My Works — Leo J. Chung

Experience

Research

Four projects, 2024 — 2026. Ciernia Lab unless noted.

Full CV

P-01Aug 2025 — May 2026

Exploring the role of autism-associated BAF complex variants in social communication in neonatal mice

Ciernia Lab, DMCBH
Simons Foundation SURFiN Fellowship

The BAF complex remodels chromatin, and variants in it sit among the most strongly autism-associated mutations known. This project asked what those variants do to social communication in mouse pups — measured through ultrasonic vocalizations, the calls a pup directs at its mother an octave above anything a person can hear.

P-02May 2025 — May 2026

Neuroaesthetics: Your Brain on Art

ASTU 400E
UBC Centre for Community Engaged Learning

A full-credit undergraduate seminar on what happens in the brain when people make art, and when they look at it. I co-created and co-taught it with Betty Bao, under faculty sponsor Dr. Steven Barnes, and it ran as a Student-Directed Seminar in Winter Term 2 — January to April 2026.

P-03Apr 2025 — Sep 2025

The role of inflammatory bowel disease in the neurological immune response to the development of Alzheimer's disease pathology in mice

Ciernia Lab, DMCBH
SBME Synergy Summer Studentship

Whether chronic gut inflammation changes the brain's immune response as Alzheimer's pathology develops — one arm of the lab's broader work on the gut–brain axis. The readout was immunohistochemical: staining for microglia, the brain's resident immune cells, against amyloid-beta plaques. This work took the top prize for Trainee Rapid Talks at UBC's Synergy Undergraduate Research Day.

UBC SBME write-up

P-04Jul 2024 — Apr 2025

Impact of human IBD microbiota on hypothalamic gene expression and steroid regulation in the mouse brain

Ciernia Lab, DMCBH
SBME Synergy Summer Studentship

Human IBD microbiota transplanted into mice, with the readout taken in the hypothalamus — which genes shift, and what happens to steroid regulation. My first project in the lab.

Classroom

Teaching & education

Courses taught, education research, adjudication and mentorship.

T-01Jul 2025 — May 2026

Co-creator & instructor — ASTU_V 400E, Neuroaesthetics: Your Brain on Art

UBC Centre for Community Engaged Learning
Student-Directed Seminar

Co-proposed with Betty Bao under faculty sponsor Dr. Steven Barnes, and taught for credit in Winter Term 2 of 2025/26. UBC's Student-Directed Seminars let undergraduates design and lead a three-credit course on a subject the university does not otherwise offer — so the syllabus, the reading list and the teaching were all ours to build. The course asked what makes something beautiful, and how the brain perceives and responds to art.

T-02May 2026 — present