Benjamin Nguyen

Biography

Benjamin Nguyen, M.S., is an Assistant Specialist in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine. His current research focuses on the mechanisms by which electroacupuncture reduces hypertension, using rat models to investigate blood pressure responses to various acupuncture treatments and examining molecular markers in harvested tissues. He employs techniques including gene knockout through siRNA microinfusion and processes human blood samples for clinical studies on acupuncture's effects.

Nguyen received his M.S. in Biology from California State University Long Beach in 2024, where his thesis examined natural selection on personality variation in the wavy turban snail. His graduate research combined behavioral ecology, population ecology, and computer modeling, conducting both laboratory behavioral assays and field-based mark-recapture surveys using scuba diving to monitor wild snail populations. He also investigated how predator presence influences selection pressures on snail behavior. He earned his B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2019.

Nguyen has received research funding including the Future Leaders in Coastal Science Award and two COAST awards totaling $5,000 for graduate research. He has presented his research on marine snail personality variation at multiple conferences, including the Western Society of Naturalists and the Southern Academy of Sciences. As a certified AAUS scientific diver with 300 dives, Nguyen has extensive fieldwork experience in marine ecology, including invertebrate surveys and behavioral observations of marine organisms.

Education

• M.S. in Biology, California State University Long Beach, 2024
• B.S. in Marine Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, 2019