Dr Zhen-Qi Liu

Zhen-Qi completed his undergraduate studies at Xi'an Jiaotong University through the Honors Youth Program. His undergraduate thesis investigated long-range temporal correlations in neural networks with applications to brain-inspired computing. He subsequently pursued graduate training at McGill University, earning an MSc (2020) and a PhD (2025) in Neuroscience at the Montreal Neurological Institute under the supervision of Dr Bratislav Misic.

His doctoral research focused on the relationship between brain structure and function, a central puzzle in neuroscience. The brain's white matter pathways form a fixed anatomical scaffold, yet neural activity patterns are remarkably flexible, reconfiguring from moment to moment to support different cognitive demands. Zhen-Qi developed computational approaches to characterize how these two levels of organization relate to one another, examining how structural connections shape functional dynamics across different measurement techniques, temporal scales, and species. He also worked with clinicians to study how network organization is disrupted in neurodegeneration and psychiatric conditions.

In 2025, Zhen-Qi was awarded a Newton International Fellowship from the Royal Society to pursue postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, where he will continue developing computational approaches for multimodal brain mapping and cross-species translation.