Junda Zhu, Ph.D.

Profile

Impact & Contributions

• Full‑stack study ownership: designed from scratch, coded (Python/JS), deployed, recruited, budgeted, and analyzed cognitive/memory/decision‑making tasks; collected data from 100+ participants (patients & healthy controls) across online and in‑person settings.
• Reliable bedside & OR capture: ongoing project supports ~10 bedside patients (including two pediatric patients) and ~5 intra‑operative sessions; standardized setup/checklists for stable signal acquisition and smooth sterile‑field workflow.
• Industry collaboration (company name confidential): beta‑tested next‑generation laminar probes in NHP models (at Vanderbilt) and human intra‑operative research (at Cedars‑Sinai); provided feedback on signal quality, insertion approach, and drape/sterilization integration.
• Clinical & regulatory operations: coordinated IRB submissions/amendments; adhered to GCP/HSR and site SOPs; contributed to site start‑up readiness and onboarding/training documentation.
• Reproducible analysis: containerized pipelines (Docker/conda), standardized repositories and runbooks, and open‑sourced a utility library on GitHub to reduce reruns and speed iteration.
• Mentorship & training: trained undergraduate and graduate students at Vanderbilt and Cedars‑Sinai; authored quick‑start guides/SOPs for onboarding.
• Communication & grant enablement: produced figures/briefings for multi‑disciplinary stakeholders; contributed preliminary datasets that supported successful NIH R01 applications.
• Team player & strong IC: collaborative across surgery, neurology, and engineering while independently executing complex projects with solid project‑management practices.

Skills & Tools

Experience

• Postdoctoral Scientist, Neurosurgery — Cedars‑Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA — 2024–Present
  Scope: Human intracranial research (bedside/OR), neural/behavioral task design, analysis pipelines, cross‑stakeholder communication.
  • Built from scratch task design: built and deployed a cognitive control task (unpublished) for bedside/OR and online use; integrated Cedrus box; bilingual prompts and quick practice flow; used across ~10 bedside patients and ~5 intra‑op sessions (including two pediatric patients); >100 online participants.
  • External collaboration: beta‑tested next‑generation laminar probes in NHP (Vanderbilt) and human intra‑operative settings (Cedars‑Sinai); delivered usability and signal‑quality feedback (insertion angle, impedance/QC checks, sterile‑field workflow).
  • Ops & documentation: authored SOPs/checklists and pre‑op drills; coordinated IRB submissions and amendments; prepared concise data briefs for clinical and engineering stakeholders.
  • Pipelines: containerized Python/MATLAB analysis; standardized repositories and runbooks; built a utility package and open‑sourced it on GitHub to support reuse and reproducibility.
  • Stack: Python (NumPy/Pandas/scikit‑learn, PyTorch), MATLAB/R; Blackrock/TDT; Docker/conda; Git/CI; PsychoPy/Psychtoolbox; Pavlovia/Prolific.
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Biomedical Engineering — Vanderbilt University — 2024
  Scope: Transition bridge from Ph.D. to postdoc; collaboration across clinical and engineering teams; research translation and readiness for human electrophysiology.
  • Outcomes: programmed and operated Brainsight Vet neuronavigation/robotic guidance system for nonhuman primate procedures; planned targets/trajectories and integrated with task workflows.
• Ph.D. Candidate, Neuroscience — Vanderbilt University — 2021–2024
  Scope: Large‑scale neurophysiology; adolescent development of working memory; longitudinal imaging; statistical modeling; decoding & dynamical systems; student mentorship.
  • Outcomes: first‑author and collaborative publications (Nature Neuroscience 2025; iScience 2024; J Neurophysiol 2023); reproducible pipelines; mentored undergrad/grad students on analysis and experiment design.
• Ph.D. Candidate, Neuroscience — Wake Forest University School of Medicine — 2018–2021
• Research Assistant, Neurobiology — Southern University of Science and Technology — 2015–2018

Education & Certifications

• Ph.D., Neuroscience — Vanderbilt University, 2024
• B.S., Bioinformatics — Southern University of Science and Technology, 2018
• Graduate Certificate (in progress) — Clinical & Regulatory Sciences, Cedars‑Sinai
• CITI Program — GCP (2024–2027); Biomedical Investigators & Key Personnel/HSR (2024–2034); Conflicts of Interest (2024–2028)
• HIPAA — HIPAA Privacy & Security Training (current)
• Professional — Google Project Management (course)

