Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind Introduces 2025-2026 Postdoctoral Scholars
July 3, 2025
By Mario Aguilera
KIBM 2025-2026 postdocs (from left) Zachary Whiddon, Hao Jiang and Oleksandra Sirozh.
The Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind (KIBM) at UC San Diego has announced its fourth cohort of postdoctoral scholars. KIBM cultivates programs and research that increases our understanding of the origins, development, evolution and mechanisms of the brain and mind.
In an effort to advance innovative research, KIBM provides financial support and networking opportunities for outstanding postdoctoral scholars at UC San Diego and the Salk Institute. The new cohort of KIBM postdoctoral scholars will receive $50,000 for 12 months (renewable for a second year contingent on progress and the faculty mentor’s continued sponsorship). Postdoctoral scholars provide a presentation about their research at the annual KIBM Symposium on Innovative Research, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in May.
The 2025-2026 KIBM Postdoctoral Scholars
Hao Jiang
Hao Jiang is a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Ryan Hibbs’ lab in UC San Diego’s Department of Neurobiology (School of Biological Sciences). He received his PhD from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, where he focused on structure-based drug discovery and pathogenic mechanisms of disease-associated proteins. In his postdoctoral research, he investigates the molecular mechanisms of the sensory system in octopuses through structural biology approaches. His work centers on chemotactile receptors (CRs), specialized ion channels that allow octopuses to sense chemicals. By integrating structural, electrophysiological and behavioral data, Jiang aims to uncover how environmental chemicals modulate CR function to drive distinct octopus behaviors.
Oleksandra Sirozh
Oleksandra Sirozh is a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Don Cleveland’s lab at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine (School of Medicine) at UC San Diego. Sirozh gained her PhD at the National Cancer Research Center in Madrid, Spain. She was focused on determining the molecular mechanism by which ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)-associated arginine-rich peptides drive aging and neurodegeneration, identifying an unexpected parallelism with ribosomopathies and a unifying model of nucleolar stress. Sirozh joined Cleveland’s group with a project searching for novel determinants of neural identity through high-throughput CRISPR screening, aiming to use them to generate new neurons in the contexts of aging and neurodegenerative disease.
Zachary Whiddon
Zachary Whiddon is a postdoctoral fellow in Assistant Professor Gulcin Pekkurnaz’s lab in UC San Diego’s Department of Neurobiology. He received his PhD in 2023 from the University of Louisville School of Medicine, where he developed techniques to longitudinally visualize sensory neurons innervating taste buds, uncovering remarkable structural plasticity in peripheral terminals. Whiddon joined the Pekkurnaz Lab to apply fluorescent biosensors to study neuronal metabolism at cellular and subcellular levels. His long-term research goal is to understand how metabolism influences neuroplasticity, particularly within the peripheral nervous system.