Principal Investigator
Dayu received her Ph.D. degree from the Department of neurobiology at Duke University in 2005, mentored by Dr. Lawrence C. Katz. She then continued her postdoctoral training at Caltech with Dr. David J. Anderson. In November 2010, she started her independent research group at NYU Langone medical center studying the neural mechanisms of social behaviors.
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Postdoctoral Fellows
Takashi received his Ph. D. degree from Osaka University under the supervision of Prof. Shigetada Nakanishi in 2013. After his Ph. D. and postdoctoral training in Nakanishi's lab, he jonined Lin's lab in the spring 2015. He is interested in the neural substrates of mating and fighting circuits beyond the hypothalamus.
Rongzhen received her Ph.D. degree from the School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology at Peking University in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Qiang Zhou. She then continued her postdoctoral training at University of Pittsburgh with Prof. Yanhua Huang. She joined the Lin lab in January 2021. By combining a wide range of approaches, she is interested in understanding the neural mechanisms of aggressive and defensive behaviors. She aims to determine the effects of different external factors on social behaviors and the potential neural mechanisms that lead to deficits in disease models.
Jing Cai, Ph.D.
Jing obtained her P.h.D. degree from UTHealth Houston under the supervision of Dr. Qingchun Tong in the end of 2023. She then joined Lin lab in the same winter. Jing is interested in how chronic winning affects behaviors that are essential for animal survival.
Takayoshi Kuwabara, Ph.D.
Takayoshi received his Ph.D. from the Department of Biological Sciences at The University of Tokyo in March 2024 under Prof. Takeo Kubo. After completing his Ph.D., he joined the Lin lab in April 2024. He is interested in the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors and emotions.
Wenxi Zhou, Ph.D.
WenXi received her Ph.D. from Center for Neural Science at New York University in 2024 under the supervision of Dr. David Schneider. She joined the Lin lab in the same year in September. She is interested how the neural mechanisms of frustration and how frustrative states could be translated into aggression behaviors.
Jordan Elum, Ph.D.
Jordan Elum holds a B.S. in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Washington Graduate Program in Neuroscience. In his doctoral work, he examined the role of dopamine-releasing neurons in motivated behavior. Jordan joined Lin lab September 2024. In collaboration with Dr. Sage Chen, he will investigate the neural computation in the social behavior network supporting the generation of innate social behaviors.
Graduate Students
Patrick received a B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University. In collaboration with Dr. Robert Froemke, he is interested in understanding how social experiences alter the function of neural circuits – particularly in the context of parental behaviors. He plans to use a combination of in vivo recording techniques, functional manipulation approaches, and behavioral experiments to study sensory and conspecific representations in hypothalamic circuits.
Yifan received his B.S. in Biotechnology from Southwest University. He is a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering. He joined the lab in the fall of 2024 and is interested in studying the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors, with a particular focus on parental and infanticidal behaviors.
Research Associates
Prakhar completed his Bachelor's in Biotechnology in India before earning an MS in Biotechnology from NYU Tandon. He then joined the lab of Dr. Cristina Alberini as a research associate. Co-mentored by Dr. Cristina Alberini and Dr. Chiye Aoki, he used the electron microscopy to characterize the IGF2 receptor in the hippocampus and cortex of adult mouse brains. In fall 2024, he joined the Dayu Lin lab as a research associate/ lab manager, where his interest lies in elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors.
Undergraduate students
Sena is an undergraduate student at New York University majoring in Psychology and Biology. She joined the lab in Summer of 2024 and is interested in learning more about the biological mechanisms of social behaviors and how they can influence social motivation.
Sena Akturk
Kanishk is an undergraduate at NYU pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Neural Science and a minor in Chemistry. He joined the lab in the summer of 2024 and is interested in exploring the neural circuitry of social behaviors using techniques such as fiber photometry and optogenetics.
Kanishk Tewatia
Xiuzhi is an undergraduate student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science. In the summer of 2024, she joined Dayu Lin's lab, focusing on exploring the neural circuitry and neural plasticity involved in social behaviors. She is particularly interested in how previous social experiences influence later behaviors. She aims to gain a deeper understanding of neural information processing in the brain.
Xiuzhi Dai