Draft:Steve Chang (neuroscientist)
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Comment: User previously edited draft at Draft:Steve W. C. Chang. Also, I think an LLM may have been used —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:22, 23 October 2025 (UTC)
Draft:Steve Chang | |
|---|---|
| Scientific career | |
| Doctoral advisor | Lawrence H. Snyder |
Steve W. C. Chang is a Korean-American neuroscientist at Yale University. His research focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying social behavior, decision-making, and prosocial interactions.
Education and Scientific Training
[edit | edit source]After attending Pomfret School in CT, Chang attended Washington University in St. Louis from 1999 to 2003, where he majored in Psychology and performed research to understand the behavioral and neural mechanisms of sensorimotor transformation for eye-hand coordination. His undergraduate research led to receiving the John A. Stern Undergraduate Research Award given to one graduating senior each year[1]. He then completed his graduate training in neuroscience (Neurosciences - Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences) at Washington University in St. Louis mentored by Prof. Lawrence H. Snyder from 2003 to 2009[2]. For his doctoral dissertation titled Sensorimotor Transformation in the Macaque Parietal Reach Region, he investigated how the parietal reach region in the posterior parietal cortex computes spatial information for goal-directed reaching movements, including how the spatial information for reaching is referenced with respect to the eyes and the hand (known as reference frame).[3][4]. During his postdoctoral training mentored by Prof. Michael L. Platt at Duke University, Chang began pioneering work in studying neuronal mechanisms underlying complex social behaviors using real-life social interaction paradigms and electrophysiological approaches[5][6][7]. During that time, his research began to be rooted in a neuroethological framework[8]
Career
[edit | edit source]Chang joined Yale University in 2014 as an Assistant Professor and became Associate Professor with Tenure in 2022. At Yale, Chang is affiliated with the Department of Psychology, Department of Neuroscience, the Wu Tsai Institute, and the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience. He also serves as the Co-Director of Graduate Studies in the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program (INP) and the Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Neuroscience (NSCI) Major.
Research
[edit | edit source]Chang’s research investigates the neural underpinnings of social cognition and decision-making in the context of the 'social brain'[9][10]. His work combines behavioral experiments, electrophysiological recordings, and pharmacological interventions. Over the years, he has developed multiple novel social behavioral paradigms[11][12]. Chang's work led to a discovery on how the prefrontal-amygdala networks are coordinated when making prosocial decisions and evaluating vicarious rewards[13][14]. Moreover, his research has discovered widespread implementations of social gaze interaction in the social brain[15] and led to novel ways to causally modulate social gaze interaction[16]. In addition, his work helped build the foundational knowledge on how the oxytocin system modulates social decision-making and social gaze interaction and how it interacts with the opiod system to guide social behaviors[17]. Overall, his research goal is to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying social interaction and to inform how such mechanisms may go awry in disorders marked by social dysfunction.
Selected Awards and Honors
[edit | edit source]- Sloan Research Fellow in Neuroscience (2015–2017)
- NIMH BRAINS Award (2016–2021)
- Early Career Award, Society for Social Neuroscience (2016)
- SFARI Investigator (2015–2016, 2022–2024)
- Program Committee, Society for Neuroscience (2023–2026)
- President, Society for Social Neuroscience (2025–2026)
Media Coverage
[edit | edit source]Chang's work has been featured in outlets such as Yale News, Scientific American, Nature News, National Geographic, and The New York Times. Topics have included the neuroscience of generosity, social gaze in primates, and oxytocin's role in social behavior.
Teaching
[edit | edit source]At Yale, Chang teaches courses in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroscience of Social Interaction. He also mentors postdoctoral fellows, graduate, and undergraduate students in research focused on social neuroscience.
External Links
[edit | edit source]References
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