Current
CURRENT
Faculty and Research Mentors
Ping He
B.S. China Agricultural University, China
M.S. Chinese Academy of sciences, China
Ph.D. Kansas State University
Postdoc. Harvard Medical School, Boston
Libo Shan
B.S. Beijing Normal University, China
M.S. Chinese Academy of sciences, China
Ph.D. Kansas State University
Res. Fellow. Harvard Medical School, Boston
Postdoctoral fellows:
Yan Yan
Yan Yan got his Ph.D in University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2016 and spent three years in UC-Davis as a postdoc working on the long-distance signaling transduction in plant. Then he joined our lab in Dec. 2019 as a post-doc research associate. Now, his primary research interest is to illustrate post-transcriptional regulations in plant immunity responses in Arabidopsis.
Incheol Yeo
Incheol is from South Korea and he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chung-Ang University in Korea. During his M.S. course, he studied the interspecies interaction of antibiotic-producing microorganisms with pathogens. He earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Texas A&M University where he studied with Dr. Timothy Devarenne working on phytohormone-regulated host plant defense against a bacterial pathogen. He joined the lab in June 2020 as a post-doc. He works on understanding mechanisms of activation for a resistance protein inducing cell death and proteomics of plant immunity proteins.
Sung-Il Kim
Sung-Il Kim is from Dae-Gu in South Korea. He got a B.S at Kyung Hee university then got M.S and Ph.D at Seoul National University. He joined here in Sep 2021 to understand how plants control RNA alternative splicing in response to biotic stress.
Yingpeng Xie
Yingpeng is from Shandong, China. He got his PhD at City University of Hong Kong. During his PhD training, he studied how bacteria infect host plants and cause diseases. He joined the lab as a post-doc on Sep in 2021. His research interest is to illustrate the roles of phytocytokines in regulating plant Immunity.
Guangchao Liu
Guangchao received his Bachelor degree from Nanjing Agricultural University in 2016 and his Ph.D degree from Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2022. During his doctoral training, he studied the effects of protein ubiquitination on plant abiotic stress responses. In August 2022, he joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow to investigate the role of calcium signaling in pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) responses and RNA binding proteins in plant autoimmunity.
Yulu Zhou
Yulu Zhou received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwest A&F University and his Ph.D. from Wuhan University. During his Ph.D., he studied research on how translational control mediates plant immunity. After completing his Ph.D., he joined our lab as a postdoc in 2023. Currently, he is focused on studying the mechanisms of plant autoimmunity.
Qiaochu Shen
Qiaochu is originally from Heilongjiang, China. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Cologne and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Germany, where she explored the role of plant MLKL proteins in plant immunity. Qiaochu joined the lab as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in July 2024, and she focused on the mechanisms of plant immune receptors NLR- and RLK-mediated signaling in modulating a balanced immune response.
Graduate Students:
Suji Ye
Suji joined the lab in Fall 2020 as a Ph.D student. She received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Kyungpook National University in South Korea. During Master’s course, she studied metabolic engineering in food biotechnology. She works on understanding mechanism of plant cell death and signaling protein.
Keyao Yu
Keyao joined the lab in 2025 as a Ph.D. student. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Chengdu University of Technology and pursued her master’s studies in plant biology at Hunan University. Her research focuses on the mechanisms of phytocytokines in plant immunity.
Liam Carter
Liam is from a small town in western Iowa and received his bachelor’s degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, where he majored in Biology and Environmental Science. He joined the lab in the fall of 2025 as a master’s student in the Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology program. His research interests focus on plant molecular biology and microbiology and their potential to address environmental challenges. He currently collaborates with two lab members on projects investigating plant immunity and the interactions between plants and environmental stressors.
Research Assistants:
Lingxiao Ji
Lingxiao Ji is from Shanxi, China. She received her Ph.D. from Huazhong Agricultural University in 2022. During her Ph.D., she focused on lipid signaling and calcium signaling under cold stress in rice. She joined our lab in May 2024, and her research mainly focuses on calcium signaling in plant autoimmunity.
Staff:
Undergraduates:
Hassan Kassem
Hassan Kassem is from Dearborn, Michigan. He joined the lab in Fall 2025 as a sophomore undergraduate student majoring in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and is on the pre-medicine track. He is Lebanese and currently works under the mentorship of Guangchao Liu. His academic interests include cellular signaling and molecular mechanisms underlying development and disease.
Khyara Roble Lainez
Khyara is an Senior Undergraduate studying Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan. She plans on pursuing her PhD in Cancer Biology starting Fall of 2026. She works under Suji Ye, studying the mechanism of plant cell death and signaling protein.
Juan Francis Naasko
Juan is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. Originally from Toivola, Michigan, a small town on the shore of Lake Superior, he joined the lab in Fall 2025 and works under Qiaochu to investigate the roles of NLR and RLK signaling pathways in regulating plant immune responses. Before joining the lab, he conducted research in computational phylogenetics of plants. He completed an internship at Michigan State University, where he studied allelic variation related to nitrogen-use efficiency in maize.
Brice Van Zant
My name is Brice Van Zant, and I am from Hillsdale, Michigan. I joined the lab in fall of 2025, and work under Keyao Yu, I am a sophomore studying Cellular Biology. Before joining the lab, I researched the genetics of monarch butterflies’ migration patterns.
Cian Dowling
Cian Dowling is an undergraduate student in his Sophomore year at the University of Michigan currently studying Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, with a minor in Mathematics. Cian joined the lab in the Fall of 2025 and is currently working under Sung-Il Kim, studying plant immunity and the impacts of environmental stressors.
