Biography: Dr. Ethier was originally trained as a mechanical engineer, receiving his Ph.D. from MIT in 1986 under the supervision of Dr. Roger D. Kamm. He subsequently joined the University of Toronto, where he held professorships in Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Ophthalmology, and served as Director of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. In 2007, he moved to London to serve as Head of the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London. In 2012, he joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. In 2025, he retired from Georgia Tech to take up his current position as Professor of Ophthalmology at the Emory Eye Center at Emory University.
Research: Dr. Ethier’s research lies at the interface of biomechanics, cell biology, and physiology. His primary research areas are glaucoma — with a focus on the biomechanics of aqueous humor drainage and the mechanical and cellular responses of optic nerve tissues to intraocular pressure — and myopia, specifically the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving abnormal ocular growth (myopigenesis).
Fun Fact: Outside the lab, Dr. Ethier is an avid long-distance hiker. He has completed the Camino Português from Porto to Santiago de Compostela, large segments of the Camino Francés in southern France, the Via Francigena in Italy, and the Kumano Kodō in Japan.
Haiyan Li, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Haiyan Li joined the Ethier Lab in August 2022 and is currently a BrightFocus Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Emory Eye Center. She received her Ph.D. in Anatomy and Cell Biology from SUNY Upstate Medical University, where she worked under the supervision of Dr. Samuel Herberg. Her doctoral research focused on extracellular matrix-based three-dimensional hydrogel systems to study trabecular meshwork and Schlemm’s canal cell biology in glaucoma.
Dr. Li’s current research centers on the mechanobiology of Schlemm’s canal cells, with a particular focus on transcellular pore formation and how cytoskeletal dynamics influence pore formation and aqueous humor outflow.
Ana Nicolle Strat, M.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Ana Nicolle Strat began her postdoctoral training in the Ethier Lab at the Emory Eye Center in January 2026. She earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from SUNY Upstate Medical University under the mentorship of Dr. Preethi S. Ganapathy. Her doctoral research focused on the development of a 3D hydrogel system to study optic nerve head astrocyte mechanobiology in glaucoma, examining how discrete biomechanical forces modulate glial responses and contribute to neurodegeneration.
Building on this foundation, Dr. Strat’s current research in the Ethier Lab investigates the role of all-trans retinoic acid (atRA) as a key regulator of myopigenesis. Specifically, she is exploring how choroidal pericytes respond to atRA signaling and undergo cellular reprogramming to drive vascular remodeling and influence ocular growth.
Hu Xu, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Hu Xu is a Postdoctoral Researcher working at the intersection of computational biomechanics and scientific machine learning, with applications to glaucoma research. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, with a background in solid mechanics, applied mathematics, and soft materials.
Dr. Xu’s current research focuses on ocular biomechanics — specifically, developing Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) to extract biomechanical properties of the trabecular meshwork from OCT imaging. By bridging traditional finite element methods with modern machine learning architectures, Dr. Xu aims to develop noninvasive approaches for monitoring tissue function changes associated with glaucoma.
Cydney Wong, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Cydney Wong earned her B.S. in Biological Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined the Ethier Lab in 2020. She earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2025 from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. Her doctoral research focused on characterizing biomechanical and transcriptional differences between segmental flow regions of the trabecular meshwork in both mouse and human tissue, advancing our understanding of aqueous humor outflow regulation and glaucoma pathogenesis.
