About me
I am a neuroscientist working as a postdoctoral associate at Scripps Research/HHMI, supervised by Li Ye. My PhD research focuses on the neural circuit mechanisms underlying the cognitive regulation of feeding behavior, as well as the development of novel computational and experimental tools for analyzing neural activity and behavior. My broader academic interest lies in integrating approaches from neurobiology and computational modeling to explore how the brain supports complex behavior and cognitive functions.
Prior to Scripps, I completed my undergraduate studies in Biological Science at Tsinghua University, China. My undergraduate thesis was supervised by Yi Zhong, focusing on the cortical circuits for observational learning in mice.
Outside the lab, I enjoy birding, photography, table tennis, and playing Chinese flute (and I am teaching myself piano now!). I'm also an amateur entomologist with a particular interest in the taxonomy of Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies).
Selected publications (*co-first authors)
For a full list of publications, see my Google Scholar.
Qi T, Krull C, Leung VH, Mardare V, Yang D, Lal N, Ma J, Wang S, Shen H, Zhang A, Zhao B, Seradj SH, Korotkova T, Kennedy A, Ye L.
BioRxiv preprint (2026). doi.org/10.64898/2026.03.31.715709.
Attarpour A, Osmann J, Rinaldi A, Qi T, Lal N, Patel S, Rozak M, Yu F, Cho N, Squair J, McLaurin J, Raffiee M, Deisseroth K, Courtine G, Ye L, Stefanovic B, Goubran M.
Nature Methods (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s41592-024-02583-1.
Zheng X, Wu B, Liu Y, Simmons SK, Kim K, Clarke GS, Ashiq A, Park J, Li J, Wang Z, Tong L, Wang Q, Rajamani KT, Muñoz-Castañeda R, Mu S, Qi T, Zhang Y, Ngiam ZC, Ohte N, Hanashima C, Wu Z, Xu X, Levin JZ, Jin X.
Cell (2024). doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.04.050.
Yang D*, Wang Y*, Qi T*, Zhang X, Shen L, Ma J, Pang Z, Lal NK, McClatchy DB, Seradj SH, Leung VH, Wang K, Xie Y, Polli FS, Maximov A, Gonzalez OC, de Lecea L, Augustine V, Cline HT, Yates JR, Ye L.
Neuron (2024). doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2023.12.015.
Lovelace J*, Ma J*, Yadav S, Chhabria K, Shen H, Pang Z, Qi T, Sehgal R, Zhang Y, Bali T, Vaissiere T, Tan S, Liu Y, Rumbaugh G, Ye L, Kleinfeld D, Stringer C, Augustine V.
Nature (2023). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06680-7.
Lal NK, Le P, Aggarwal S, Zhang A, Wang K, Qi T, Pang Z, Yang D, Nudell V, Yeo GW, Banks AS, Ye L.
Nature (2023). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06430-9.
Science beside biology
As a neuroscientist, I have a broad curiosity for all areas of the natural sciences, ranging from mathematics and physics to psychology and computer science. Occasionally, I write notes on these topics, aiming to explain mathematical principles from a more intuitive perspective. You can explore some of my notes here (all written in Chinese).