People
Current members
Adam CLARIDGE-CHANG
Adam is an Associate Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School. He did his undergraduate studies at the Australian National University, pursued his doctoral work on circadian rhythms with Michael Young at The Rockefeller University (2017 Nobel laureate), did postdoctoral work on olfactory learning with Gero Miesenböck (2020 Shaw Laureate) at Yale University, and was previously a Nuffield Leadership Fellow at the University of Oxford. He holds adjunct appointments in the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and NUS Physiology. He is on LinkedIn and Twitter.
XU Sangyu — 徐桑榆
Sangyu was awarded A*STAR National Science Scholarships. She did undergraduate studies with Charles Zuker at the University of California, San Diego, and her doctoral studies in the laboratory of Susumu Tonegawa at MIT. In the lab from September 2017, Sangyu is working on several neuromodulation projects. In May 2021, Sangyu won a three-year Young Investigator Research Grant (YIRG) from Singapore’s NMRC to investigate the role of social influence on feeding. Follow Sangyu on Twitter.
ZHANG Xianyuan — 張衔远
Xianyuan started in the lab as a doctoral student in the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, in the lab of LOW Chian Ming in the Pharmacology department and this lab. She completed her undergraduate studies in Biological Science in the Life Science School at Zhejiang University. In May 2015, Xianyuan started her collaboration with us to analyze neuromodulatory circuits. Xianyuan successfully defended her doctoral thesis on 23 November 2018. She is currently doing a postdoc on an octopamine circuit and collaborating with the Manser Lab.
MAI Yishan
Yishan graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2015 with a B.S. in Neuroscience with Highest Departmental Honors. While there, he worked with Utpal Banerjee as part of the Undergraduate Research Consortium in Functional Genomics, and with Stephanie White on dendritic arborization. He then worked for two years at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development in the Keri Martinowich Lab on BDNF signaling. From August 2018, he was an NUS President’s Jasmine Fellow doing his PhD at Duke-NUS, working on dopamine. He graduated in January 2025, and is doing postdoctoral work in the lab.
Rozita Binte MADON
Rozita has a background in office administration, physical therapy, and household management. In the lab she prepares fly media and maintains stocks.
Danesha Devini SURESH
After obtaining her Diploma in Biomedical Sciences from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Danesha studied milk supplementation and the infant gut microbiome at Danone Nutricia Research. She then worked as lab manager in the Zaidel-Bar lab at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS, studying the cytoskeleton in C. elegans. She graduated with a Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences from La Trobe University in 2020. From early 2020 through June 2022, she worked with Gunnar on extracellular vesicle based biomarkers in mice models of Alzheimer’s disease, using proximity labeling (BioID). From June 2022, she is working with Stan on ribonucleoprotein structure and function.
Nicole LEE
Nicole graduated from the University of Washington with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and worked in Clemens Cabernard’s lab on the mechanisms for tumorigenesis in Drosophila. Later, she joined the Cancer Science Institute researching on combinatorial drug treatments. In 2020, she started her PhD studies in the IBM program at Duke-NUS, joining the lab in Jan 2021.
Prithiviraj CHOKKALINGAM
Prithivi did his undergraduate in Genetic Engineering at SRM Institute of Science and Technology. He did a semester-abroad program at Tzu Chi University, doing undergraduate research in mice behavior, with President Ingrid Y Liu. He completed an MSc (First Class) in Molecular Biology and Human Genetics at Tzu Chi, working on viral-protein effects on olfaction and memory. In July 2023, he joined the lab as a Research Assistant to work with Dr Stan on m6A RNA modifications in long-term memory.
Leif DALBERG
Leif is a final-year undergraduate student at Yale-NUS College, and is currently pursuing his B.S. in Life Sciences. From August 2024 through April 2025, he did his capstone project on novel optogenetic inhibitors in Drosophila under the guidance of Nicole Lee and Mai Yishan. From August 2025, he is working as a Research Assistant on optogenetics and other topics in neurogenetics.
King Yee CHEUNG
King Yee graduated with an integrated Master of Biomedical Science degree from the University of Sheffield in 2019, with a year abroad at NUS in 2016–2017. Her research project focused on zebrafish tail regeneration under the supervision of Henry Roehl. She then completed her PhD, funded by the ARAP scholarship, in the laboratories of Tanya Whitfield (University of Sheffield) and Suresh Jesuthasan (IMCB, A*STAR & LKCMed, NTU), returning to Singapore in 2021 and graduating in 2024. Her research focused on characterizing the molecular, cellular, and functional properties of novel rare cell types in the zebrafish olfactory system. King Yee joined the ACC lab as a Research Fellow in November 2024.
Former members
Former members of the lab at Duke-NUS Neuroscience, and in its earlier incarnations at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, the University of Oxford, and the Neuroscience Research Partnership — are listed here.