My lab is interested in engineering machine learning tools and microtechnologies to address questions in systems neuroscience, developmental biology, and cell biology that are difficult to answer with conventional techniques. We are particularly interested in the questions of how the brain is assembled during development (and changes during aging) and information is processed by brain circuits. We work with a powerful genetic system – the free-living soil nematode C. elegans.
Hang Lu,
Georgia Tech
In this talk, I will introduce powerful machine-learning/statistical and physics-based tools, as well as high-throughput automated microfluidic tools, to accelerate the understanding of C. elegans brain, in the context of neural development and aging, sensorimotor integration, and higher cognitive functions such as learning. We ask where memory is stored, how learning is achieved efficiently in such a small nervous system, and what is changed in the brain when learning takes place.
Hang Lu is the C. J. “Pete” Silas Chair Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. She was previously the Director of the Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Program. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.
She obtained her Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 2003 from MIT. Between 2003 and 2005, she was a postdoc at UCSF and the Rockefeller University in neuroscience. She has been an assistant professor (2005-2010), associate professor (2010-2013), and professor (2013-present) of chemical & biomolecular engineering at Georgia Tech. Her current research interests are in microfluidics, data science, automation, quantitative imaging, and their applications in neurobiology, cell biology, cancer, and biotechnology. Her awards and honors include the Pioneer of Miniaturization Lectureship, the ACS Analytical Chemistry Young Innovator Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, a DuPont Young Professor Award, a DARPA Young Faculty Award, Council of Systems Biology in Boston (CSB2) Prize in Systems Biology, Georgia Tech Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, Georgia Tech Outstanding PhD Thesis Advisor Award, Georgia Tech Class of 1934 Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award.
She was also named an MIT Technology Review TR35 top innovator, and invited to give the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Van Ness Award Lectures in 2011, the Saville Lecture at Princeton in 2013, and the Humphrey Distinguished Lecturer at Lehigh University in 2023. She is an elected fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), of Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). She is currently the associate director of the Southeast Center for Mathematics and Biology (SCMB) at Georgia Tech, supported by NSF and Simons Foundation. Her lab’s work has been/is supported by >$43M ($21M to her lab) from US NSF, NIH, private foundations and others.