Ying Zhen, Ph.D.
Principle Investigator
Email: zhenying(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Please change (AT) to @ when emailing.
Dr. Ying Zhen got her B.S. Degree in Life Sciences from Peking University and received her Ph.D. in Biology from Kansas State University. Following her Ph.D., Ying joined Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University as a postdoc in 2010, and then moved to Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at University of California Los Angeles in 2014, where she was promoted to Assistant Project Scientist in 2016. Dr. Zhen join WU, School of Life Sciences as an assistant professor in December 2018.
Kangli Zhu, Ph.D.
Postdoc
Email: zhukangli(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Kangli is a postdoc in Zhen’s lab in the School of Life Sciences at W U. She is interested in investigating the mechanisms of adaptive evolution.
Previously, she was a postdoc in the Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Chinese Academy of Science.
Yan Hou, Ph.D.
Postdoc
Email: houyan(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Yan joined Zhen’s lab in the School of Life Sciences at W U as a postdoc in 2020. She graduated from University of Oslo, Norway, with her PhD degree in 2015, and then worked as a postdoc and research assistant in Jeffrey Lynn Bennetzen’s lab at Anhui Agricultural University for five years.
She is interested in exploring the questions about species delimitation, adaptive evolution, phylogeography and population genetics.
Tianlong Cai, Ph.D.
Postdoc
Email: caitianlong(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Tianlong graduated from the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences with the Ph.D. degree in June, 2019. He joined Zhen’s lab to start the postdoc work in August, 2020.
His research is focused on evolution and biogeography of birds, and he is especially interested in understanding mechanisms to generate and maintain the biodiversity integrating the genic, climatic and geological data.
Yiheng Lan, Ph.D.
Postdoc
Email: lanyiheng(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Yiheng is a postdoc in Zhen’s lab in the School of Life Sciences at W U. He is graduated from College of Life Sciences, East China Normal University with the PhD degree in July 2020.
His research is mainly focused on population genetics, molecular genetics and adaptive evolution.
Chengqi Zhu
Ph.D. Student
Email: zhuchengqi(AT)westlake.edu.cn
In 2018 Chengqi graduated from South China Agricultural University with his Master degree. During the program, he studied aboard at Louisiana State University as a visiting student. Then he joined Zhen’s lab as a Ph.D. student here in summer 2018.
Bioluminescence is one of the most spectacular features in living creatures, including fireflies, click beetles, and marine fishes. Now, he devotes his attention in the origin & evolution of bioluminescence and tries to illuminate the phylogenetic relationships among these bioluminescent creatures.
Tianyu Wang
Ph.D. Student
Email: wangtianyu(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Tianyu graduated from Shandong University with his bachelor’s degree in 2018. After that he joined Zhen’s lab as a doctoral student in the School of Life Sciences at Westlake University.
He is interested in the mechanisms of evolution, including some interesting theories and hypotheses. He is also willing to address these questions with genomic data.
Ruoshi Huang
Ph.D. Student
Email: huangruoshi(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Ruoshi joined Zhen’s Lab in 2019 academic year as a PhD student. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife, Fish, Conservation Biology major from University of California, Davis on 2018.
She is interested in avian evolution and ecology with a focus of genetic basis of their adaptive traits.
Qi Fu
Ph.D. Student
Email: fuqi(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Qi graduated from China Agricultural University with his master degree in 2017, majored in crop science. During the summer of 2016, he conducted field research to collet images of sorghum panicles and maize tassels at Iowa State University as a visiting student. After graduation from CAU, he got a position in BGI working on bioinformatics analysis in Shenzhen. Then he joined Zhen’s lab as a PhD student in 2019.
He is very curious about biodiversity on the earth. Now, he is devoted to using genomics and bioinformatics to provide insight about demographic history, divergence events and environmental adaption during bird evolutionary processes.
Xiaoyi Li
Ph.D. Student
Email: lixiaoyi(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Xiaoyi graduated from Beijing Jiaotong University with her bachelor’s degree in 2019, majored in statistics. After graduated, she joined Zhen’s lab as a PhD student in the School of Life Sciences at Westlake University.
Now she is interested in bioinformatics and focus on using statistic tools to do the research on avian evolution.
Junjie Zhuo
Ph.D. Student
Email: zhuojunjie(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Junjie joined Zhen’s Lab as a doctoral student. She graduated from Northwest A&F University with her master’s degree.
She is interested in evolutionary questions, and focus on the mechanisms of adaptive evolution.
Yaoming Yang
Ph.D. Student
Email: yangyaoming(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Yao Ming joined Zhen’s Lab in 2020 as a Ph.D. student. During his pursue of master’s degree at his hometown school in Guizhou, he became obsessed with some of the most enigmatic evolutionary adaptations in insects.
Now he is trying to colonize all sorts of insects in the lab, so he can study them up close, and so he can play John Denver songs to them … for no apparent reason at all.
Yilan Luo
Ph.D. Student
Email: luoyilan(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Yilan graduated from Northwest A&F University with her bachelor’s degree in 2020. After graduated, she joined Zhen’s Lab as a PhD student in the School of Life Sciences at Westlake University.
She is interested in the mechanisms of evolution, she tries to solve evolutionary questions by combining dry experiment with wet experiment.
Dandan Tu
Research Assistant
Email: tudandan(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Dandan is a research assistant of Zhen’s lab. She facilitates in daily operations of the lab and assists lab members for biological experiments.
Previously, she graduated from Zhejiang University with her Master’s degree in 2018.
Zhuoheng Jiang
Research Assistant
Email: jiangzhuoheng(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Zhuoheng graduated from Shanghai Normal University in 2019, and then he joined Zhen’s lab as a research assistant in summer of 2020.
Now, he mainly assists in collecting and identifing the insect material of lab project, and focus on phylogeography and morphology of Lepidoptera, especially Sphingidae and Nymphalidae.
Xiaodong Xu
Ph.D. Student
Email: xuxiaodong(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Xiaodong graduated from Zhejiang Normal University in 2021, and then he joined Zhen’s Lab as a PhD student.
Now he is curious about the evolution, development and genetics of insects, focusing on some interesting traits of non-model insects and exploring the evolutionary mechanism using the model insect.
Yanyan Zhou
Postdoc
Email: zhouyanyan(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Yanyan joined Zhen’s lab in the School of Life Sciences at WU as a postdoc in 2022. She is graduated from Zhejiang University with the PhD degree in March 2022
She is interested in adaptive evolution of insects. Now, her research is focused on the adaptive evolution of the insects to tolerance of plant toxins. She tries to solve evolutionary questions by combining dry experiment with wet experiment.
Lina Shi
Research Assistant
Email: shilina(AT)westlake.edu.cn
Lina graduated from Northwest Normal University with her Master’s degree and joined Zhen’s lab in 2022. Now, she is a research assistant in lab. Previously, she mainly solved some questions about zebrafish development and good at molecular experiments.