Zihao Ou

Zihao is currently a postdoctoral scholar in the Materials Science and Engineering department at Stanford University. His work in Prof. Guosong Hong’s research group focuses on engineering the light interaction with nanomaterials and biological tissues to develop innovative neuroscience technologies. The proposed work in collaboration with Prof. Julia Kaltschmidt in the department of Neurosurgery aims to use the nanoparticle-based internal systematic light sources to enable optogenetic screening in the gut and dissect the gut-brain axis by altering the conventional paradigm of in-vivo light delivery. The in-vivo screening platform can be broadly applied to the periphery nervous system, and the approach offers a generalizable method for any biomedical applications that need a light source deep inside the body.

Zihao was trained as a materials scientist with a physicist mindset. Before joining Hong’s lab in 2020, Zihao received his Ph.D. degree from the Materials Science and Engineering Department at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In his Ph.D. research with Prof. Qian Chen, he focused on studying the dynamic self-assembly behaviors of nanoparticles using liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy and revealed a two-step nonclassical crystallization pathway and capillary wave facilitated interface growth mode. Before that, Zihao received his B.S. degree in Physics from the School of the Gifted Young at University of Science and Technology of China in 2015.