This year’s U-M STEM Research Career Award winner is Amanda Xu, a junior studying Neuroscience with a minor in Statistics. The STEM RCA supports highly qualified sophomores and juniors who plan to pursue a PhD or MD/PhD and research career in a STEM field. This opportunity is open to all sophomores and juniors interested in STEM research.
Amanda is the Vice President of the U-M Life Sciences Institute Undergraduate Research Forum, an academic peer tutor at the U-M Science Learning Center, and copy editor for the physics and math section of the Michigan Undergraduate Research Journal. She applied for this award to explore her potential while informing the greater campus community of her laboratory’s research efforts and bringing recognition to her faculty mentors and teachers who have enlightened and guided her through her research journey thus far.
Along with her recent STEM RCA win, Amanda was also a recipient of the U-M Biology Department’s Underwood-Alger Scholarship and a 2024 Summer Research Fellow with Tsinghua’s School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. She won the Best Undergraduate Oral Presentation at the 2025 Midwest Drosophila Research Conference. This year, Amanda was selected as a 2025 Amgen Scholar and will conduct neuroimmune research with Dr. Chris Donnelly at Duke University this upcoming summer.
She plans to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience or a related discipline in the life sciences and hopes to lead research into brain-body circuits and their implications in neurological function and disease. When asked about the impact of the application process, Amanda notes, “Applying for the STEM RCA not only encouraged me to think introspectively about my academic and personal goals and why I wanted to do research, but also allowed me to further reaffirm my future career directions in STEM. Initially, I had doubts about winning, but I applied with the mindset that the experience itself would be an opportunity for growth and learning. I strongly encourage anyone with a passion in STEM research to apply—do not let self-doubt hold you back from chasing your dreams and discovering your full potential.”
Amanda would like to thank Dr. Bing Ye for his unwavering support ever since she joined his lab as a high school student, Dr. Bailong Xiao for overseeing her research fellowship at Tsinghua University, U-M Neuroscience major advisor Dr. Cunming Duan for encouraging her academic pursuits, as well as Dr. Bo Duan for supporting her academic and research endeavors. She also acknowledges her mentors, postdoctoral fellows Elizabeth Ronan and Ruonan Li for their patience throughout her training. Finally, she wants to thank her family, especially her father, for supporting her personal and career aspirations.
