, with lab members originating from diverse corners of the globe. Therefore, it is imperative that individuals within our lab community not only respect each other’s diverse backgrounds but also embrace differences in opinion, whether they pertain to scientific matters or general questions. We greatly appreciate the unique contributions of everyone who has been a part of our lab, and we eagerly anticipate welcoming many more trainees who will enrich our community with their diverse perspectives and experiences.
Principal Investigator
Dr. Qian-Quan Sun
PI, lab head and Professor of Neurobiology
Dr Sun’s academic journey includes pivotal roles such as Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Wyoming’s Department of Zoology and Physiology, where he leads NIH funded Developmental Neurophysiology Research Laboratory as Principal Investigator, and the director and Principal Investigator of Wyoming Sensory Biology Center, a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence funded by NIH. Dr. Sun’s career progression reflects his commitment to academic excellence, having risen from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Wyoming. His expertise encompasses neural circuits underlying sensorimotor integration, developmental synaptic plasticity, and cellular mechanisms in cortical development and epilepsy. Dr. Sun’s extensive research experience includes appointments as a Visiting Scientist at Janelia Farm Research Campus and affiliations with esteemed institutions like Stanford University and the University of St Andrews, where he received his doctoral degree. His pioneering work in synaptic transmission and neural modulation underscores his profound impact on interdisciplinary scientific inquiry.
Current Members
Chunzhao Zhang
Lab manager, Research Technician III
Chunzhao has over 25 years combined research experiences in research labs. As a lab manager in Sun lab, Chunzhao’s responsibilities have been maintaining the daily lab operation, maintaining many lines of transgenic mice and performing genotyping. In addition, Chunzhao is also responsible for carrying out immunohistology experiments and single cell transcriptomic and spatial transcriptomic experiments. Her past research experiences included research in the area of developmental molecular neurobiology of glia-neuron interactions in Ben Barres Lab at Stanford University and research as visiting scientist in Janelia Farm Research Campus (HHMI).
Jiaman Dai
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Jiaman Dai received his PhD from Chongqing University in 2017. Before joining Sun Lab, he worked in Southwest Eye Hospital in Chongqing from 2009 to 2017. His research interest is about learning, especially the neural representations of sensory and contextual information.
Yihan Wang
Doctoral Student in Neuroscience Program
Yihan joined Sun lab in fall 2018, after he has graduated with a master program in genetics from Chinese Science Academy in 2016. Prior to this he earned a BS in environmental science and engineering. Yihan’s research interests are in neural basis of behavior, specifically, he is interested in the frontal cortex and its role in encoding persistent behavior and decision making.
Macie Schultz
Doctoral student in Biomedical Science Program
Maycie graduated from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota with B.A. in Biochemistry and Mathematics. Her research interests include investigating the role of the anterior thalamus and cingulate cortex within the Papez Circuit and how those regions may also impact the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Specifically within those regions, she is interested in looking at cellular gene expression, function, and diversity differences in Alzheimer’s presenting (5xFAD) mice using single-cell RNAseq (scRNAseq) and spatial transcriptomic methodology.
William (Robby) Johnston
Doctoral student in Program of Neuroscience
Graduated with a master degree in Biomedical Sciences from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Suwanee, Georgia. Robby will join the Sun lab in fall 2024.
Tianyu (Chase) Cao
Tianyu graduated with a PhD degree in Statistics from Oklahoma State University and the main focus is on multiple hypothesis testing and replicable research. Before coming to USA for doctorate degree, he earned BS in mathematics and applied mathematics in China. Tianyu’s doctoral dissertation is aimed at estimating the false discovery rate using only published p-values since recent replication studies have suggested that many published research findings (discoveries) may be false discoveries in some disciplines. Besides the dissertation, he also have had the opportunity to gain collaborative experience in causal inference as a research assistant funded by NIH Grant: Improving Causal Inferences In Child & Family Behavioral Research. His focus was on the assessment and improvement of the recently published dual-centered ANCOVA model. Currently Tianyu is working on analysis of omic data as a data scientist in the Wyoming Sensory Biology Center, under the supervision of Dr. Sun.
Karissa Kiser
In coming Master students in Zoology and Physiology
Graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Physiology from the University of Wyoming. Karissa Kiser will join the Sun lab in fall 2024.
