People

Song Li, Ph.D

Principal Investigator

Chancellor’s Professor and Department Chair
Department of Bioengineering | Department of Medicine
5121C Engineering V
310-794-6140 | 310-794-5956 fax
songli@ucla.edu

Jennifer Soto

Research Scientist, Lab Manager, 2016

Direct cell reprogramming
jennifer.soto@ucla.edu

Jana Zarubova

Research Scientist, 2018

Vascular tissue engineering, extracellular vesicles
janazarubova@ucla.edu

Zeyang Liu

Research Scientist, 2022

liuzey1989@gmail.com

Bo Zhang

Visiting Scholar, 2024

jack8913@ucla.edu

Jason Lin

Visiting Graduate Student, 2024

jasoncool211173@gmail.com

Yue Yan

Postdoctoral scholar, 2024

lillyueyan@ucla.edu

Ekta Patel

MD-PhD Student Researcher, 2025

epatel02@g.ucla.edu

Yifan Wu

Ph.D Student, 2021

Biomaterials, mechanobiology
yifan671@ucla.edu

Joyce Huang

Ph.D Student, 2022

huangj06@ucla.edu

Ramzi Massad

Ph.D Student, 2022

Biomaterials
ramzimassad@g.ucla.edu

Jing Tian

Ph.D Student, 2022

Neuromuscular regeneration
jinti0303@g.ucla.edu

Haochen Nan

Ph.D Student, 2023

haochennan@g.ucla.edu

Hye Sook (Danielle) Shin

Ph.D Student, 2023

hyshin@g.ucla.edu

Raymond (Youcheng) Yang

Ph.D Student, 2023

youcheng@g.ucla.edu

Donna Rahgoshay

Ph.D Student, 2023

donnarahgoshay@g.ucla.edu

Siyu Chen

Ph.D Student, 2024

siyuchen23@g.ucla.edu

Shubing (Brian) Wang

Ph.D Student, 2024

brianbrian@g.ucla.edu

Nico Pedroncelli

Ph.D Student, 2024

nicoped@g.ucla.edu

Soomin Park

Ph.D Student/Orthodontics Resident, 2024

sop7007@g.ucla.edu

Ruthie Carmeli

Master Student, 2023

rcarmeli@ucla.edu

Lizabeth Ammabel Tukiman

Master Student, 2024

ammabelt@ucla.edu

Catherine Ngo

Master Student, 2025

catherinengo@g.ucla.edu

Emma Buxton

Undergraduate Student

ebux6@ucla.edu

Tiya Shah

Undergraduate Student

tiyashah223@g.ucla.edu

Johnathan Horn

Undergraduate Student

johnarh14@gmail.com

Sam Denton

Undergraduate Student

samdenton@g.ucla.edu

Claire Shi

Undergraduate Student

claireshi@ucla.edu

Rushil Ravindran

Undergraduate Student

rrushil@g.ucla.edu

Vedant Madabushi

Undergraduate Student

vmadabushi@g.ucla.edu

Alexandra Datchanamourty

Undergraduate Student

alexandra.datcha@gmail.com

Former Research Scientists, Postdoctoral Scholars and Graduate Students

Karina Mitchell, Master (2023-2025)

Mahdi Hasani, Research Scientist (2018-2024), Project: Biomaterials, drug delivery, microfluidics, immunoengineering

Tyler Hoffman, PhD (2020-2024), Project: Synthetic cell engineering, biomaterials, bioprinting

Mylan (Mimi) Mayer, Master (2023-2024)

Adelmo Raul Lopez, Master (2024)

Yang Song, Postdoc (2018-2023), Project: Biomechanics in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, cell reprogramming

Phat Vu, Master (2022-2023)

Binru Chen (Andy), PhD (2017-2023), Project: Mechanobiology, microfluidics

Xuexiang (Cher) Zhang, PhD (2018-2023), Project: Immunoengineering, drug delivery, microfluidics

Yu Zhu, Master (2021-2023), Project: Immunomodulation, mesenchymal stem cells

Diana Ly, Master (2022-2023), Project: Extracellular vesicles as therapeutics

K’Ashe McKinney, Master (2021-2023), Project: Drug delivery, immunoengineering

Crystal Xiao, Master (2020-2022), Project: Drug delivery, microfluidics

Jun Fang, Postdoc/Research Scientist (2016-2021), Project: Engineering stem cells and cell reprogramming for muscle regeneration

LeeAnn Li, PhD (2016-2020), Project: Cell Engineering for Neuromuscular Regeneration and Neural Reprogramming.

Buwei Hu, Master (2019-2020), Project: Neuromuscular regeneration.

Xinyi Li (Sindy), Master (2016-2018), Thesis: Development and Characterization of Kink-resistant Elastic Nanofibrous Vascular Graft with Antithrombosis Modification.

Dong Wang, Postdoc (2012-2016), Lab Manager (2016-2018), Project: Adult stem cells in normal vascular development and diseases.

Wen-Chin (Danny) Huang, Postdoc (2016-2018), Project: Stem Cell Biology in Tissue Regeneration and Disease pathogenesis.

Chen Zhang, Postdoc (2014-2016), Project: Biomimetic peptides protect cells from oxidative stress.

