My name is Yu-Chieh David Chen and I am a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Claude Desplan‘s lab at New York University. I obtained my neuroscience graduate degree in Dr. Anupama Dahanukar’s lab at UC Riverside. I was fortunate to find out what I wanted to do with my life when I was a high school student: work in an area of scientific research while teaching students to pursue their own dreams in this area. I have two motivations: my personal interest in a fulfilling career, and a desire to do work that will have benefits for others. I received both my BS and MS degrees at National Taiwan University (NTU), known as the top post-secondary school in Taiwan. At NTU I completed a double major in Life Science (in which I graduated top of my class) and Entomology. I then gained further research training by getting my MS degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology at NTU before pursuing my Ph.D. at the University of California Riverside in the US.
My strong academic background and great passion to scientific research prepares me to pursue my career goal of being an independent researcher in the field of Neuroscience. My entomology background and my passion for sensory neurobiology is well aligned with the research conducted in Dr. Anupama Dahanukar’s lab at the UC Riverside, which concerns the molecular neurobiology of the insect taste system. My doctoral research has particularly focused on how internal pharyngeal taste neurons mediate insect feeding behaviors. I was able to identify different classes of pharyngeal taste neurons and manipulate them to understand whether they inform the fly to eat certain foods or to avoid them. Such genetic manipulation of neurons in insects has vast implications in curbing the spread of mosquito-borne diseases and reducing crop damage by controlling the feeding behavior of mosquitoes and agricultural pests, respectively. During my graduate study, I collaborated with Dr. Michael Gordon at the University of British Columbia and Dr. William Ja at Scripps Florida for various projects. These opportunities helped me learn collaboration and networking skills and identify areas for refinement.
As an international graduate student at UC Riverside, I am eligible for only a few fellowships. In 2016, I was fortunate to receive the HHMI international student research fellowship that has profound impacts on my independent scientific career by allowing me to focus on my dissertation without having to work as a teaching assistant, by granting me the freedom to test interesting scientific ideas that are more creative but risky, and by funding travel to scientific meetings to extend my professional network. In addition, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) organization provides a platform to meet experts from diverse fields, which will broaden my view and counteract the tendency to focus on a narrow area of research.
Toward the goal of leading my own developmental neurobiology lab with an immense interest in sensory systems, I am doing my postdoctoral training at New York University with Dr. Claude Desplan, who is studying visual system development in Drosophila. The experience I gain will support my preparation for a research university position. I hope someday to support a new generation of students in the same way that my mentors supported me.