Dr. Xu is a research scientist in the Center for the Developing Brain at the Child Mind Institute. She received her B.A. in mathematics from the Renmin University of China in 2008 and her Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2012. Her research focuses on investigating the brain connectome in human and non-human primates by developing multimodal neuroimaging techniques and computational methods to understand brain evolution across species, brain changes associated with normal brain development, and those caused by disorders.