Fan Wang is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and investigator at the McGovern Institute. She was previously the Morris N. Broad Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology at the Duke University School of Medicine.

Wang’s research is focused on neural circuit mechanisms underlying sensory perception. Specifically, her lab is interested in determining neural circuits underlying (1) active touch sensation, including tactile processing stream and motor control of touch sensors on the face; (2) pain sensation, including both sensory-discriminative and affective aspects of pain; (3) general anesthesia, including the active pain-suppression process; and (4) social behaviors, including social circuits that may be altered in mouse models of autism. A combination of genetic, viral, electrophysiological and in vivo imaging techniques is used to study these questions.

Wang has received multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health to support her research as well as funding from the W. M. Keck Foundation. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.