People
Principal Investigator
Email: marknwu (AT) jhmi.edu
Mark grew up in Texas, and then traveled around the country for his education. After going to college at Cornell University, he returned to Texas for the MD/PhD Program at Baylor College of Medicine. During his PhD, he studied the mechanisms underlying neurotransmitter release in Drosophila with Hugo Bellen. He then set off for sunny Los Angeles to do his residency in Neurology. His next move was to Philadelphia, where he completed a sleep medicine fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, he performed his postdoctoral research with Amita Sehgal, studying genetic mechanisms underlying sleep in Drosophila. He finally headed down to Baltimore to Johns Hopkins to set up his own lab there. Mark is also a board-certified neurologist and sleep medicine specialist, and he sees patients in both sleep medicine clinic and on the neurology wards.
Mark Wu
Postdoctoral Fellows
Fun fact: Mark was a DJ in college and was rumored to have some skills with the "steel wheels."
Graduate Students
Sangsoo Lee
Email: slee496 (AT) jhmi.edu
Sangsoo grew up in Busan, which is a popular beach destination in Korea. He performed his undergraduate and masters work at Sogang University in Seoul. He then moved to the US to do his PhD at UC Riverside, where he studied hormonal regulation of learning and memory in Drosophila. In his leisure time, Sangsoo enjoys cooking, wine tasting, and traveling.
Fun fact: Following his service time in the Korean military, Sangsoo spent a month hitchhiking his way through eastern Turkey. Because there were usually no hotels in these small towns, he often slept at bus stops, where he would befriend Turkish Korean War veterans.
Anu Mehta
Email: amehta50 (AT) jh.edu
Anu was born and raised in the City of Joy, Kolkata in India. She obtained her Bachelors and Masters degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Calcultta. She then moved to Japan to pursue her Ph.D. at Shinshu University, where she studied synaptic molecules associated with autism. When not in the lab, she enjoys Harry Potter books and movies.
Fun fact: Because she loves chatting but did not speak Japanese, Anu, when she was a PhD student, often went to a restaurant to talk to Pepper the Robot.
Ruihan Jiang
Email: rjiang34 (AT) jhmi.edu
Ruihan grew up in Changxing, a small city in eastern China. He received his bachelor's degree in Biology and his PhD in Neuroscience from Zhejiang University, where he studied how clock neurons regulate sleep and how they interact with with social behaviors in Drosophila. In his spare time, Ruihan enjoys team sports such as basketball or video games.
Fun fact: Ruihan loves animals of all kinds (including chickens, polar wolves, and turtles) and once thought about working in a zoo. When he travels to a new place, he enjoys spending an entire day visiting local zoos and observing animal behavior.
Research Technologists
Research Assistants
Alumni
Sha Liu
Sha was the first postdoctoral fellow in the lab and made major contributions, spearheading the initial work on WIDE AWAKE and the R5 sleep circuit. He is now a PI at the VIB, where his lab studies the role of sleep in neural plasticity in Drosophila
James spent 2 years with us, studying Familial Sleep Paralysis. He is now a Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation physician.
James Ying
Maria spent 2 years with us as a technician. She worked with Qili on dopamine and arousal and with Sha on WIDE AWAKE. Maria is now a pediatrician in Virginia.
Maria Driscoll
Shahnaz studied the relationship betweensleep and amyloid. He is now a Principal Investigator at the Central University of Punjab, studying circadian rhythms and sleep in flies.
Shahnaz Lone
Lay spent 4 years with us as an undergrad and technician. She completed her MD/PhD training at UCSF and is now a resident in Psychiatry at UCSD.
Lay Kodama
Julia spent 4 years with us as an undergrad and technician. She contributed to many projects and helped keep the lab organized. She is now faculty in Gastroenterology at UTMB.
Julia Zhang
Jay spent 3 years with us as an undergrad, studying dopamine circuits regulating behavior. He is now completing his MD/PhD training at Northwestern University.
Jay Daniels
Rachel Lee
Email: ylee261 (AT) jhu.edu
Rachel is originally from Boise, Idaho. She is currently a freshman majoring in Neuroscience and English. In her spare time, Rachel enjoys playing chamber music with friends.
Fun fact: Rachel owns an AI-powered robot dog named Loona.
Wakako Horiuchi
Wakako spent 4 years with us as an undergrad researcher and technician, contributing to multiple projects in the lab. Wakako is now an Ob-Gyn attending in DC.
Postdoctoral Fellows &
Graduate Students
Research Technologists
Undergraduate research assistants
Shahin Ahmadi
Email: sahmadi5 (AT) jh.edu
Shahin grew up in Yazd, one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities in central Iran. He attended Davidson College in North Carolina, where he studied Computer Science and Neuroscience. He spent 3 summers in our lab as an undergrad studying mWAKE and fly physiology during sleep. Outside the lab. he enjoys watching movies, staying active, and playing the guitar.
Fun fact: Shahin taught himself how to play the guitar by watching YouTube videos. He played in front of an audience for the first time at his high school talent show, where he won 1st place!
Ting did her PhD work as a joint student between our lab and Yi Rao's lab at Beijing University. She developed new genetic tools for studying DA in flies and is now a staff scientist in Hong Kong.
