Jason Bock

Biostatistician
Pronouns: Any
Email: jrbock@uci.edu
Office: 1421 Biological Sciences III

Jason Bock

About Me
Projects
Research Interests
Fun!
Publications
A lifelong fascination with the mind led me to obtain my B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from California State University, Fullerton, with a focus on quantitative measures applied to memory and individual differences. I pursued these interests into industry, first as an independent biostatistician, analyzing and presenting findings for clinical practices, then as the director of informatics for Embic Corporation, developing models of learning and memory for early detection of cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s Disease. In the course of the latter, I joined the research lab of Dr. Michael Lee at UCI as a research associate, consulting with students and faculty to advance cognitive modeling approaches and applications. This led me to join Dr. Michael Yassa’s lab, where I’m delighted to share my perspective and discover ever more about the mind.

I contribute to the following research areas in the Translational Neuroscience Laboratory.

– Recognition and judgment as measured with the mnemonic discrimination task

– Statistical learning as measured with the serial reaction time task

– Episodic memory as measured with multi-trial word recall tasks

My interests are widely spread across all areas of the mind and medicine. I am enthusiastic to continue my work with behavioral measurement of cognitive changes due to healthy aging and pathological impairment, and I am equally eager to integrate that work with the profound neuroimaging expertise at the Yassa Lab.

With family and friends, I love to take in the arts, for instance at galleries, museums, and theaters, and a recent performance of Das Rheingold at the Sydney Opera House was a highlight! On my own, I enjoy science fiction in books, film, and interactive media, with noteworthy examples being Iain Banks’s Culture series for its depiction of utopia and Outer Wilds for its examination of optimistic nihilism.

Lam JT, Gutierrez MA, Goad JA, Odessky L, Bock J. Use of virtual games for interactive learning in a pharmacy curriculum. Curr Pharm Teach Learn. 2019 Jan;11(1):51-57. doi: 10.1016/j.cptl.2018.09.012. Epub 2018 Oct 9. PMID: 30527876.

Lee MD, Bock JR, Cushman I, Shankle WR. An application of multinomial processing tree models and Bayesian methods to understanding memory impairment. J. Math. Psych. 2020;95:102328. doi: 10.1016/j.jmp.2020.102328

Bock JR, Hara J, Fortier D, Lee MD, Petersen RC, Shankle WR. Application of Digital Cognitive Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease: Identifying Cognitive Process Changes and Impending Cognitive Decline. J Prev Alzheimers Dis. 2021;8(2):123-126. doi: 10.14283/jpad.2020.63. PMID: 33569557.

Brant-Zawadzki M, Fridman D, Robinson PA, Zahn M, Chau C, German R, Breit M, Bock JR, Hara J. SARS-CoV-2 antibody prevalence in health care workers: Preliminary report of a single center study. PLoS One. 2020 Nov 12;15(11):e0240006. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240006. PMID: 33180782; PMCID: PMC7660494.

Brant-Zawadzki M, Fridman D, Robinson PA, Zahn M, Chau C, German R, Breit M, Burke E, Bock JR, Hara J. Prevalence and Longevity of SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies Among Health Care Workers. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2021 Jan 17;8(2):ofab015. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofab015. PMID: 33604403; PMCID: PMC7880269.

Bock JR, Russell J, Hara J, Fortier D. Optimizing Cognitive Assessment Outcome Measures for Alzheimer’s Disease by Matching Wordlist Memory Test Features to Scoring Methodology. Front Digit Health. 2021 Nov 3;3:750549. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2021.750549. PMID: 34806078; PMCID: PMC8595108.

Bruno D, Jauregi-Zinkunegi A, Bock JR; Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Predicting CDR status over 36 months with a recall-based digital cognitive biomarker. Alzheimers Dement. 2024 Sep 11. doi: 10.1002/alz.14213. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39258756.

What the lab means to me…

“Though a newer member at time of writing, I already feel the community at the heart of this lab. Even with so many projects in parallel, everyone is happy to learn about and help with each other’s work, and that means more effective research and discovery for all. I’m thrilled to be a part of it and support it in turn, coming together especially in the hard times of 2025.“