Gustave Li

David’s NYU mentee | Undergraduate researcher | 2023-2024

Next step after leaving the lab: PhD student at Caltech

My name is Hongzhou Gustave Li, and I majored in neuroscience at NYU Shanghai. I joined the Desplan lab as an undergraduate research volunteer during my junior study-away year and have been directly mentored by David since then. In the lab, I worked on developing a genetic crossing scheme to generate cell-type-specific tools targeting individual Drosophilaneuronal cell types, including the optic lobe neurons and doublesex+ neurons.

It was an incredible experience working at David’s group. His guidance and support were invaluable to me. First, David is passionate about his research and very accessible to his lab members. Anytime I had problems with the project design or the detailed experimental procedures, David responded promptly, and he is very good at explaining challenging ideas to his mentees. Secondly, David trusts his lab members and assigns different mini-projects to each of us. In this way, I got the opportunity to think critically and work independently to contribute meaningfully to the project. Under his guidance, I built a solid foundation in fly genetics and neurobiology.

In addition to research, David cares a lot about my personal growth as a scientist. He has been instrumental in helping me develop my academic skill sets, including reading scientific papers, oral presentations, and academic writing skills. David held weekly journal club sessions on fly genetics. This opportunity not only deepened my understanding of the research topic but also honed my academic reading skills. Furthermore, David invested his time in teaching me the principles of scholarly presentation and academic writing during our one-on-one meetings, and provided constructive feedback on all my writing works. With his dedication and patience, I have published our work on STAR Protocols as a co-first author and presented our research at multiple conferences, winning the Best Poster Presentation in the Developmental Biology and Genetics Section at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists (ABRCMS). 

Finally, David builds a supportive and positive lab environment for his lab members. He never pushed me on experiments or let me work late at the lab, ensuring I maintained a healthy work-life balance. Additionally, he encourages senior lab members to help newcomers, a tradition from which I greatly benefited and proudly passed down to mentor students who joined the lab after me. 

Looking back, David is a wonderful mentor who deeply cares about his students. I am immensely grateful for David’s guidance and support during my time in his group, which is pivotal in my success in being admitted into my dream PhD program in neurobiology at Caltech. I highly recommend David’s lab to people seeking a supportive and enriching research experience. I am confident that anyone who has the privilege of working with him will benefit greatly from his guidance and mentorship, just as I had.

Awards

- NYU Shanghai Excellence Award {Latin honors (Summa cum laude)}

- NYU Shanghai Capstone Program Fund (Fall 2023, $6216.3 CNY)

- The Best Poster Presentation at 2023 ABRCMS meeting

- NYU Shanghai Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund (Spring 2023)