OUR TEAM

Lisha Shao

Principal Investigator

Lisha earned her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at Tsinghua University in China. During her Ph.D. training, Lisha established the first genetic model for schizophrenia susceptibility genes in Drosophila, under the supervision of Dr. Yi Zhong. She then moved to the Janelia Research Campus of Howard Hughes Medical Institute to continue her postdoctoral research.

At Janelia, Lisha worked with Dr. Ulrike Heberlein on the neural mechanisms of reward in Drosophila. She and colleagues developed a high-throughput behavioral assay to perform a forward neuroanatomy screen for neurons whose activation have different valence to flies. One of the female specific candidates led to the discovery of a neural circuit underlying female copulation effect: the mechanosensory inputs of copulation regulate female behaviors and internal states. This work reveals the mechanisms by which females are aware of their own mating status and adjust their subsequent mating decisions accordingly.

Lisha will start her assistant professorship at the University of Delaware from January 2021.