At the PIBS Graduate Student Celebration held recently, Zepeng Yao, from Molecular, Developmental and Cellular Biology (MCDB) received the Research Award. He is a student with Orie Shafer in MCDB and he has studied the question of how the brain keeps circadian time. He has made fundamental methodological and discovery contributions, with two excellently noted papers in Journal of Neurophysiology and Science. The latter paper has been noted by the field as presenting landmark observations on neuronal connectivity and circadian timekeeping in the brain. "Zepeng is clearly a star in the making in the field of chronobiology," according to the PIBS award organizers.

PIBS is the Program in the Biomedical Sciences, headquartered in the University of Michigan Medical School, which is one avenue for entering graduate study in biology at Michigan. MCDB is one of 14 PhD programs in PIBS.