I am an undergraduate student and researcher at UVA majoring in neuroscience with a minor in bioethics. I am respectively advised by Drs. Jianjie Ma and Richard Dortch in the Departments of Surgery and Translational Neuroscience at UVA School of Medicine and Barrow Neurological Institute, where I conduct neurologic disease-oriented preclinical research.

My research lies in understanding the pathophysiological mechanisms that underlie nervous system disorders with an emphasis on neurovascular dysfunction and neurodegeneration, as well as the development of targeted therapies for clinical applications via integrating computational and experimental methods to bridge the gap from bench to bedside.

Work in progress

• Attenuation of cerebral infarction by co-targeting MG53-mediated cell membrane repair and CitH3-mediated NETosis
• Focused ultrasound-facilitated delivery of recombinant human MG53 in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease
• Fall 2026 Neuroscience Ph.D. program applications :/

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"Every act of communication is a miracle of translation.

At this moment, in this place, the shifting action potentials in my neurons cascade into certain arrangements, patterns, thoughts; they flow down my spine, branch into my arms, my fingers, until muscles twitch and thought is translated into motion; mechanical levers are pressed; electrons are rearranged; marks are made on paper.

At another time, in another place, light strikes the marks, reflects into a pair of high-precision optical instruments sculpted by nature after billions of years of random mutations; upside-down images are formed against two screens made up of millions of light-sensitive cells, which translate light into electrical pulses that go up the optic nerves, cross the chiasm, down the optic tracts, and into the visual cortex, where the pulses are reassembled into letters, punctuation marks, words, sentences, vehicles, tenors, thoughts.

The entire system seems fragile, preposterous, science fictional.

Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe.

And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly.

Does the thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human?

We live for such miracles."

― Ken Liu, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

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