Members

Principal Investigator

Dr. Li Wang is an Associate Professor with tenure in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the recipient of the NIH K01 Career Award and the Distinguished Investigator Award of the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research. His research interests focus on image segmentation, image registration, cortical surface analysis, machine learning and their applications to normal early brain development and disorders. His current focus is on developing lifespan brain MRI processing tools and identifying imaging-based biomarkers for early autism diagnosis. More ...

PhD students:

	Limei Wang is a PhD candidate in the DBC lab. She is working on autism early diagnosis, parcellation, and lifespan skull stripping. Her work has been published in Intelligent Medicine and Nature Biomedical Engineering.
	Yue Sun is a PhD candidate in the DBC lab. She is currently working on the infant cerebellum growth trajectory from newborn to 5 years old and lifespan MRI enhancement. Her work has been published in Nature Communications and Nature Biomedical Engineering.
	Nani Jin is a PhD student in the DBC Lab. She is working on MRI image processing for autism and fetal brain, including segmentation, registration and diagnostic applications.

Visiting students:

Tong Wang is a research assistant in the DBC lab. He is working on MRI super-resolution using deep generative models for medical image enhancement.

Awards & Honors:

• 2025 Area Chair of MICCAI 2025
• 2023 Top Cited Article 2021-2022 (Orthodontics & Craniofacial Research, vol. 24, no. S2, pp. 108-116)
• 2022 Cover Page (Cancer Cell, vol. 40, no. 6, pp. 674-693)
• 2022 IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging Distinguished Reviewer
• 2022 Most Cited Neuroimage Article (Neuroimage 185, 891-905)
• 2022 International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) Full Member
• 2021 IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging Distinguished Reviewer
• 2020 Best Oral Presentation Award, MICCAI Workshop on Computational Diffusion MRI
• 2019 The best results of CoGM, UWM, CoGM, CSF, Ventricle, CB and BGT in terms of Dice coefficient in NeoBrainS12 MICCAI Challenge (UNC-IDEA-II)
• 2018 NIH Career Award
• 2018 IEEE Senior Member
• 2015 Cover Page of Medical Physics (Med. Phys. 42, 5809, 2015)
• 2015 Editor’s Picks of Medical Physics
• 2014 The best results of WM (UWM+MWM), CoGM and BGT in terms of all measurements (Dice coefficient, mean surface distance and Hausdorff distance) in NeoBrainS12 MICCAI Challenge (UNC-IDEA)
• 2014 The best results of WM in terms of Dice coefficient and Hausdorff distance, GM in terms of Hausdorff distance, Intracranial cavity in terms of Absolute Volume Difference in MRBrains13 MICCAI Challenge (UNC-IDEA)
• 2014 Best Paper Award of Machine Learning and Medical Imaging Workshop (MLMI 2014)
• 2013 Most Downloaded NeuroImage Article
• 2012 Top 25 Hottest Articles: Computer Science > Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics, January to December 2011 full year
• 2009 Most Cited Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics Article (most cited articles published since 2008)
• 2009 Most Cited Signal Processing Article (most cited articles published since 2008)
• PhD Student Research and Innovation Funding, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, 2008-2010
• Graduate Student Research and Innovation Program Funding (No. CX09B_103Z), Jiangsu Province, 2009-2010
• NJUST Education Development Foundation, 2007-2009

Google Scholar (citations: 18,020; h-index: 67):

• https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=xjzMf0cAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Former members:

	Qian Zhang was a Ph.D. student at the Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA. Now, he has graduated with a PhD degree.
	Kun Gao was a visiting student from the Department of Information Science and Engineering, University of Jinan. He mainly focuses on the early autism diagnosis based on structural MR images. He is now a PhD student in Peking University.
	Weichen Yan was a research assistant in the DBC lab. He was working on ASD prediction using GNN models for medical image analysis.
	Deqiang Xiao, Postdoc. He is now an Associate Professor, Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT).
	Jupeng Li, Research Scholar, Department of Radiology and BRIC, UNC-CH. He is now an Assocaite Professor in Beijing Jiaotong University.
	Tai-Hsien (Bruce) Wu, Postdoc, School of Dentistry, UNC-CH. He is currently a postdoc scholar at the Division of Orthodontics, College of Dentistry, the Ohio State University.
	Duc-Toan Bui, Postdoc, Department of Radiology and BRIC, UNC-CH
	Jiawei Chen, Postdoc, Department of Radiology and BRIC, UNC-CH
	Yi Ren: he achieved his Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015, currently working as a software engineer.
	Zuoyong Li, Research Scholar. He is now a full professor, deputy director of scientific research department in Minjiang University.
	Chunjun Qian, Research Scholar. He is now a Lecturer at Changzhou Institute of Technology.
	Minghui Deng, Research Scholar. He is now an associate professor in Northeast Agriculture Univeristy.
	Guannan Li, Visiting PhD Student. She is now working in Nanjing Vocational Institute of Railway Technology.
	Jian Chen, Research Scholar. He is now a full professor in Fujian University of Technology.
	LIfang Wei, Research Scholar. She is now a full professor in Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University.
	Shunbo Hu, Research Scholar. He is now a full professor in LinYi University.
	Zhicheng Jiao, postdoc. He is now Principal Investigator and Director of Brown Radiology AI Lab and Brown Imaging Core, in Brown University.
	Dong Nie, Phd Student. He graduated with a PhD degree in 2019 and worked as an amazing Engineer in AI field.
	Zhifang Pan, Postdoc. He is now a full professor in the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University.
	Renping Yu, Postdoc. She is now an associate professor in School of Electrical Engineering, Zhengzhou University.
	Miaoyun Zhao, Postdoc. She is now an associate professor in Dalian University of Technology.