Lab Members

Janelle Liu, PhD, earned her doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2019. Under the guidance of Mirella Dapretto, PhD, she used neuroimaging techniques and behavioral measures to examine the early structural and functional architecture of the developing brain in infants at high and low risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASD). More specifically, Janelle used resting-state and task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as well as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate the development of language networks across the first year of life. As a postdoctoral scientist in the Gao Lab, she aims to better understand the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders as well as the impact of environmental risk factors on early brain connectivity. She currently uses neuroimaging techniques and statistical models to examine the complex interplay between various risk factors such as prenatal drug exposure and socioeconomic status, early brain connectivity, and divergent cognitive outcome.

Sankalp Tikoo received his PhD in neuroscience from the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, in 2021. His doctoral research focused on exploring structural and functional alterations in medication-naive children with Tourette syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Sankalp is currently a postdoctoral scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, where he primarily focuses on delineating neurophysiological mechanisms underlying normal/abnormal human brain development using advanced neuroimaging techniques. Outside of work he enjoys traveling, photography and playing the ukulele.

Haitao Chen received his bachelor of science degree at Peking University in Beijing, China in 2018, majoring in electrical engineering. He is currently a PhD student at UCLA, majoring in bioengineering. He is interested in neuroimaging data processing, with a focus on early brain development related to functional architecture using resting-state fMRI. He is currently focusing on functional development in infancy and early childhood, as well as its association with later behavioral outcomes.