Rate My Professor Zhirong Bao

Dr. Zhirong Bao is a Chair Professor in the School of Life Sciences at the Southern University of Science and Technology, where he joined in 2026 and is affiliated with the Department of Neuroscience. He earned his BS and MS degrees from Jilin University and his PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Washington. Prior to his current appointment, he held positions as Assistant, Associate, and Full Member in the Developmental Biology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and served as Professor at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences.

His research centers on developmental systems biology and computational biology, with pioneering work in toto imaging and systematic in vivo single-cell analysis of metazoan embryogenesis using C. elegans as a model. Key research interests include collective cell behaviors, the emergence of neural circuit function and behavior, and spatiotemporal learning for complex tissues. He has received several honors, including the 2018 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award, the 2010 Basil O’Connor Scholar Award, the 2004 Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the 2003 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award. Notable publications include “De novo inference of systems-level mechanistic models of development from live imaging-based phenotype analysis” (Cell, 2014), “An in toto approach to dissecting cellular interactions in complex tissues” (Dev Cell, 2017), “Structural and developmental principles of neuropil assembly in C. elegans” (Nature, 2021), “Hierarchical deep reinforcement learning reveals a modular mechanism of cell movement” (Nat Mach Intell, 2022), and “A single-cell transcriptome atlas profiles early organogenesis in human embryos” (Nat Cell Biol, 2023).