Principal Investigator
Dayu received her Ph.D. degree from the Department of neurobiology at Duke University in 2005, mentored by Dr. Lawrence C. Katz. She then continued her postdoctoral training at Caltech with Dr. David J. Anderson. In November 2010, she started her independent research group at NYU Langone medical center studying the neural mechanisms of social behaviors.
...Read More
Postdoctoral Fellows
Takashi received his Ph. D. degree from Osaka University under the supervision of Prof. Shigetada Nakanishi in 2013. After his Ph. D. and postdoctoral training in Nakanishi's lab, he jonined Lin's lab in the spring 2015. He is interested in the neural substrates of mating and fighting circuits beyond the hypothalamus.
Rongzhen received her Ph.D. degree from the School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology at Peking University in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Qiang Zhou. She then continued her postdoctoral training at University of Pittsburgh with Prof. Yanhua Huang. She joined the Lin lab in January 2021. By combining a wide range of approaches, she is interested in understanding the neural mechanisms of aggressive and defensive behaviors. She aims to determine the effects of different external factors on social behaviors and the potential neural mechanisms that lead to deficits in disease models.
Jing obtained her P.h.D. degree from UTHealth Houston under the supervision of Dr. Qingchun Tong in the end of 2023. She then joined Lin lab in the same winter. Jing is interested in how chronic winning affects behaviors that are essential for animal survival.
Takayoshi received his Ph.D. from the Department of Biological Sciences at The University of Tokyo in March 2024 under Prof. Takeo Kubo. After completing his Ph.D., he joined the Lin lab in April 2024. He is interested in the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors and emotions.
WenXi received her Ph.D. from Center for Neural Science at New York University in 2024 under the supervision of Dr. David Schneider. She joined the Lin lab in the same year in September. She is interested how the neural mechanisms of frustration and how frustrative states could be translated into aggression behaviors.
Jordan Elum holds a B.S. in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Washington Graduate Program in Neuroscience. In his doctoral work, he examined the role of dopamine-releasing neurons in motivated behavior. Jordan joined Lin lab September 2024. In collaboration with Dr. Sage Chen, he will investigate the neural computation in the social behavior network supporting the generation of innate social behaviors.
Eyal received his Ph.D. from the Department of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University in January 2025 under Prof. Moshe Parnas. After completing his Ph.D., he joined the Lin lab in February 2025. He is interested in the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors and aggression.
Jongwoon Kim received his Ph.D. from Department of electrical and computer engineering from Virginia Tech under the supervision of Dr. Xiaoting Jia and Dr. Daniel English. He joined the Lin lab September 2024. Under co-mentorship from Ken Shepard from Columbia University, he will design wireless neural probes and investigate neural mechanism underlying territorial social behaviors.
Patrick received a B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from New York University in 2025. In the Lin lab, he is interested in studying the how neural plasticity mechanisms modulate the expression of social behaviors.
Graduate Students
Yifan received his B.S. in Biotechnology from Southwest University. He is a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering. He joined the lab in the fall of 2024 and is interested in studying the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors, with a particular focus on parental and infanticidal behaviors.
Chloe received a B.A. in Psychological Sciences from Vassar College before joining the Neuroscience PhD program at NYU. She is interested in the neural underpinnings of care-taking behavior, with a particular focus on maternal care for pups. In collaboration with Dr. Robert Froemke, Chloe is studying maternal behavior circuits in the hypothalamus, focusing on how sensory information gets to the hypothalamus and how plasticity is affected by hormones during the course of pregnancy.
Michael received a BA in neurobiology from Harvard College, where he worked in Margaret Livingstone’s lab and conducted thesis research under Jean Livet at the Institut de la Vision. He then worked as a research assistant in Nate Sawtell’s lab at Columbia University for 5 years before starting his PhD at NYU. He is a rotating student in the Lin Lab, where he is studying cortical inputs to the hypothalamic circuit that drives infanticidal behavior.
Research Associates
Prakhar completed his Bachelor's in Biotechnology in India before earning an MS in Biotechnology from NYU Tandon. He then joined the lab of Dr. Cristina Alberini as a research associate. Co-mentored by Dr. Cristina Alberini and Dr. Chiye Aoki, he used the electron microscopy to characterize the IGF2 receptor in the hippocampus and cortex of adult mouse brains. In fall 2024, he joined the Dayu Lin lab as a research associate/ lab manager, where his interest lies in elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors.
Master and Undergraduate students
Kanishk is an undergraduate at NYU pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Neural Science and a minor in Chemistry. He joined the lab in the summer of 2024 and is interested in exploring the neural circuitry of social behaviors using techniques such as fiber photometry and optogenetics.
Tyler (TseHeng Hsueh) received his B.B.A. in Accounting and Economics from National Taiwan University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Computer Engineering at New York University. He joined Lin Lab in the fall of 2024 and is interested in leveraging neural computations and machine learning models to investigate the mechanisms underlying animal behavior.
Chloe is an undergraduate student at Tulane University pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience. She joined the lab in the summer of 2025 through the NYU Vilcek Institute's Summer Undergraduate Research Program and is interested in studying the neural mechanisms underlying aggressive behaviors.
Marina Jean-Baptiste is a summer research intern under Dr. Jing Cai. She is currently pursuing a B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience and Psychology, with a strong interest in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. Her research experience includes working with children with developmental disabilities and producing a medical podcast to make science more accessible. She is excited to explore circuit-level mechanisms of behavior using mouse models and deepen her understanding of systems neuroscience during her time in the lab.
​Xinyi Fu is an undergraduate student at Peking University pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Physiology and Neuroscience. With a background in learning- and memory-related research, she has developed a growing interest in how neural plasticity modulates innate social behaviors. She joined the lab in the summer of 2025 and is excited to explore the neural mechanisms underlying social defeat.
Sam is an undergraduate at NYU pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Neural Science and a minor in Chemistry and Child & Adolescent Psychology. He joined the lab in the Summer of 2025 and is excited to study and research the neurobiology of social behaviors and aggression using mice.