Jian Kong
Director
Jian Kong received his medical training from China, and a master’s degree of science and a master’s degree of public health. He is currently a professor at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. His research interests focus on the interaction between the brain (mind) and body, and translational research to develop new treatment methods based on the findings obtained.
Valeria Saccà
Research Fellow
Valeria holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Magna Græcia University in Italy and a Master’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Polytechnic of Turin. She joined Kong’s lab as a PostDoc in 2020. Her research interests center around the application of machine learning techniques to EEG signals and fMRI connectivity data in order to better understand the evolution of brain diseases. In her spare time, she likes cooking and going out shopping.
Sierra Hodges
Clinical Research Coordinator
Sierra Hodges received a B.S. degree in Neuroscience from Duke University in 2019. She is currently a Clinical Research Coordinator at Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry. She is interested in pursuing a medical degree and is focused on continuing to research the relationship between mind and body and its role in illness and wellness.
Amy Ursitti
Clinical Research Coordinator
Amy Ursitti recently graduated from Emory University, where she majored in Neuroscience & Behavioral Biology and Classics. After assisting in research about pain and sensory sensitivity in adolescents with autism at Emory, she is so excited to continue to learn about mind-body interactions and novel approaches to pain relief in Dr. Kong’s lab. In her spare time, she enjoys running and spending time with her family, friends, and dogs. She hopes to pursue a career in medicine in the future.
Meixuan Zhu
Clinical Research Coordinator
Meixuan Zhu graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2022 with a B.S. in Psychology and minor in Chemistry and Japanese. In joining this lab, she is excited to build on her previous knowledge from pre-med courses and experiences in social psychology research. She hopes to pursue a career in the field of medicine or clinical psychology, and she has her cat Taro and many enjoyable craft projects to support her until she makes it.
Sveta Reddy
Clinical Research Coordinator
Sveta Reddy graduated from Cornell University in 2022 with a degree in Neurobiology & Behavior and a minor in Psychology. She currently works as a Clinical Research Coordinator for the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and ultimately hopes to pursue a medical career in neurology.
Qiao Kong
Exchange PhD Candidate
Qiao Kong graduated from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine with a master’s degree in Chinese Internal Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the intricate brain mechanisms that underlie acupuncture and neuromodulation techniques in treating neuropsychiatric disorders. She aspires to become an outstanding acupuncture researcher in the future. Outside of her academic pursuits, she enjoys embracing nature, reading, and cherishing quality moments with her close friends.
Tingting Li
Exchange PhD Candidate
Tingting Li received her Master of Neurology from the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine and is pursuing a Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School. She joined Kong’s lab as a research fellow in 2023. She is highly motivated and eager to contribute to groundbreaking discoveries in the field of the combination of neuroscience and traditional Chinese medicine. She has been seeking opportunities to further develop expertise and make a positive impact on healthcare.
Mattia Cannistra
Exchange PhD Student
Mattia received his master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering and then started his PhD program at the University “Magna Graecia” of Catanzaro, Italy. He is currently expanding his research knowledge and skills during his exchange period at the Kong Lab. His research activities focus on the development of AI algorithm applied to medical images analysis.
Randy Gollub
Emeritus director
Dr Randy Gollub received her MD, PhD from Duke University. She is current a professor at department of psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Judith Amores
Former Research Fellow
Judith is a Research Fellow at the MGH/Harvard Medical School, department of psychiatry, and a Research Affiliate at the MIT Media Lab, where she did her PhD and master’s and helped run VR/ARatMIT as a co-president. She holds a multimedia engineering degree from LaSalle University, Barcelona, Spain, and has a computer science background and design focused on UX, UI, and filming. She previously interned as a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher at Microsoft Research and at R&D at URL Barcelona, developing Augmented and Virtual Reality experiences and at the Google Creative Lab as a Creative Technologist.
Jin Cao
Former Researcher / Instructor
Jin Cao received the MD degree (2013) and PhD degree (2018) from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. She was a postdoctoral researcher (2018-2021) of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/Harvard Medical School (HMS) and is now an instructor in psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, MGH/HMS. Her research interest focuses on understanding the brain mechanisms of pain and pain modulation, and developing the state-of-art acupuncture and neuromodulation techniques on the basis of neuroscience findings.
Seyhmus Guler
Former Research Fellow
Seyhmus received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University in 2016 and was part of the Computational Radiology Laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital prior to joining the NoMBIT Lab in March, 2020. His research interests include functional neuroimaging, brain functional representations of pain, and non-invasive brain stimulation. Atthe NoMBIT Lab, Seyhmus was mostly involved in the project on enhancing the effect of acupuncture on chronic low back pain using transcranial direct current stimulation. He also created tailored brain imaging analysis pipelines to investigate brain functional reorganization due to treatment and explore biomarkers of chronic pain. He is now a data scientist at Recursion.
Nevyana Todorova
Former Clinical Research Coordinator
Nevyana Todorova graduated from Northeastern University in 2021 with a BS in Behavioral Neuroscience and a minor in Studio Art. She now lives in LA and is continuing her work in clinical research.
Caroline “Merritt” McDonald
Former Clinical Research Coordinator
Merritt McDonald graduated from Wake Forest University where she studied Psychology with minors in education and counseling. She is now working as a Program Coordinator II at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Maya Eshel
Former Clinical Research Coordinator
Maya Eshel graduated from UC San Diego in 2020 with a BA in Communication and a minor in Psychology. Maya’s research interests include neuroimaging, chronic pain and mind-body interactions. She hopes to pursue a career in medicine in the future.
Thalia Chai-Zhang
Former Research Coordinator
Thalia Chai-Zhang worked for the NoMBIT lab from 2020 to 2022. She has a BA in computer science from Bard College. Her fields of interest include Data Science, Computational Neurology and Alzheimer’s disease. In her spare time she writes and learns new skills.
Maya Best
Former Clinical Research Coordinator
Maya graduated Tufts University with a degree in Biopsychology. She became interested in research after working in the Tufts University Social Cognition Lab during undergrad. She is planning on attending graduate school in the future.
Nathaniel Meshberg
Former Clinical Research Coordinator
Nathaniel Meshberg received a B.A. degree in Neuroscience at the Boston University College of Arts & Sciences in 2019. He previously worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry as a Clinical Research Coordinator and is now an accepted student of the Boston University School of Medicine Class of 2025. His interests include studying the interface between the brain and the mind as well as diseases that affect these two areas.
Helen Chen
Former Research Coordinator
Helen Chen graduated from Columbia University in 2019 with a BA in Evolutionary Biology and started working in the Kong Lab that summer. She loves dancing, baking, and knitting in her spare time, and is now attending NYU College of Dentistry as of summer of 2021.