Dr. Wenqiang Chen is currently working as a post-doctoral research fellow in Ronald Kahn's lab at the Joslin Diabetes Center/Harvard Medical School. His research primarily focuses on how diabetes affects normal brain function related to reward and cognition;thus he aims to illuminate the interaction between insulin resistance and the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease. Prior to his position at the Joslin, he worked as a post-doctoral research fellow from 2017 to 2019 at Dr. Yi Zhang’s lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and HHMI, where he studied molecular heterogeneity of brain reward system using mouse cocaine self-administration as a model. Wenqiang received his Ph.D. degree in Neurobiology from The University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong SAR, China) in 2016 and his M.S. degree in Neuropharmacology from Beijing Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology (Beijing, China) in 2011.

Wenqiang is passionate in organizing events and he loves playing leadership roles in various associations and societies. He served as Vice-Chair of Harvard Medical Postdoc Association (2018-2019), and President of Postgraduate Student Association of St. John’s College at The University of Hong Kong (2013-2014). He is currently a Local Ambassador of the International Society for Neurochemistry.

Wenqiang plays the violin and loves attending concerts of Boston Symphony Orchestra. Before he adopted an adorable calico cat named Athena, he had travelled more than 50 cities in the world while he was attending conferences or just for fun.

Wenqiang’s career dream since childhood is to become an independent PI.