Educational Experience   go to the top...

Psychology and Neuroscience Summer School Program   (Jul. 2023, online, 4 weeks)   View Certificate...

Prof. Alexandra Krugliak Fitzwilliam; College of Cambridge University;

Named Top 2 Students  View Certificate...

University of Chicago Summer Session   (Jul. 2024, on-campus, 3 weeks)  

Course name: Explorations in Neuroscience: Neurons, Behavior, and Beyond

Prof. Megan McNulty; University of Chicago; Final grade: 100/100  View Certificate...

Calculus I: From Functions to Differential Equations   (Aug. 2023, edX online, 6 weeks)    View Certificate...

Calculus II: Multivariable Functions   (Dec. 2024, edX online, 6 weeks)    View Certificate...

PhD. Niek de Kleijn; Delft University of Technology; Final grade: 94/100

Probability and Statistics in Data Science Using Python   (Aug. 2023, edX online, 4 weeks)  

Prof. Alon Orlitsky; University of California, San Diego; Final grade: 100/100  View Certificate...

Linear Algebra I: Linear Equations   (Dec. 2024, edX online, 4 weeks)    View Certificate...

Linear Algebra II: Matrix Algebra   (Dec. 2024, edX online, 4 weeks)    View Certificate...

Linear Algebra III: Determinants and Eigenvalues   (Dec. 2024, edX online, 4 weeks)    View Certificate...

Linear Algebra IV: Orthogonality & Symmetric Matrices and the SVD   (Dec. 2024, edX online, 4 weeks)    View Certificate...

Prof. Greg Mayer; Georgia Institute of Technology; Final grade: 100/100

Awards and Honors   go to the top...

Neuroscience

International Brain Bee -  Year 2024; Top 3 out of 37 national champions  View Certificate...

National Brain Bee -  Year 2024; Champion out of 2542 Contestants in China  View Certificate...

National Brain Bee -  Year 2023; First Prize ; 23rd place out of 2039 Contestants in China  View Certificate...

Math

High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling (HiMCM) -  Year 2023; Outstanding; global Champion out of 967 teams  View Certificate...

High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling (HiMCM) -  Year 2022; Meritorious; global 15% out of 854 teams  View Certificate...

Berkeley Math Tournament -  Year 2023; National Individual Geometry Champion , Team Top 25%  View Certificate...

American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) -  Year 2023; 9 points; qualified for USA(J)MO  View Certificate...

The American Mathematics Competition 12 (AMC12) -  Year 2022; Honor Roll; global 5%  View Certificate...

Biology

USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) -  Year 2024; Open Round Gold  View Certificate...

British Biology Olympiad (BBO) -  Year 2024; Gold  View Certificate...

Australian Science Olympiads-Biology (ASOB) -  Year 2023; High Distinction; global 10%  View Certificate...

Physics

British Physics Olympiad (BPhO) -  Year 2023; Round 1 Top Gold  View Certificate...

British Physics Olympiad (BPhO) -  Year 2023; Round 2 Silver  View Certificate...

Physics Bowl (Division 2) -  Year 2024; National Silver  View Certificate...

Chemistry

UK Chemistry Olympiad (UKChO) -  Year 2024; Gold  View Certificate...

Canadian Chemistry Contest (CCC) -  Year 2024; Silver  View Certificate...

Canadian Chemistry Olympiad (CCO) -  Year 2024; Bronze  View Certificate...

In School

Luo Peiming Scholarship -  Year 2022; Highest scholarship in school.  View Certificate...

Trigonal Badge-Innovation Awards -  Year 2024 1st Semester  View Certificate...

Tetragonal Badge -Scholarship Awards 1st Prize -  Year 2024 1st Semester  View Certificate...

Tetragonal Badge -Scholarship Awards 1st Prize -  Year 2024 2nd Semester  View Certificate...

Five Star Club (Neuroscience Club) -  Year 2025; Top award for clubs in school.  View Certificate...

Five Star Club (BonVista Accessibility Club) -  Year 2025; Top award for clubs in school.  View Certificate...

Principal's Award -  Year 2025; Top award in school.  View Certificate...

Community Service

Infinite Visionaries -  Year 2025; Most Promising Club Award to BonVista Accessibility Club  View Certificate...

(Infinite Visionaries Award is a global accolade initiated by the Fosun Foundation to honor young individuals who advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through innovative social impact projects.)

Transcripts   go to the top...

Standardized Tests   go to the top...

Extracurricular Activities   go to the top...

