Vic Shao-Chih Chiang 蔣紹志

He/Him

I am gay and I am a sexual diversity neuroscientist.//

 

STEM took me across the world from U. Auckland, UCL (London), to HKUST, Tsinghua U (Beijing). I explored different types of research, from clinical trials, microRNAs, brain cancer, to Alzheimer’s disease, food reward-coding neurons, plus working with prominent scientists e.g. Nancy Ip, Minmin Luo etc. During these, I hosted Open Mind debates which required me to read widely (e.g. Aeon, Lapham’s Quarterly etc). This exposed me to novel and opposing perspectives, which shaped my meaning to fight for climate change and minority oppression. On that ground, I founded SAVYN (Toronto) to help refugees and research the neuroscience of sexual diversity (Boston). Given that sexual minorities are more detrimentally affected by climate change including increased abuse and healthcare inequity, I plan to start social ventures to address these through precision neuro-medicine, changing policymaking, and improving sexual minority personal development. From my STEM experience, there is a lot everyone can do to help LGBTQ2S+. For example, embrace humility as our desire for certainty can be harmful e.g. learned helplessness, filter bubble etc. (ref: Andy Clark). Be critical of meritocracy where everyone ostensibly seems to have equal opportunities but is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy of the Matthew effect (ref: Michael Sandel).