Jing Jiang, PhD
Lab Director
Assistant Professor
Google Scholar, Twitter, LinkedIn, CV
Dr. Jiang is an Assistant Professor in the Stead Family Department of Pediatrics and Department of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. She completed her doctoral research program at Humboldt University of Berlin & Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, and postdoctoral research training at Stanford University and Harvard Medical School & Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is interested in the neural and psychological processes (language and emotion) underlying social interaction and their relations to neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Zhuoran Li, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
CV
Zhuoran is a postdoctoral research scholar in the Jiang Lab. He was the Champion in National College Entrance Exams in Hunan Province, China. He received both his B.S degree in Physics and Ph.D. in Psychology from Tsinghua University. His main research interest focuses on how the human brain processes speech and language in diverse contexts and populations. He has utilized the fNIRS-based inter-brain approach to investigate the neural mechanisms of speech-in-noise comprehension in young adults, older adults, and non-native speakers. In the Jiang lab, he is interested in incorporating a set of cutting-edge and multimodal technologies, such as fMRI, intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG), eye-tracking, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), aiming at advancing the knowledge of neurocognitive mechanisms underlying human communication.
Yong Jiao, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
Yong is a postdoctoral research scholar in the Jiang Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from East China University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders through multimodal neuroimaging and computational modeling. He is particularly interested in combining brain imaging, clinical measures, and advanced machine learning approaches to identify individualized biomarkers and brain–behavior relationships.
Zach Demko, MA
BBIP Summer Rotation Student
Zach Demko is a third-year Ph.D. student in clinical psychology. He obtained his BA in Psychology and French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a postbaccalaureate research fellowship at the National Institute on Drugs and Addiction. Zach is doing a summer rotation through the Jiang lab, and his home lab is with Dr. Isaac Petersen. Zach is interested in cognitive and neural mechanisms contributing to the development and maintenance of transdiagnostic psychopathology. To this end, Zach is working with Zhuoran to analyze behavioral data from an approach/avoidance task among participants undergoing intracranial electroencephalography.
Joel Bruss, BA
Imaging Specialist & Research Manager
Joel has over a decade of experience in lesion mapping studies as well as structural and functional imaging. Current projects focus on quantifying lesion load in white matter tracts and processing fcMRI data.
Nandi Zhang, BA
Research Assistant
Nandi is a research assistant in the Jiang Lab. She received her BA in neuroscience and psychology from Vanderbilt University, where she gained experience in child neuropsychology. Her research interests focus on the neural and psychological mechanisms of social communication and emotion regulation in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions. In the Jiang Lab, she contributes to an ongoing project investigating the effects of noninvasive amygdala modulation, while expanding her expertise in multimodal technologies, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
More People on the Way Soon, Stayed tuned!! ^ _ ^
The Jiang Lab Alums!
We are proud of our previous members of the team who went on to accomplish bigger and better things!
- Emily Gittle, previous research intern in the Jiang Lab (2024-2026), now a neuroscience PhD student at Florida State University.
- Xianqing (Bella) Liu, previous PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience, now continuing her graduate training through additional laboratory rotations.
- Ziyan Chen, previous visiting student in the Jiang Lab (2024 - 2025), now continuing his MD training in neurosurgery at the Central South University.
- Corey Plate, previous rotating MSTP student in the Jiang Lab (Summer 2025), now continuing his MSTP program at the University of Iowa.
- Sophia Symalla, previous undergraduate BSURP student in the Jiang Lab (Summer 2025), now a senior at the University of Wisconsin - River Falls.
- Kang Wu, previous visiting PhD student in the Jiang Lab (2023 - 2024), now earned his PhD from the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.
- Maya Sky, previous research intern in the Jiang Lab (2022 - 2023), now a PhD student at West Virginia University.