Lab News

VCU News Covers Aarushi Rao's Summer Work on NeuroFlow

VCU News featured Aarushi Rao and her summer in the lab, where she led development of NeuroFlow, a tool that helps researchers analyze imaging data from their experiments more efficiently. Aarushi is a sophomore Honors College student and biology major who joined us through the Honors Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Congratulations, Aarushi!

The story as it ran on VCU News. Photo: Dean Hoffmeyer, VCU Enterprise Marketing and Communications.

Read the full story at VCU News

R24 Pilot Grant to Study Group Social Behavior in Aging

The Zhang Lab has been awarded an NIH NIA R24 Pilot & Feasibility Grant from the Animal Models for the Social Dimensions of Health and Aging Research Network to study naturalistic group social behavior in aging and social loss. This award will enable us to explore how social dynamics change across the lifespan and in response to social loss, using rodent models. We are grateful for this support to advance our understanding of the social dimensions of aging.

Dr. Zhang Awarded a Whitehall Foundation Research Grant

Dr. Guang-Wei Zhang has been awarded a Whitehall Foundation Research Grant to study the circuit architecture underlying the control of naturalistic parenting behaviors using rodent models. The Whitehall Foundation supports basic research in vertebrate and invertebrate neurobiology, with a focus on neural mechanisms that underlie behavior. We are grateful for the generous support from the Whitehall Foundation to the Zhang Lab.

Henry Oo's Abstract Accepted to SfN 2026. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Henry Oo, whose abstract has been accepted for presentation at Neuroscience 2026, the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting. The meeting runs November 14–18, 2026 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. We're excited to see him share his work with the neuroscience community!

Dr. Can Tao Receives BBRF Young Investigator Award

Dr. Can Tao (Catherine) has been awarded a Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) Young Investigator Grant, running from January 2027 through January 2029, to study estrogen-related female neuropsychiatric disorders. The BBRF Young Investigator program supports outstanding early-career scientists in neuroscience and psychiatry. Congratulations, Catherine, on this prestigious award!

Welcome Zhelia Arif, Neuroscience Master's Student

We are excited to welcome Zhelia Arif, who joins the lab in August 2026 as a Neuroscience master's student in VCU's MS program. Welcome, Zhelia!

Dr. Zhang Named a 2026 NIA Butler-Williams Scholar

Dr. Guang-Wei Zhang was named a 2026 Butler-Williams Scholar by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and attended the program at the NIH campus on August 3–6, 2026. The program is named in honor of Robert N. Butler, MD, the founding director of the NIA, and T. Franklin Williams, MD, its second director. Now in its fourth decade, it brings early-career investigators new to aging research together with NIA leadership and program staff for an intensive week on the science, gaps, and opportunities in the field. Congratulations!

Dr. Guang-Wei Zhang receiving the 2026 Butler-Williams Scholars Program certificate at the NIH.

The 2026 Butler-Williams Scholars class, NIH campus, Bethesda, MD.

Aarushi Rao Presents at the Summer Student Research Symposium

Aarushi Rao presented her poster at the Summer Student Research Symposium, held Friday, July 24, 2–4 PM in the Larrick Center. Her poster, NeuroFlow: An Integrated, Cross-Platform Workflow for Mouse Brain Atlas Registration and Quantification, showcased the browser-based pipeline she developed in the lab. This is fantastic work. Congratulations, Aarushi!

Aarushi Rao with her NeuroFlow poster at the Summer Student Research Symposium, Larrick Center.

Zhang Lab Selected for Anthropic's "Built with Claude: Life Sciences" Hackathon

The Zhang Lab was among the 500 participants selected worldwide for Built with Claude: Life Sciences, a global virtual hackathon hosted by Anthropic & Cerebral Valley in partnership with the Gladstone Institutes.

Welcome Our Remote High School Researchers

We are thrilled to welcome three talented high school students joining the lab remotely (off-campus, virtual): Arjun Kode (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology), Jihyo Lee (Deep Run High School, Richmond), and Neha Yashawini Karthikeyan (Maggie L. Walker Governor's School, Richmond). Welcome to the team!

Welcome Ava Gardner, Summer Post-Bacc Student

We are happy to welcome Ava Gardner, a post-baccalaureate pre-med student at VCU, to the lab for the summer. Welcome, Ava!

Zhang Lab Receives VCU Convergence Seed Award

The Zhang Lab has been awarded a VCU Convergence Seed Award, supporting a collaborative project with Dr. Dean Krusienski (VCU School of Engineering) and Dr. Priyodarshan Goswamee (Department of Neuroscience and Anatomy). This award will fuel a cross-disciplinary effort bridging neuroscience, engineering, and neural circuit research.

Welcome Wakas Mustafa, Summer Undergraduate Researcher

We are happy to welcome Wakas Mustafa, a VCU undergraduate student, to the lab for the summer. Welcome, Wakas!

Welcome Aarushi Rao, WSURP Summer Undergraduate Researcher

We are excited to welcome Aarushi Rao, a VCU undergraduate student, to the lab through the Wright Center Summer Undergraduate Research Program (WSURP). Aarushi will join us from May 27 through July 24, 2026. Welcome, Aarushi!

Welcome Lindsey Wilson, Rotation Student

We are excited to welcome Lindsey Wilson from VCU's MSTP (MD-PhD) Program for a rotation in the lab starting June 2026. Welcome, Lindsey!

Welcome Henry Oo, Our First Graduate Student

We are thrilled to welcome Henry Oo as the lab's first graduate student, starting May 2026. Henry joins us from VCU's Neuroscience PhD Program. Welcome to the team, Henry!

Dr. Can Tao Awarded 2026 Chen Institute Science Writers Fellowship

Dr. Can Tao has been awarded the 2026 Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute Science Writers Fellowship. Congratulations, Can!

Dr. Zhang Presents at the Chen Institute Symposium at USC

Lab Meeting: Henry Presents on the Fly Connectome

Henry Oo presented on Dorkenwald et al., "Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain," Nature, 2024.

First Lab Member Gathering