Research thread 2023–Present
Four Summers at USC
One lab, one long thread — wet lab to computation and back
What started as a first summer holding a pipette turned into a multi-year run of projects at USC — mouse behaviour, machine learning on patient data, PK/PD modelling, alcohol and the liver — each one leaning on whatever the last one taught.
How it actually went
I first entered a USC lab after eighth grade knowing almost nothing about research beyond what I had read in textbooks. My first summer was hands-on: behavioral assays, mouse models, protocols, and the discipline of recording what actually happened rather than what I expected to happen.
The next summer pulled me in the opposite direction, toward transcriptomics, code, and machine-learning models for sepsis. By 2025, I was helping lead a student team through PK/PD modeling for post-LASIK pain.
Those shifts changed how I think about research — and they are the reason the independent projects that followed keep crossing the same line in both directions.
Images, posters & documents
↳Milestones
- 2023
First summer in the lab
Social isolation, dihydromyricetin, and mouse behaviour.
- 2024
Learning to model instead of pipette
Predicting sepsis mortality from transcriptomic patient data.
- 2024
First peer-reviewed paper
Fifth author on a paper about paternal age, maternal stress, and autism spectrum disorder.
- 2025
Leading a modelling team
Eight students, one PK/PD model of post-LASIK pain.
★ Best Poster Presentation — 2025 USC Moving Targets Symposium - 2025
Alcohol, the liver, and the brain
Hepatic steatosis, voluntary alcohol intake, and cognitive deficits in mice.
↳Projects in this thread
My First Summer in the Lab: Social Isolation, DHM, and the Brain
A pilot study on what repeated social isolation does to anxiety, cognition and social behaviour in mice — and whether dihydromyricetin can walk any of it back.
- LA Moving Targets poster presentation · 2023
- IABS Forum — published abstract · 2023
- Society for Brain Mapping & Therapeutics — 21st Annual World Congress · March 14–17, 2024 · Los Angeles Convention Center
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From Wet Lab to Machine Learning: Predicting Sepsis Mortality
The first major move from wet-lab research into computational biology: building and iterating machine-learning workflows to estimate sepsis mortality risk from transcriptomic patient data.
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My First Peer-Reviewed Paper: Autism, Paternal Age, and Maternal Stress
Fifth author on a review of how paternal age and maternal stress during pregnancy relate to autism spectrum disorder — and the first time Jalen's name appeared on something peer-reviewed.
- Published · 2024
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Modeling Post-LASIK Pain — and Winning Best Poster
A pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modelling project on post-LASIK pain, and the first time Jalen was the one leading — walking eight students through both the modelling and how to explain it to a room.
- ★ Best Poster Presentation 2025 USC Moving Targets Symposium · 2025
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Studying Alcohol, the Liver, and the Brain
Work on whether ethanol-induced fatty liver feeds back into how much alcohol mice choose to drink — and into how well they think afterwards.
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