Dr. Zhiqiang Sha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. He is also a faculty member of the Carolina Autism and Neurodevelopment Research Center and the Institute for Mind and Brain.
Dr. Sha received his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience, during which he established the foundation for his research in neuroscience and neuropsychiatric disorders. He completed postdoctoral training in neuroimaging at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, the Language & Genetics Department at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In 2025, he launched his own research lab at the University of South Carolina.
Dr. Sha’s research leverages advanced computational models to identify endophenotypes that characterize brain development and neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., autism and genetic syndromes). His work integrates multi-omics biomedical data, bridging genetic variation, brain MRI, exposure (e.g., early life adversity), psychopathological phenotypes, and treatment outcomes. His overarching research goal is to develop detailed mechanistic and developmental hypotheses that can inform future clinical applications in understanding both cognitive development and clinical psychopathology in the human brain.