Berkeley (2001-2015):

Rahul Thakar, Steve Hsu, Ngan Huang, Jennifer Park, Shyam Patel, Hayley Lam, Craig Hashi, Kyle Kurpinski, Junyu Mai, YiQian (Eugene) Zhu, Randall Raphael R. Janairo, Rokhaya Diop, Zhenyu Tang, Aijun Wang, An-Chi Tsou, Timothee Houssin, Jeffrey Henry, Timothy L. Downing, Debanti Sengupta, Dong Wang, Ben Lee, Ching Wen Huang (Helen), Julia Chang, Elaine Su, Xuefeng Qiu, Weixi Zhong, Junren Sia, Sze Yue Wong, Tiffany Dai, Doug Kelkhoff, Zoey Huang, Yu-Fang Hsieh (Angela).

Former Visiting Scholars

Sara Menegazzo (2024-2025)

Parvaiz A. Shiekh (2023-2025)

Fei Fang (2019-2020), Project: Vascular disease modeling.

WeiKang Zhao (2019-2020), Project: Cell reprogramming.

Yuan-Yu (Ben) Hsueh (2017-2019), Project: Facilitate neuromuscular regeneration with bioresorbable electronic stimulators.

Xili Ding (2017-2019), Project: Vascular tissue engineeering.

Pingping Wang (2018-2019), Project: Regulate neuron cell reprogramming by biophysical factors.

Haoyong Yuan (2016-2018), Project: Acellular tissue engineering vascular grafts remodeling in vivo.

George Wang (2017), Project: Cell reprogramming on the nano pattern structure.

Taisiya (Taya) Bezhaeva (2016-2017), Project: Mesenchymal Stem Cell Migration in Acellular Vascular Grafts.

Wen Zhao (2016), Project: Nanofibrous scaffolds.

Xu Kang (2014-2016), Project: Neural Crest-Derived Cells Migrate from Nerve to Participate in Achilles tendon Remodeling.

Berkeley (2001-2015):

Jian Yu, Zhiqiang Yan, Weibor Tsai, Yuzhi Jiang, Flavia Da Silva, Dongzhi Yang, Wenquian Shen, Yuan Li, Zhiling Xu, Tian Du, Xian Li, Yingzhan Li, Constant Morez, Falei Yuan

Former Undergraduate Students

Noah Nguyen, Sahana Rao, Louise Lin, Aaron Zhexuan Zhang, Bena Patel, Rianna Sebastian, Katerina Katsouleas, Louise Lin, Silvi Lybbert, Ysabel del Fierro, Xinyang Grace Ge, Zhizhong Li, Kun-Wei (James) Yeh, Anirudh (Rudy) Narayan, Isabelle Hong, Erin Hu, Juhi Mehta, Jiho Jeong-Kim, Cameron Uy, Josephine Neyyan, Nico Pedroncelli, Raul Davila, Ricardo Espinosa (Isaac), Gichan Lee, Izabella Samuel, Natalie Maxwell, Katie Lee, Meagan Yuen, Nitika Chellappa.

Berkeley (2001-2015):

James Moon, Hieu Nguyen, Johnny Liang, Amrita Bhagat, Melissa Matsumoto, Catherine Cheng, Chris Chou, Ho-Yan Lam, Friedrich Ho,Jesse Woo, Grace Young, Diana Yu, Xiaojuan Khoo, Danny Ong, Kan Hsueh Lee, Gary Yu, Huy Chung, Maelene Wong, Li Chen, Grace Young, Robert Purnell, Tina Tan, Maelene Wong, Swathi Ravi, Bahar Fata, Yolanda Huang, Jonathan Jung, Nweni Lou, Isabel Leong, Sophia Liao, Victor Chiu, Daniel Kim, Germaine Goh, Kaoru Hida, Mike Ichikawa, Wai Chu, Deirdre Johns, Jeremy Joseph, Jonathan Tsang, Echo Tan, Ryan Hoshi, Suraj Kachgal, Siuwah Tang, Alex Hsiao, April Wong, Jason Hong, Eric Tsang, Jean Hu, Joanna So, Eric Tsay, Ahra Kim, Adam Luce, Anson Tsui, Benjamin Lee, Irene Sinn, Cristina Lopez, Henry Liu, Yisu Jiang, Tiffany Chang, Tu Tran, Elena Liang, Shyam Jani, Claire Gollnick, George Kwong, Arezu Haghighi, Joyce Bao, Yuan Fang Fu, Andy Lee, Jesse Lou, Timothy Chen, Timothy D. Smith, Jana Serbo, Jesse Tung, Elaine Su, Surya Kotha, Zoey Huang, Ruo Yuan Lim, Zoya Zulfiqar, Neerav Dixit, Neil Ray, Ming Yin, Kellen Chen, Fan Wu, Stuart Reeder, Joanne Lin, Vivian Liu, Jason Wang, Bei (Christina) Sun, Alexis Seymour, Rebecca Chen, Bochao Lu (Steven), Vivian Sheng, Manali Sawant, Jason Zhang, Giang Le Ha, Benjamin Luo, Raymond Sun, Jovanny Guillen, Ashish Samaddar.