Publications

• Mozumder, R., Wang, Z., Zhu, J., et al. Asynchronous firing and off states in working memory maintenance. Cell Reports, 2025.
• Zhu, J., Garin, C.M., Qi, X.-L., Machado, A., Wang, Z., Hamed, S.B., Stanford, T.R., Salinas, E., Constantinidis, C. Brain structure and activity predict cognitive maturation in adolescence. Nature Neuroscience, 2025.
• Machado, A., Zhu, J., Garin, C.M., McPhail, M., Anderson, A., Calabro, F., Luna, B., et al. White matter microstructure and working memory of macaques in adolescence. Journal of Vision, 2024.
• Zhu, J., Zhou, X.M., Constantinidis, C., Salinas, E., Stanford, T.R. Parallel signatures of cognitive maturation in primate antisaccade performance and prefrontal activity. iScience, 2024.
• Alldritt, S., Ramirez, J.S.B., de Wael, R.V., Bethlehem, R., Seidlitz, J., Wang, Z., Zhu, J., et al. Brain Charts for the Rhesus Macaque Lifespan. bioRxiv, 2024.
• Zhu, J., Garin, C.M., Qi, X.-L., Machado, A., Constantinidis, C., et al. Brain structure and activity predicting cognitive maturation in adolescence. bioRxiv, 2024.
• Zhu, J., Constantinidis, C. Neural circuits and processes of working memory. Encyclopedia of the Human Brain, 2nd ed., 2024.
• Zhu, J., Hammond, B.M., Zhou, X.M., Constantinidis, C. Laminar pattern of adolescent development changes in working memory neuronal activity. Journal of Neurophysiology, 2023.
• Han, P., She, Y., Yang, Z., Zhuang, M., Wang, Q, Luo, X., Yin, C., Zhu, J., et al. Cbln1 regulates axon growth and guidance in multiple neural regions. PLOS Biology, 2022.
• Zhu, J., Lodish, A.W., Silenzi, L., Kattner, E.A., Myatt, G.D., Gu, D., Robertson, M., et al. Working Memory and Prefrontal Neural Activity of Macaques in Early Adolescence. Journal of Vision, 2021.
• Liu, Y.H., Zhu, J., Constantinidis, C., Zhou, X. Emergence of prefrontal neuron maturation properties by training recurrent neural networks in cognitive tasks. iScience, 2021.
• Zhuang, M., Li, X., Zhu, J., Zhang, J., Niu, F., Liang, F., Chen, M., Li, D., Han, P., Ji, S.J. The m6A reader YTHDF1 regulates axon guidance through translational control of Robo3.1 expression. Nucleic Acids Research, 2019.
• Yu, J., Chen, M., Huang, H., Zhu, J., Song, H., Park, J., Ji, S.J. Dynamic m6A modification regulates local translation of mRNA in axons. Nucleic Acids Research, 2018.

Editorial & Professional Roles

• Editor — The Innovation Life journal — 2024–Present
• Editorial Board Member — American Journal of Biomedical and Life Sciences — 2024–Present
• Reviewer — Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience — 2024–Present
• Reviewer — Journal of Neurophysiology — 2020–Present
• Member — Society for Neuroscience — 2021–Present

Presentations & Posters

• Maturational trajectories of cognitive and prefrontal activity in adolescence — Johns Hopkins University, Jan 2024.
• Working memory development in adolescent macaques — Working Memory Symposium 2023, May 2023.
• Neuronal activity changes in the macaque prefrontal cortex during adolescence — Society for Neuroscience, Nov 2022.
• Structural brain changes of the macaque brain during adolescence — Society for Neuroscience, Nov 2022.
• Precision of visuospatial working memory reports in adolescent monkeys — Society for Neuroscience, Nov 2022.
• NMDA dependence of serial biases in working memory — CRCNS PI Meeting, Oct 2022.
• Prefrontal neural changes in early adolescence related to working memory — Society for Neuroscience, Nov 2021.
• Working memory and prefrontal neural activity of macaques in early adolescence — Vision Sciences Society, May 2021.