Xiao Tong was born and raised in San Mateo, and is a premedical student Johns Hopkins University. During the school year, she works on reward mechanisms in the ventral pallidum with Professor Patricia Janak, but has spent the last two summers, and her precious Winter Break in the Nelson Lab studying cellular mechanisms of movement disorders and most recently working on striatal contributions to learning. She is known in the lab for her prodigious surgical productivity, gregarious manner (mostly talking to herself), and professional demeanor.