About
Dr. Fan Wang is an Investigator of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She obtained her Ph.D. from Columbia University and received postdoctoral training at UCSF and Stanford University. She was a professor at Duke University from 2003 to 2020 and moved to MIT in January 2021. Dr. Fan Wang made important contributions to neural mechanisms underlying general anesthesia, pain perception, and movement control. She discovered a new ascending emotional pathway for orofacial pain and a new center in the amygdala that is activated by general anesthesia and potently suppresses pain. She also elucidated precise circuits that generate rhythmic movements critical for active touch sensation and vocalization. She aims to translate her findings into treatments for chronic pain and movement disorders. For her achievements, Dr. Wang was awarded an Alfred Sloan Fellowship, a Klingenstein Fellowship in Neuroscience, a McKnight Scholarship in Neuroscience, two NIH Pioneer Awards, and a Keck Foundation research award. She is an AAAS Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.