Jennifer M. Li is an American neuroscientist and bioengineer. She is a Systems Neuroscience & Neuroengineering researcher who is a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the RoLi lab at the

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics The Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics is located in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society (Max Planck Gesellschaft). It was founded in 1968. The institute is studying signal a ...

. She records and manipulates neural activity in larval

zebra fish The zebrafish (''Danio rerio'') is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Danionidae of the order Cypriniformes. Native to South Asia, it is a popular aquarium fish, frequently sold under the trade name zebra danio (and ...

to research

motivation Motivation is an mental state, internal state that propels individuals to engage in goal-directed behavior. It is often understood as a force that explains why people or animals initiate, continue, or terminate a certain behavior at a particul ...

and

attention Attention or focus, is the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli. It is the selective concentration on discrete information, either subjectively or objectively. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...

. and has been published in the journal

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

for her work on how the zebra fish brain switches between internal states when foraging for live prey. The RoLi lab has developed a revolutionary

microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view subjects too small to be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of microscopy: optical mic ...

systems that enable whole-brain imaging of freely swimming larval zebra fish. With this technology, Li and Robson aim to investigate natural behaviors in the zebra fish, including spatial navigation,

social behavior Social behavior is behavior among two or more organisms within the same species, it encompasses any behavior in which one member affects another. Social behavior can be seen as similar to an exchange of goods, with the expectation that when you ...

feeding Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food. In biology, this is typically done to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and nutrients and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive – ...

, and reward.

Background and education

Jennifer Li received her B.A. in Molecular Biology from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, where she worked on host-parasite symbiosis and embryonic development in the Wieschaus lab. She received her Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where she worked on operant learning and brain-wide neural imaging in the Schier and Engert labs. During her graduate education at Harvard University, Li was
Rowland Junior Fellow
in the Rowland Institute at Harvard University. At the Rowland Institute, Li, along with Drew Robson, led their experiment on zebra fish before finishing the project at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.

Career

Jennifer Li and Drew Robson combined brain tracking with a variant of HiLo microscopy to build Differential Illumination Focal Filtering (DIFF) microscopy

Publications

Her most cited publications are:
Google Scholar Author page, Accessed August 23, 2020 * Misha B. Ahrens, Michael B Orger, Drew N Robson, Jennifer M Li, Philipp J Keller, "Whole-brain functional imaging at cellular resolution using light-sheet microscopy" ''

Nature Methods ''Nature Methods'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering new scientific techniques. It was established in 2004 and is published by Springer Nature under the Nature Portfolio. Like other ''Nature'' journals, there is no external edi ...

'' 10 (5), 413-420 (2013) * MB Ahrens, JM Li, MB Orger, DN Robson, AF Schier, F Engert, ... "Brain-wide neuronal dynamics during motor adaptation in zebrafish" ''

'' 485 (7399), 471-477 (2012) *HM Frydman, JM Li, DN Robson, E Wieschaus, "Somatic stem cell niche tropism in Wolbachia" ''Nature'' 441 (7092), 509-512 (2006) * PM Ferree, HM Frydman, JM Li, J Cao, E Wieschaus, W Sullivan "Wolbachia utilizes host microtubules and Dynein for anterior localization in the Drosophila oocyte" PLOS Pathog 1 (2), e14 (2005)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Jennifer Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American neuroscientists Women neuroscientists American bioengineers Women bioengineers Princeton University alumni Harvard University alumni American expatriates in Germany American women neuroscientists