Stephanie Huang

Exploring the Effects of Environmental Complexity on the Brain

Stephanie Huang

PhD Student
School of Psychological Sciences

stephanie.huang@vuw.ac.nz

Profile

Stephanie completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Cell & Molecular Bioscience, followed by an Honours degree in Psychology. Her previous research in cognitive and behavioural neuroscience spanned two areas. In the Behavioural Neurogenetics Lab, she investigated how infections during pregnancy affect offspring behaviour in animal models of schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder, and in the Vision & Cognition Lab, she studied biological motion and face perception using online behavioural experiments and eye-tracking.

Stephanie is now a PhD Candidate jointly enrolled in the School of Psychology and the School of Biological Sciences. Her doctoral research investigates how the environment we grow up in shapes our brains. Specifically, she examines how neuronal structure and connectivity are affected by environmental complexity and how the underlying molecular composition is altered — using techniques such as confocal microscopy and mass spectrometry-based proteomics.

Learn more about her work: https://stephaniejh.github.io/

Qualifications

BSc in Psychology and Cell & Molecular Bioscience, VUW, 2018
BSc (Hons, 1st Class) in Psychology, VUW, 2019

Research Interests

Experience-Dependent Plasticity, Bioinformatics, Proteomics, Microscopy, Neuroanatomy, Open Science

PhD Title

Exploring the Effects of Environmental Complexity on the Brain

Supervisor/s

Prof. Bart Ellenbroek

Dr Lifeng Peng

Publications

Cancian, J., Huang, S., & Susilo, T. (2026). Impaired perception of Mooney faces in developmental prosopagnosia. Cognition, 266, 106335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106335

Huang, S. J., Colussi-Mas, J., & Ellenbroek, B. A. (2024). DiI Labelling with a Paintbrush: A Low-cost Alternative to DiOlistic Labelling in Neurons. protocols.io. https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.dm6gpzjr1lzp/v1