Chen Postdoctoral Scholar Innovator Grant Awards

The T&C Chen Centers for Systems Neuroscience and Social and Decision Neuroscience are proud to announce the inaugural recipients of the Chen Postdoctoral Scholar Innovator Grant. The grants are awarded to projects which are conceived and driven by postdoctoral scholars and are not an obvious extension of their current research. The program is meant to fund out-of-box ideas that would not otherwise be pursued.

Congratulations to our 2025 innovators!  The postdocs will present their discoveries in January 2026.

Yujie Fan, Gradinaru lab
Developing self-assembling synuclein to model Parkinson's disease in vitro and in vivo

Jessleen Kanwal, Parker lab
Multisensory Decision-Making in Predator-Prey Interactions

Xuan Wan, Sternberg lab
Efficient pheromone navigation via antagonistic detectors

Rani Gera, O'Doherty lab
Unraveling momentary mood dynamics and their neural underpinnings

Jeffrey DuBose, Manthiram lab
Brain-Bioelectrode Symbiosis for Delivery of Therapeutics

Jonathan Hoang, Gradinaru lab
Uncovering peripheral and central circuits for heart disease

Lara Krisst, Kirschvink lab and Shimojo lab
Neural Correlates of Thought Suppression