Neuroscience Club   (President From Sept. 2023)

• Host an undergraduate-level course on neuroscience for the club as the primary instructor, making 13 hours' slides and videos;
• Organize and hoste 2 neuroscience trivia sessions during the course;
• Organize 5 cutting-edge knowledge sharing sessions;
• Write and/or edite 27 neuroscience-related articles on WeChat;
• Organize 9 interdisciplinary events in collaboration with 9 different clubs;
• Participate in various activities at school and beyond, including BioBio4.0 Biology Festival, Club Joint Exhibition, and Accessibility Week.

Running Club   (Vice President From Feb. 2024)

• Lead running sessions at school;
• Organize events such as helping fellow students learn to guide people with visually impairments;
• Run 30~40 km per month.

Produce Original Neuroscience Course  (From Apr. 2025)

• Design, write, and produce an original neuroscience course, which covers the major aspects of neuroscience at undergraduate level and neuroanatomy & clinical conditions at the basic medical school level;
• The course contains 11 episodes in 21 videos, and has a total length of 7 hours, about 8.5k subscriber, and more than 100k views as of Sept. 2025 on BiliBili and YouTube (https://tinyurl.com/yy78udb7).

Write Blogs  (From Sept. 2022)

• Build and maintain my personal website, https://www.siqipan.com
• Write blogs on 4 topics: my original neuroscience course; math and science research; accessibility initiatives; languages, poetry and mythology.

Activities with International Brain Bee (IBB) Committee  (From Jul. 2025)

• Attend IBB NextGen meeting in Toronto, Canada in Jul. 2025;  View Certificate...
• Participate in the IBB competition’s question-setting team and design exam questions.

Learn Languages  (From Sept. 2020)

• Learn classical languages (Latin, Sanskrit). Read epics and other classical works, e.g. Aeneid, Metamorphoses, Ramayana. Compare languages and find connections.
• Learn modern languages (Spanish, French, Japanese) and read books. Passed Spanish DELE B2 exam, scoring 81.5/100. French proficiency at B2 level.
• Learn fictional languages (Quenya, Sindarin (Elvish languages)).

Community Service   go to the top...

BonVista Accessibility Club   (Founder and President From May 2024)

• Produce 11 documentary interview videos, showing the lives of people with visual impairments and the status quo of accessibility; the videos have a total length of nearly 5 hours, and more than 36k views as of Jun. 2025 on WeChat, BiliBili and YouTube (https://tinyurl.com/dyznn3pz);
• Organize 8 inclusive activities with residents with visual impairments or other disabilities, in collaboration with Kangjian community government;
• Organize 3 knowledge-sharing sessions with over 10 students from Shanghai Blind Child School;
• Investigate the local accessibility infrastructure and submit reports to local government;
• Gather traffic light data for a high-tech company and contribute to the development of an App made for persons with visual impairments;
• Visit Shanghai Blind Child School in Shanghai and the Chicago Lighthouse in Chicago;
• Study the accessibility laws in China and USA;
• Design 4 issues of accessibility posters and post them in 25 local neighborhoods;
• Publish 23 accessibility-related articles on WeChat;
• Host the Accessibility Week at school, collaborating with 7 other clubs to present workshops, acccessible sport, accessible art, and other events;
• Participate in the Guide Dog Week, Club Joint Exhibition, Student Club Forum at school.

beYoureyeS  (Facilitator, Professional Running Guide, and Translator From Sept. 2023)

• Participate weekly in events held by beYoureyeS (a non-profit organization for people with visual impairments) for 59 weekends as of Sept. 2025;
• Organize training sessions and promote the idea of accessibility for over 200 potential guide runners;
• Accompany over 10 people with visual impairments to walk or jog;
• Translate 10 monthly newsletters into English as of Sept. 2025;
• Certified Professional Running Guide;
• Participate as photographer in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) events hosted by beYoureyeS;
• Type braille on pamphlets for distribution for 3 times;
• Compile Volunteer Guidebook for Exhibition Activities for People with Visual Impairments as co-author;
• Accompany people with visual impairments to exhibitions.

Research Experience   go to the top...

Modeling for the Widths of Corridors  (Aug. 2022, Independent researcher)

Published in School Mathematics of Shanghai, December 2022 (ISSN 1672-7495)  View the publication...

Abstract

This paper investigates the minimum width G(d, l, p, w) of a corridor, given the known values of door width d, wall thickness p, object length l, and object width w. By establishing and analyzing the motion equation, the function G is fitted using both linear and quadratic functions through computer simulation. The quadratic fit is then optimized, leading to the final analytical expression for the function G.

