Oscar received his dual B.S. in Biotechnology and Chemistry and M.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular biology, both at Jilin University, China. He received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at UMass Medical School under the supervision of Victor Ambros. During his graduate research, Oscar studied how the 3' pairing of evolutionarily conserved microRNAs contributes to target repression and animal development using C. elegans. He also studied how de novo coding variants of AGO genes affect microRNA regulation. In the Srivastava lab, Oscar is interested in the post-transcriptional gene regulation in Hofstenia miamia, in hopes of characterizing key post-transcriptional mechanisms that contribute to Hofstenia development and regeneration.