About me

I am a postdoctoral researcher at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris working with Prof. Sylvain Gigan on computational optics for microscopy and machine learning. I completed my Ph.D. at Cornell University in 2021. My thesis focused on in vivo deep tissue imaging at high spatial resolution with short-wave infrared light and adaptive optics under the supervision of Prof. Chris Xu, where I designed and built microscopes for deep in vivo mouse brains. I also had a close collaboration with Prof. Steven Adie on computational imaging with optical coherence microscopy.

I am on the academic job market! Feel free to reach out if your department has open positions.

During my Ph.D., I had two internship experiences. One at Neocis Inc., I worked as a software engineer intern for precision surgical robotics. Another at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, I worked as a research intern.

My current research interests are in computational and hardware tool development for real-world applications and fundamental science, especially in biology and medicine.

News

[September 2023] Received Optica Foundation Challenge Award as the Principal Investigator, among 10 selected early-career researchers worldwide. I’ll attend Frontiers in Optics conference for the award ceremony in October.
[August 2023] Work on application of deep optical microscopy to operando imaging of batteries is out in Nature Nanotechnology. [link]
[July 2023] Paper on learning with passive optical nonlinear mapping is in arxiv.
[April 2023] I’ll chair “Biomedical Imaging Technologies” session in Photonics Online Meetup happening in November 13-14, 2023.
[Jan 2023] Joined organizing committee in Imaging ONEWORLD Series, aimed at promoting online scientific communications in microscopy.
[May 2022] 3-photon adaptive optics published! Check it out here.
[May 2022]. Received a travel award by Leibniz-IPHT to present my work in Women in Photonics’ workshop in Jena.
[August 2021]. Featured in 2022 SPIE Women In Optics planner. Read more here
[July 2021]. Started my postdoc in Paris.
[April-May 2021]. Successfully defended my dissertation and graduated with Ph.D.
[March 2021]. Our recent paper on multicolor three-photon imaging with a single-wavelength based on resonance enhancement is published in Science Advances. Check it out here.
[April 2020]. Won third place award in the Data Open WorldWide Championship out of 7,000 participants ($10,000). Media coverage: Highlight Report by Cornell Graduate School, Correlation One.
[June 2018]. Awarded Mong NeuroTech Fellowship as a PI. This fellowship allowed me to collaborate with neuroscientists on a one-year pilot project.

Selected work (* indicates equal contributions, full publication list see Publications.)

Deep learning with passive optical nonlinear mapping ” Fei Xia, Kyungduk Kim,Yaniv Eliezer, Liam Shaughnessy, Sylvain Gigan, Hui Cao, arxiv 20307.08558. 2023.

 

Simultaneous multimodal optical coherence and three-photon microscopy of the mouse brain in the 1700 nm optical window in vivo  Xusan Yang*, Siyang Liu*, Fei Xia*, Meiqi Wu, Steven Adie, Chris Xu, bioRxiv, 2023.09.11.557176, 2023.

 

Three-dimensional operando optical imaging of single particle and electrolyte heterogeneities inside Li-ion batteries.” Raj Pandya, Lorenzo Valzania*, Florian Dorchies*, Fei Xia*, Jeffrey Mc Hugh, Angus Mathieson, Jien Hwee Tan, Thomas G. Parton, Michael De Volder, Jean-Marie Tarascon, Sylvain Gigan, Hilton B. de Aguiar, Alexis Grimaud. Nature Nanotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01466-4, 2023.

Three-Photon Adaptive Optics for Mouse Brain Imaging.” David Sinefeld, Fei Xia, Mengran Wang, Tianyu Wang, Chunyan Wu, Xusan Yang, Hari P. Paudel, Dimitre G. Ouzounov, Thomas G. Bifano, and Chris Xu.  Frontiers in Neuroscience: 774. 2022.

 

Physics-based neural network for non-invasive control of coherent light in scattering media.” Alexandra d’Arco, Fei Xia, Antoine Boniface, Jonathan Dong, and Sylvain Gigan. Opt. Express 30, 30845-30856, 2022.

 

Short-Wave Infrared Confocal Fluorescence Imaging of Deep Mouse Brain with a Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector“, Fei Xia, Monique Grevers, Andreas Fognini, Aaron Mok, Bo Li, Najva Akbari,Iman Zadeh, Jessie Qin-Dregely, Chris Xu, ACS Photonics, 8, 9, 2800–2810, 2021.

Multicolor three-photon fluorescence imaging with single-wavelength excitation deep in mouse brain.” Yusaku Hontani, Fei Xia, and Chris Xu. Science Advances 7.12: eabf3531.2021.

 

Closed-loop wavefront sensing and correction in mouse brain enabled by computed optical coherence microscopy“, Siyang Liu*, Fei Xia*, Xusan Yang, Meiqi Wu, Laurie A Bizimana, Chris Xu, Steven G Adie,  Biomedical Optics Express, 12(8), 4934-4954, 2021.

Microscopic sensors using optical wireless integrated circuits.” Cortese, A.J., Smart, C.L., Wang, T., Reynolds, M.F., Norris, S.L., Ji, Y., Lee, S., Mok, A., Wu, C., Xia, F. and Ellis, N.I.et al, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)117(17), pp.9173-9179. 2020

 

 

Quantitative analysis of 1300-nm three-photon calcium imaging in the mouse brain. Tianyu Wang, Chunyan Wu, Dimitre G. Ouzounov, Wenchao Gu, Fei Xia, Minsu Kim, Xusan Yang, Melissa R. Warden, and Chris Xu. eLife 9: e53205. 2020.

 

In vivo label-free confocal imaging of the deep mouse brain with long-wavelength illumination.Fei Xia*, Chunyan Wu*, David Sinefeld, Bo Li, Yifan Qin, and Chris Xu. Biomedical Optics Express 9, no. 12: 6545-6555. 2018.

 

 

Two-photon Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor.” Fei Xia*, David Sinefeld*, Bo Li, Chris Xu,  Optics Letters, 42 (6), 2017.