News
2024
Ming has received the NSF CAREER Award in recognition of her work as a scholar-educator. The grant will support research on rejuvenation of plasticity in the mature brain and educational outreach in the Atlanta-area blind and visually-impaired community.
Today was Match Day at Cristo Rey Atlanta, and we are thrilled that high school senior, Trinity Calvin, matched with our group! Trinity is an aspiring engineer and president of her school robotics club. We’re excited for her to join our team and advances our efforts in mechanical design and community outreach. Welcome, Trinity!
We’re excited to welcome Morgan Bade for a graduate research rotation! Morgan is an MD/PhD student at Emory, and starting her PhD training this year. She is passionate about vision research (woot woot!) and will join us for upcoming month and a half to investigate homeostatic plasticity in the ON visual pathway. We’re excited to see what she discovers! Welcome, Morgan!
Peyton-Zoe Jackson has joined our lab as a high school research scholar via the ENGAGES Program at Georgia Tech. Peyton is a rising senior at Benjamin E. Mays High School with an interest in medicine and engineering. She will be working with her graduate mentor, Yichao Zhao, to develop optogenetic approaches for driving thalamocortical plasticity. Welcome, Peyton!
We love goalball! The lab returned for a second year to volunteer at the Southeast Regional National Qualifier goalball tournament. Danielle, Rob, Chao, Nahreen, and Ming helped set up the nets and tape lines and serve as judges/scorekeepers. We reconnected with friends from last year and met some new ones.
Hooray! Yichao Zhao has received the J. Norman & Rosalyn Wells Fellowship. The award will support his work on developing an optogenetic stimulation system for driving plasticity in the mature mouse brain. Congratulations, Chao!
The Fong lab organized a robotics workshop for blind and visually-impaired youth to build, modify, and race solar cars! The idea was the brainchild of high school student, Nahreen Shamon Ayala. Nahreen, Chao, Rob, Rohan, and Ming all participated as mentors. The workshop took place at Clough Commons and was sponsored by the GT-Emory Department of Biomedical Engineering, the GT Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing, and the Atlanta Center for Visually Impaired.
We’re excited to welcome Adam Kotar to the lab as a new research technician. Adam joins the lab with an MS in Biomedical Engineering from University of Alabama at Birmingham and a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of South Alabama. He has worked in breast cancer research in recent years, but we’ve successfully wooed him to join our efforts on neural plasticity. Welcome, Adam!
2023
Nahreen was admitted early action to Georgia Tech! Dean Beyah was at her high school to personally deliver her letter of admission. Congrats, Nahreen (and also, please come to GT)!
Rob and Chao present a poster at the Society for Neuroscience Meeting in Washington, DC. It is the first abstract from our lab!
Woot woot! We have received the Disney Award for Amblyopia Research from the Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation. The award will support new work in the lab on retinal cell types that mediate recovery from amblyopia.
Cooper Allen has joined out lab this summer to help refine our head restraint devices and building instrumentation to support experimental projects in the lab. Cooper is an undergraduate at Georgia Tech who joins us from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Welcome, Cooper!
Rohan, Chao, Danielle, Rob, Nahreen, and Ming volunteered with at the Center for Visually Impaired (CVI) youth summer camp. On the first day, we went grocery shopping and cooked with campers, followed by an afternoon of playing STEM games. One the second day, we visited the High Museum of Art and made jewelry. We had a great time getting to know the campers and look forward to an ongoing partnerships with CVI!
Nahreen Shamon Ayala has joined our lab as a summer scholar. Nahreen is a student at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School who matched with our lab via the Emory Next Gen Scholars Internship Program. She will be working on repair and maintenance of Perkins Braillers as part of our partnership with the Center for Visually Impaired. Welcome, Nahreen!
Anu, Rohan, Danielle, Rob, and Ming volunteered with Georgia Blind Sports at the 2023 Southeast Regional National Qualifier goalball tournament. We helped set up the gyms, served as judges/scorekeepers during the tournament, and met lots of amazing people within the greater blind and visually impaired community.
Anuradha Ramdin has joined our lab for the summer. Anu is an undergraduate at the University of Miami and a recipient of the Georgia Tech SURE Scholarship. She will be working on designing multi-animal electrophysiological recording and visual stimulation environments. Welcome, Anu!
A new undergraduate has joined the lab! Lauren Wilson is a junior at Georgia Tech majoring in biomedical engineering and minoring in industrial design. We recruited her to advance our mechanical instrumentation, and we are thrilled that she’s joined. Welcome, Lauren!
Another new undergraduates has joined the lab! Rohan Raman is a sophomore majoring in neuroscience and minoring in computing and intelligence. He’s joined the lab a assist with mouse brain histology. We’re excited to have him on our team. Welcome, Rohan!
2022
Danielle Dowe has joined the lab! Danielle is a PhD student in the GT-Emory BME program, who previously conducted research on neurodegenerative diseases using biochemistry, molecular biology, and genomics techniques. Looking forward, she is interested in development of tools for neurorehabilitation and we are thrilled that she has chosen to pursue this goal in our lab. Welcome, Danielle!
Our friends at Open Ephys have been awarded a Direct-to-Phase-II SBIR grant from the NINDS and the NIH BRAIN Initiative to support a collaborative project with our lab. We look forward to using their next-generation electrophysiology and behavior system to study visually-guided behavior in freely-moving, unencumbered rodents.
As the summer ends, we say goodbye to two lab members. Ta’Kayla is transferring to Georgia Southern University to pursue her passion in audiology through a degree program in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Arvin completed his rotation and will be joining the Birey lab to pursue research in neural development using assembloid models. We’re grateful for their contributions during a “critical period” for the lab. We look forward to following their careers!
We are thrilled to have Robert Lamprecht join our team as a research technician! Rob is a recent college graduate with a degree in computer science, broad research experience in neurobiology, and glowing praise from previous labs. Rob will be helping us to set up our in-vivo electrophysiology system, and developing new paradigms for visual and optogenetic stimulation in mice. Welcome, Rob!
The lab has been awarded funding from the National Eye Institute to investigate cortical mechanisms of visual enhancement following retinal inactivation. Hooray!
Arvin Sarkissian starts his research rotation the lab! Arvin is a first-year PhD student in the Emory Neuroscience Program. He comes at an exciting time when the lab has just received approval to beginning in-vivo work! He will be learning techniques for performing in-vivo electrophysiology, delivering visual stimulation, and driving experience-dependent plasticity in the mouse visual system. Welcome, Arvin!
Ta’Kayla Wright has joined the lab! Ta’Kayla is a sophomore at Georgia Tech majoring in neuroscience. We have recruited her to the lab to study synaptic and instrinsic changes in the mouse brain following visual deprivation. Welcome, Ta’Kayla!
2021
Ming has arrived in Atlanta and the Fong lab is now officially open! She is excited to set up her research program in GT-Emory BME.
Yichao Zhao has joined the lab! Chao is a first-year PhD student in the GT-Emory BME program, with previous research experience in cancer genetics and biomechanics. He is interested in computational biology, and we have convinced him to apply that interest to neuroscience and visual plasticity. Welcome, Chao!
Our paper on correcting amblyopia in mice and cats after the critical period has been published in eLife, with co-authors in the Bear lab at MIT and Duffy lab at Dalhousie.
Welcome to the Fong Lab! We study neural plasticity and how it can be leveraged to treat neurological disorders. The lab will open in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech & Emory in October 2021.