People

Professor Jin Hyung Lee — understanding and repairing brain circuits

Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences (Neurology Research), of Neurosurgery and of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

A pink clay brain character in goggles peering at a tiny glowing circuit board

Jin Hyung Lee is a scientist who treats the brain as a circuit that can be repaired. Starting out in electrical engineering, Lee led the work on optogenetic fMRI (ofMRI) and is now extending it toward tools that can read and adjust brain circuits without surgery.

Mind Circuit follows this work for a simple reason: it shows how bringing the tools of one field to the long-standing questions of another can open a new path. This page gathers only official sources. The timeline and honors were checked against Lee’s Stanford profile and press coverage.

Timeline

  1. 2004PhD in Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
  2. 2010First author of the Nature paper combining optogenetics with fMRI (ofMRI)
  3. 2010NIH Director’s New Innovator Award
  4. 2012Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship
  5. 2013Founded LVIS in Silicon Valley, building on the lab’s research
  6. 2018First recipient of the Lina 50+ Award Grand Prize
  7. 2019NIH Director’s Pioneer Award to develop noninvasive mechanogenetics and functional ultrasound imaging

Selected honors

2010NIH Director’s New Innovator Award
2010Okawa Foundation Research Grant Award
2011NSF CAREER Award
2012Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship
2012Epilepsy Therapy Project Award, Epilepsy Foundation
2013Alzheimer’s Association New Investigator Award
2013Association of Korean Neuroscientists (AKN) Junior Faculty Research Award
2014IEEE EMBS BRAIN Grand Challenge Young Investigator Award
2016Beckman Technology Development Grant Award
2018Lina 50+ Award Grand Prize (first recipient)
2019NIH Director’s Pioneer Award

Key publication

  • Lee JH, Durand R, Gradinaru V, Zhang F, Goshen I, Kim DS, Fenno LE, Ramakrishnan C, Deisseroth K. “Global and local fMRI signals driven by neurons defined optogenetically by type and wiring.” Nature 465, 788–792 (2010). doi:10.1038/nature09108

Official sources

  1. Jin Hyung Lee — Stanford Profiles — Stanford University
  2. Stanford University Lee Lab — Understand and Repair Brain Circuits — Stanford University
  3. Global and local fMRI signals driven by neurons defined optogenetically by type and wiring — Nature
  4. $4.75 million awarded to scientists for high-risk, high-reward research — Stanford Medicine News Center, 2019-10-01
  5. Company | LVIS Corporation — LVIS Corporation
  6. 510(k) K250239 — LVIS NeuroMatch Software, Indications for Use — U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025-05-23
  7. Interview with Stanford professor Jin Hyung Lee on support networks for Korean scientists (in Korean) — Yonhap News Agency, via Financial News, 2023-07-05

Checked against official sources: November 8, 2026

Stories about Professor Jin Hyung Lee