Joy is a self-proclaimed neuro-nerd and mechanobiologist  who is obsessed with mechanically gated ion channels.  Although her  formal training is in Mechanical Engineering,  Joy’s journey from community college to the PhD has always been driven by a desire to    engineer solutions to human mobility challenges and movement disorders.  Her current work in the lab aims at developing a cell culture system that will improve their ability to probe the biophysical and biological underpinnings of mechanosensation.  Upon completing her PhD, Joy plans on further exploring the role of mechanosensation in movement disorders as a post-doctoral scholar, and hopefully one day as a principal investigator.  Outside of lab work, she spends her time racing bicycles and playing with her dog Einstein.       

Born and grew up in Guangzhou, China. Came to the Golden State in 2000. Became a worm sensorian soon after till now.

I began my academic career as a marine biologist working on algae, but switched to cell and molecular biology for my PhD. I completed my thesis work in 1986 on mammalian rod photoreceptor development, examining disc development. After a post-doc at U Penn, I started working for Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1989 in the lab of Corey Goodman at UC Berkeley on aspects of neuronal pathfinding and neuromuscular development by electron microscopy. Subsequently I worked in Cori Bargmann's lab at UCSF and The Rockefeller University on C. elegans. In 2007 I was asked to set up and run the EM facility at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, VA. In August 2015 I retired from HHMI and returned to the Bay Area where I currently provide EM support for labs at Stanford and UCSF.