Jason Lee*

Degrees

PhD, Anatomy & Neurobiology, UCI, expected 2024
BS, Neuroscience, UCLA, 2018

Research

I record and activate mouse brain cells to understand how memories are encoded in living neural circuits.

Biography

I am a born and raised SoCal dude, music nerd, artist and food enjoyer. My mind was blown by neuroscience in high school, so I studied that at UCLA and afterwards went straight to the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program at UCI. In Dr. Kei Igarashi's lab, I am training on in vivo electrophysiology for the study of learning and memory. Extracurricularly, I am interested in climate justice and radical history. My roommate is a big orange cat named Virgil.

Why is science communication important to you personally?

In an era of imminent climate catastrophe, mass disinformation, and absurdist capitalism, science communication upholds intellectual advancement and helps cut through the BS. The more people fascinated with scientific pursuit of the truth, the more hope we have for a sensible future! I owe much childhood wonder and my academic path to popular science as communicated by the likes of Carl Sagan, VS Ramachandran, David Attenborough, etc.

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