Design and Feasibility Verification of Multimodal Abnormity-Aware Model for Interpretable Diagnosis of Ocular Diseases  ( Apr. 2024 – Aug. 2024, Independent researcher)

In the Review Finalized stage of publishing in Frontiers in Bioinformatics.

Abstract

We devise a novel model, the Multimodal Abnormity-Aware Model (MAAM), for assisting ocular disease diagnosis. MAAM enables input of 2 kinds of ophthalmological images, namely optical coherence tomography (OCT) and color fundus images, and simulates the decision-making process of ophthalmologists by deducing the disease from abnormities. The model is composed of two submodels, the Abnormity Models and the Diagnosis Model, where the Abnormity Models identify OCT and fundus abnormities, and the Diagnosis Model identifies diseases by integrating features from the Abnormity Models. In MAAM, we introduce the fusion mechanism, the concept of codominant abnormities and diseases, and the Abnormity-to-Disease Criteria. The model partly breaks the black box of complex neural network and exposes more interpretable information for the reference of ophthalmologists. We train a proof-of-concept model, capable of identifying 8 OCT abnormities, 11 fundus abnormities, and 12 diseases. It has an overall accuracy of 89%, which verifies the feasibility of MAAM.

A Structural and Functional Bioinformatics Study of QTY-designed Retinylidene Proteins  ( Jan. 2025 – Jul. 2025, Independent researcher)

Published in QRB Discovery by Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/qrd.2025.10009

Abstract

Retinylidene proteins are retinal-binding light-sensitive proteins found in organisms ranging from microbes to human. Microbial opsins have been utilized in optogenetics, while animal opsins are essential for vision and light-dependent metabolic functions. However, retinylidene proteins have hydrophobic transmembrane (TM) domains, which makes them challenging to study. In this structural and functional bioinformatics study, I use the QTY (Glutamine, Threonine, Tyrosine) code to design water-soluble QTY analogs of retinylidene proteins, including 9 human and 3 microbial opsins. I provide superpositions of the AlphaFold3-predicted hydrophobic native proteins and their water-soluble QTY analogs, and experimentally-determined structures when available. I also provide a comparison of surface hydrophobicity of the variants. Despite significant changes to the protein sequence (35.53% to 50.24% in the TM domain), protein characteristics and structures are well-preserved. Furthermore, I run molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of native and QTY-designed OPN2 (rhodopsin) and analyze their response to the isomerization of 11-cis-retinal to all-trans-retinal. The results show that the QTY analog has similar functional behavior to the native protein. The findings of this study indicate that the QTY code can be used as a robust tool to design water-solubility retinylidene proteins. These have potential applications in protein studies, therapeutic treatments, and bioengineering.

Gene Annotation with Comparative Annotation Toolkit   ( Jun. 2025 – Aug. 2025, Mentor: Prajna Hebbar)

UCSC Science Internship Program (SIP)

Study bioinformatics tools such as Verkko, Hifiasm, and CAT. Learn Bash script. Assemble the genomes of 2 marmosets using 2 different methods. Align the genomes to each other and to other ones. Conduct comparative annotations to identify genes and other regions.

A Bioinformatics Study on QTY-designed Alpha Synuclein and Its Potential of Preventing Aggregate Formation   ( From Aug. 2025, Independent researcher)

In the process of researching.

Use the QTY code to design alpha synuclein, a protein that forms aggregates in Parkinson's disease and Lewy Body dementia. Predict the structures of native and QTY-designed alpha synuclein and investigate how the QTY-designed analog may help prevent aggregation.

Additional Skills   go to the top...

Languages

• Mandarin, English (fluent)
• Spanish, French (proficient)
• Latin, Sanskrit (reading & writing)
• Japanese (elementary)

Programming

• Programming languages: Python (7+ years), C++ (6+ years) and C# (5+ years)
• Development tools: Git, Visual Studio, SQL server (5+ years)
• Website development and database technology (5+ years)
• LaTeX and Markdown (2+ years)
• Deep learning (2+ years)
• Linux system and Bash script (1 year)

Bioinformatics

• Molecular dynamics simulation: GROMACS, CHARMM-GUI (1 year)
• Protein structure prediction: AlphaFold, Phyre, Protter (1 year)
• Visualization: PyMOL, ChimeraX (1 year)

Others

• Mathematical modeling (4+ years)
• Photography, film shooting and editing (5+ years)