Greetings from our Research Team!
Lab Director
Prof. Fan CAO
I am currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, the University of Hong Kong. I completed my Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University, with a research focus on reading development and disorders. Prior to joining HKU in 2022, I held appointments as an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and at Michigan State University, and as a Professor at Sun Yat-Sen University. I have published over 50 papers in top journals in my field, such as eLife, Child Development, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, etc., with an H-index of 27.
Co-Director
Dr. Lucy Shih Ju HSU
I received my Bachelor's and Master's Degree from the University of Michigan. I continued to pursue my Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at HKU and work as a local educational psychologist serving local kindergartens and primary schools for several years. My research interests focus on understanding children's language and literacy development in early childhood and exploring the relationship between children's neural and behavioral development through educational neuroscience. I am also a trained MBCT Teacher (Foundational Training by OMC and HKCFM), .b Foundation teacher (MiSP), MYMind program teacher and AMT Eline Snel Method teacher. For my clinical practices, I regularly provide mindfulness workshops to students, parents, and teachers.
Lab Members
Yang FU
I am a second-year PhD student. I completed my undergraduate studies in psychology at Wuhan University and pursued my master's degree at Sun Yat-sen University, focusing on developmental dyslexia and second language acquisition.
I am interested in using using multimodal neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI, EEG, fNIRS) to investigate developmental disorders (e.g., dyslexia, ASD) and the neural mechanisms of language and reading development.
Guandoudou YANG
I am a first-year PhD student in the lab. I completed my bachelor's degree at Sun Yat-sen University and my master's degree at Beijing Normal University. My research interests focus on language acquisition and developmental dyslexia, particularly the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying reading development and reading difficulties.
Mingyang HUA
I am Mingyang, currently an MPhil student under Dr Cao's supervision. My research focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying language and reading acquisition/development. Previously, I investigated the efficacy and neural responses to phonological intervention in Chinese adults with dyslexia. Right now, I work on a foreign speech acquisition project by using fMRI to study both temporary and long-term changes in neural dynamics and brain-behavior relationships following language training.
Yue WANG
My name is Yue Wang, a 2025 MPhil candidate with research interests in computational neuroscience and neural signal processing, advised by Prof. Fan Cao. I received my B.Eng. degree in Intelligent Medical Engineering from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), supervised by Prof. Quanying Liu.
Shu Yuen SO
I am curious about phenomena related to language, visual perception, cognition, and neuroscience in general. My current research interest is in how Chinese characters are perceived by adult and child readers, as well as those with reading difficulties such as dyslexia.
My other interests include traveling, board games, hiking, magic realism, and video games.
Fengzhu ZUO
I am an MPhil student in the Cao Lab. I completed my undergraduate studies at Shandong University. My current research focuses on using fMRI to investigate the developmental trajectories and neural mechanisms of ASD. I am also interested in precision neuromodulation, particularly closed-loop brain stimulation approaches, and their potential applications in individualized interventions for neurodevelopmental disorders.
Xinrui LI
My name is Xinrui Li. I received both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Psychology from South China Normal University. My research mainly focuses on neuroimaging, particularly MRI data analysis. In my free time, I enjoy listening to music.
Sabrina WONG
I’m a postgraduate psychology student and currently a research assistant at the NeuroLeaD Lab. I’m interested in children development, particularly how children develop their language, cognitive, and learning abilities. Through my experience working with children with special educational needs, I’ve also become curious about how psychological research can help us better understand and support children with different needs.