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Mei-Fang Cheng
Mei-Fang Cheng is a psychobiology educator and a neuroscientist, who is currently an emeritus psychology professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and is working in the Department of Psychology at the Newark Campus. Dr. Cheng has written 68 publications and has received many awards because of her research. She has done research on topics from the developmental behaviors or rats to the role of vocal self-stimulation in female responses to males. She believes and is always pushing for people in STEM, especially women, to be more self-confident in themselves and their work, and to not let the views of the world or people around them hinder them from following their dreams.

Early-Life
Mei-Fang Cheng was born on November 24, 1938, in Keelung, Taiwan, Republic of China. Unfortunately, her father passed away at a young age, and her mother was left to raise her and her four siblings. Growing up, Dr. Cheng did not have a strong scientific influence, however, her mother always made sure that her five children were focused on getting their education, and Cheng is a product of that environment. Dr. Cheng was always interested in observing things like lines of ants. Surprisingly, Cheng did not like junior high school, but in high school, she decided that she would want to be focused on one area, and she chose academics.

Schooling
Mei-Fang Cheng attended high school and eventually earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology at National Taiwan University, which is the most prestigious university in Taiwan. She graduated at the top of her class. There were no graduate schools in Taiwan, so her only choice was to begin studying abroad. She was recommended by a professor from National Taiwan University to attend the University of Oregon, but she found that she wanted the East Coast. She decided to transfer to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania for her doctorate degree. She met and married a Taiwanese man who was studying for his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pennsylvania, which led her to start as a postdoc at that university. Here, she studied developmental behaviors in rats and the role of the hypothalamus in different behaviors. In 1970, Dr. Cheng joined Rutgers University in Newark as a research associate of Daniel Lehrman. Here, she furthered her study on animals, this time working with the natural behaviors of birds. As of 2020, she is still working in the Psychology department at the Rutgers University Newark campus.

Career
As of right now, Mei-Fang Cheng is currently an emeritus psychology professor at Rutgers. She has written many dissertations regarding behavior and developmental psychology over the years. Her research initiatives as of right now deal with the brain and how cells fail due to brain injury. She graduated top of her college classes and was even more successful in her career. She is considered a Doctor of Philosophy and she did not let the struggles of competing with her male classmates halt her career.

Accomplishments
Mei-Fang Cheng has obtained her Ph.D. and after started as a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania under Philip Teitelbaum. While working here she began a line of research on developmental behaviors. She also joined Rutgers University in Newark as a research associate of Daniel Lehrman who was doing interesting work with birds. Over the years, she has earned a Research Development Career Award, Johnson and Johnson Discovery Award, Hoechst Celanese Innovative Research Award, Rutgers Board of Trustee Award for Excellence in Research, and a long series of individual research grants from the NIH across the years. She also became the Director of the Institute of Animal Behavior that Daniel Lehrman founded.