Dr. Peng Ji has an overarching goal of evaluating the risks and opportunities of nutritional factors in enhancing neurodevelopment and host resilience to early-life adverse events (e.g. infection and stress). His research uses neonatal pigs as a translational model because of broad resemblance between pigs and humans in many aspects, such as digestive physiology, components of immune system, anatomic structure of brain and perinatal neurodevelopment. His current work investigates how unbalanced iron status in early life affects systemic and CNS iron homeostasis, susceptibility to infections, brain energy metabolism, and social cognition using nursing pigs.

Fun Facts about Dr. Ji:

• Where did you grow up?
• Jilin City in the Northeast part of China.
• Where are you happiest at work?
• Office and my backyard.
• Where are you happiest outside of work?
• Kayaking with my family and friends; playing soccer with my kids.
• What is something your colleagues/students generally don’t know about you?
• I collect Matchbox cars.
• Is your desk messy or clean?
• I would say ‘clean’ in my book 
• Who would you most want to have over for dinner?
• Gabriel Batistuta