Lang Lab

Meet the Lab

Julie Mocko
Julie.Mocko@cchmc.org

Julie is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Lang Lab.  Her research background is in retinal development and function, with a focus on retinopathy of prematurity – a blinding disease that affects prematurely born infants.  She received her Ph.D. in Physiological Optics and Vision Science in the summer of 2017 from the University of Houston, College of Optometry prior to joining the Lang Lab.  Her current research focuses on the role of light and neuropsin (Opn5) on early postnatal development.

Yoshi Odaka
Yoshinobu.Odaka@cchmc.org

Yoshi performed his Ph.D research at LSU Health Shreveport as a Carroll-Feist fellow of Feist-Weiller Cancer Center. In 2013, he started a postdoctoral training under Dr. Richard Lang, Ph.D. in Pediatric Ophthalmology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where he was awarded the Arnold A. Strauss Fellowship. Currently, Yoshi is investigating the intraocular vascular development and lens physiology using various mouse models.

Gowri Nayak-Sarangdhar
Gowri.Nayak@cchmc.org

Gowri received her Ph.D. in inner ear biology at the University of Sussex, England and moved to Cincinnati for postdoctoral training in 2011. She joined the Lang Lab in 2014 to pursue her interests in vascular biology. She is currently interested in opsin-dependent vascular responses and opsin-mediated metabolic consequences. The effects of light on biological processes that are both acutely and developmentally regulated are not only interesting but also important to understand with the aim of determining how our environment and lifestyle impacts our physiology.

Brian Upton 
Brian.Upton@cchmc.org

Brian is a graduate student in the Molecular and Developmental Biology Graduate Program. He received his BS in Neuroscience from the Ohio State University. He is currently investigating the role of light and encephalopsin (Opn3), a non-visual photoreceptor, in the developing nervous system.

Shruti Vemaraju 
Shruti.Vemaraju@cchmc.org

Shruti is a research associate in the Lang lab. Her graduate work focused on neurodevelopment in the zebrafish inner ear at Texas A&M University, College Station. Her current research explores the role of light in neonatal growth and energy management.  

Kevin Zhang
Kevin.Zhang@cchmc.org

Kevin received his Bachelors and Masters of Science in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and is currently an MD/PhD candidate at Cincinnati Children’s Molecular and Developmental Biology (MDB) graduate program. His work in the lab focuses on unraveling the central and hormonal control of light-dependent thermogenesis and energy homeostasis, and understanding how it changes with circadian day and season. Kevin’s work encompasses both mice and hamsters, because hamsters are extremely adorable.