Jason Alvarez

Jason joined the UCSF news team in 2018 from our sister school, UC Merced.

Originally from Los Angeles, he studied music composition as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, but he was sufficiently intrigued by science to spend time working in a UCSF lab at Mission Bay. After graduation, he was a writer and corporate liaison for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but also did freelance writing, covering both music and food. He was soon bitten by the science bug again, and returned to school at California State University, Long Beach, to obtain a second bachelor’s degree, in biochemistry.

He subsequently did research on epigenetics at Harvard Medical School, receiving his master’s degree in biology from Harvard in 2016. Throughout his time in the Boston area, Jason continued his freelance writing on food and music, including work as an assistant editor at Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

He covers basic research in cancer biology, immunology, genetics, and cellular and molecular biology.