Chennan Jin
Chennan was born and raised in southwestern China in the city of Kunming. He received his B.S. in Bioinformatics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. After graduation, he studied principles of neural computations in the fruit fly’s navigation system in Dr. Rachel Wilson’s lab at Harvard. At UCSF, he recently joined Dr. Vijay Namboodiri’s lab, studying the brain mechanisms that support reward learning. Outside of lab, he is into rock climbing, tennis, and camping.
2025-Current
Phoebe Cao
Phoebe is a PhD student in Dr. Zachary Knight’s lab. She is studying neural representations of pre-gastric cues. In the bigger picture, Phoebe is interested in how internal states are represented in the brain and how these states drive animals to interact with the environment. Before UCSF, Phoebe worked on hippocampal place cell encoding in Dr. Mark Sheffield’s lab at UChicago and endocannabinoid modulation of defensive responses in Dr. Sachin Patel’s lab at Northwestern. Outside of work, she can be found lifting weights, enjoying Golden Gate Park, or finding new cafes.
2025-Current
Xinyang Yi Bio
Born and raised in China, Xinyang received her bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from Peking University in 2023. She did her undergraduate research in Dr. Yulong Li’s lab where she developed fluorescent tools to understand dopamine dynamics in vivo. Now Xinyang has joined Dr. Zachary Knight’s lab, focusing on studying the brain and body connections behind homeostasis. Outside of the lab, she enjoys outdoor activities and reading.
2024-2025
Moritz Stingl
Stingl is a PhD student and = recently became a member of the Scanziani lab, where he study's how the brain generates and updates an internal representation of the external world. Generally speaking, he is interested in understanding how neuronal activity — ranging from the cellular up to neuronal circuit and network levels — produces actions or cognition and allows us to successfully interact with our environment. Before starting at UCSF in 2023, Stingl studied in Germany where he completed both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the University of Heidelberg. Outside of the lab, he can often be found doing various sports or outdoor activities.
2024-2025