Ting Xie
Brandon Yoo
Email: byoo8 (AT) jhu.edu
Brandon is from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is currently a sophomore majoring in Neuroscience and Public Health. In his free time, Brand enjoys building and launching model rockets.
Fun fact: Brandon has gone to the Albuquerque Balloon Fest every year to watch the hundreds of hot air balloons take off. Once, while riding in one, he nearly crash landed into the Rio Grande.
Email: mvelas11 (AT) jhu.edu
Miguel grew up in Phelan, California, which is a small desert town with tumbleweeds and Joshua Trees, 2 hrs north of LA. He is currently a sophomore, majoring in Neuroscience. In his free time, Miguel enjoys kayak fishing in Lake Roland.
Miguel Velasco
Fun fact: At one point in high school, Miguel owned 18 silkie chickens as pets.
Lucinda Chiu
Annette Wang
Habon Issa
Lucia Wang
Email: lwang253 (AT) jhu.edu
Info to come!
Fun fact: Info to come!
Annette performed her masters thesis with us, characterizing the expression pattern of the mouse WAKE homolog. She is now a medical student at Harvard.
Qili was the second postdoc in the lab and conducted pioneering studies on dopamine circuits underlying arousal and protein hunger. She is now a PI at UCSF, where her lab studies protein hunger and feeding.
Qili Liu
Masashi was the third postdoc in the lab and did groundbreaking electrophysiological studies in sleep, clock, and feeding circuits. He is now a PI at Case Western, where his lab studies neural coding and behavior.
Masashi Tabuchi
Ben was the first grad student in the lab and did a tremendous job establishing the mouse projects in the lab and studying mWAKE. He worked as a biotech associate at T. Rowe Price and is now a biotech investor at Catalio Equities.
Ben Bell
During his postdoc, Ian provided his expertise in mouse circadian rhythms and did elegant work on the role of astrocytes in sleep need in Drosophila. He is now a business development analyst at CIHR.
Ian Blum
As a postdoc, Margaret made major contributions on the DA circuit tools project and the circuit mechanisms underlying sleep homeostasis. She is now a data scientist at Guidehouse.
Margaret Ho
Emily conducted her PhD work on Tob, a novel molecule regulating the timing of sleep onset in Drosophila. She is now working as a program officer at a science museum in Australia.
Emily Han
Habon spent 2 years in the lab, working on multiple fly and mouse projects. She completed her PhD at NYU and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Grace Duan
Grace spent 5 years with us as an undergrad and technician, collaborating extensively with Masashi. She did her MD training at the University of Chicago and is now a dermatology resident.
Kristen Park
Kristen worked with us for 5 years, as an undergrad and technician. She worked on the astrocyte sleep project, as well as the SCN project. She is now an MD/PhD student at
U Penn.
Isabelle Palmer
Isabelle spent 2 years with us as a technician. She worked on fly circadian/sleep projects and made major contributions to our sleepwalking study. She is now a PhD student at Northwestern.
Daphne Boudreau
During her 1 year with us as a technician, Daphne worked closely with Sang Soo on the reuniens paper and assisted with our sleepwalking project. She is now a medical student at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Lucinda spent 3 years with us as an undergrad researcher, working on DA circuits regulating feeding. She is now a neurosurgery resident in Chicago.
Daniel Esquivel
Daniel spent 3 years with us as an undergrad researcher. He is now applying for graduate school.
Skylar worked with us for 3 years as an undergrad, working on circuits regulating sleep. She completed her MD training at Albany Medical College and is now a psychiatry resident at Rutgers.
Skylar Luu
Serena spent 3 years with us, where she studied sleep in fly models of Alzheimer's disease. She is now doing MD/MBA training at Harvard.
Serena Wang
Alice was an undergraduate researcher in the lab for 3 years, working with Emily on Tob. She is now taking a gap year and applying to medical school.
Alice Han
Shubha worked closely with Matt for 4 years, studying how the clock network patterns behaviors in fruit flies. She is currently a medical student at Emory University.
Shubha Verma
Casey spent 3 years in the lab, working with Mehmet on the FlyVISTA project. She is currently applying to medical school.
Casey Brody
Matt Brown
For his PhD thesis, Matt dissected the molecular and circuit mechanisms by which animals integrate circadian time and light cues to pattern activity. He is now a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH.
Elijah Blank
Elijah did his masters research with us, studying the role of mWAKE in varied behaviors, including arousal and feeding. He is now preparing for his next adventure.
Jiali Xiong
During her PhD research, Jiali demonstrated a novel role for mWAKE in regulating fear learning. She also developed multiple genetic tools for the lab. She is currently a research scientist at Leveragen.
Mehmet Keles
As a postdoctoral fellow, Mehmet did pioneering work on deep phenotyping of sleep in Drosophila. He also generously contributed his in vivo imaging and data processing skills in multiple collaborative projects. He is now a faculty member at Johns Hopkins.
Qiang Liu
During his postdoc, Qiang performed incisive studies of mWAKE, revealing novel mechanisms of local clock function in the dorsomedial hypothalamus and lateral amygdala. He is now a faculty member at Huazhong University Science & Technology.
