Former PhD Students

Jerry Chen

Jerry Chen gradudated with a B.S. with Honors in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2003. After taking a course in Cell and Molecular Biology his senior year, he decided to pursue a career applying his computational and engineering skills to the field of biology. He pursued gradudate studies at the University of California, San Diego working with Dr. Geert Schmid-Schonbein on the fluid mechanics of blood in circulation, receiving an M.S. in Bioengineering in 2006. He then moved on to pursue his doctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Zeller at San Diego State University, working on hybrid computational/experimental approaches to studying microRNAs. His research is focused on microRNAs of the developing nervous system of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis, and specifically their interaction with genes of the Notch signaling pathway. His research is currently funded by the National Science Foundation.