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Project Descriptions
Spring 2026

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Showing 50 projects out of 187 found. On page 1 out of 4.
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Superpower competition; middle powers in a world of superpowers

Vinod Aggarwal - Professor, Political Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

The Berkeley Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC) brings together scholars from various disciplines, institutes, and centers from Berkeley and around the world to foster collaborative research on APEC and other trade-related issues. We are looking for students interested in working on the US-China superpower competition, particularly...

 Social Sciences

Characterization of a growth regulator of epigenetically repressed chromatin domains

Bassem Al-Sady - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Genes in our genome can be kept in active or inactive states in different cell types. Genes coding for opposing cell types are heritably kept inactive. This is possible because a gene repressive structure called heterochromatin can “grow” over regions containing these genes in some, but not other cell types...

Design, Fabrication and control of a swarm of ocean drones

Reza Alam - Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

This project develops swarm of autonomous sailboat drones powered by a hybrid renewable energy system that integrates wind propulsion, wave energy harvesting, and solar power generation. The vessels are designed for long-duration, self-sustained operation at sea, enabling continuous environmental monitoring without reliance on external charging infrastructure. The platform...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies

Biotransformation of PFAS in Contaminated Environments

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of synthetic chemicals used in various industrial and consumer products, including Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF), widely used since the 1960s for firefighting. Due to their persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic nature, PFAS pose significant environmental and health risks. Despite their widespread use...

UCSF Neurosurgery: Patient Outcomes from Open Spine Surgery

Christopher Ames - Professor, Neurological Surgery

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

At the UCSF Spine Center, Dr. Christopher Ames has a number of studies related to patient outcomes after open scoliosis surgery: ranging from bioelectrical impedance gait analyses and assessments of fall risk to validating AI diagnostic tools and tracking frailty/activity levels/complications/pain medication usage before and after surgery...

 Biological & Health Sciences

Social Psychology and Business Lab

Cameron Anderson - Professor, Business, Haas School

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Please write Project 2: Social Psychology and Business Lab at the top of your application if you are interested in applying to our lab. We are seeking to recruit 2-3 new Research Apprentices who are interested in finding out more about social psychology and business research to join our research...

 Social Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Election Rules and Representation in U.S. Local Government

Sarah Anzia - Professor, Public Policy

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

In the wake of the events of Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, the descriptive and substantive under-representation of minorities in local governments has become an issue of pressing concern. Reformers and litigators have focused almost exclusively on the notion that minority representation is a simple matter of creating minority-majority...

 Social Sciences

Folklore Archive URAP

Folklore Archivist - Archivist, Folklore Program

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

The Folklore Archive is seeking a detail-oriented student to help digitize archival materials. This role provides a hands-on opportunity to engage with archival processes and contribute to the preservation and dissemination of rich cultural materials from the Berkeley Folklore Archive. No prior experience in archival work or digitization...

 Social Sciences   Arts & Humanities

Youth and Allies Against Homelessness: Mixed Method Research Projects (PI: Prof. Colette (Coco) Auerswald, MD, MS, UC Berkeley School of Public Health) - YEDI Affiliated Project

Colette (Coco) Auerswald - Professor, Public Health

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

BACKGROUND Youth and Allies Against Homelessness (YAAH) is a research team based in i4Y (Innovations for Youth), a Berkeley School of Public Health research center. YAAH is made up of people with lived experience of homelessness or that have a deep commitment to ending youth homelessness. This includes youth community...

 Social Sciences   Biological & Health Sciences

Battle of the Sexes - Testing for cheating Sex Chromosomes during Meiosis

Doris Bachtrog - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Sex chromosomes are expected to segregate equally during meiosis, but in many species they show signs of genetic conflict. In Drosophila, certain genes are found in unusually high copy number on the X or Y chromosome, suggesting they may act as “meiotic drivers” that bias their own transmission at the...

 Biological & Health Sciences

The Patient Support Corps at UCSF

Jeff Belkora - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

STUDENT TESTIMONIALS “This apprenticeship has been the highlight of my time at Berkeley. It has given me a chance to help patients in difficult medical situations, and as a pre-health undergraduate, this is important to me.” “It is a great opportunity to get clinical experience and work with like...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Social Sciences   Engineering, Design & Technologies   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Customer demographics, fintech entry and the structure of financial intermediation

Matteo Benetton - Professor, Business, Haas School

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The project is part of a large agenda trying to understand how banks compete in an evolving environment affected by changing demographics and the entry non fintech lenders and bigtech firms. One project is studying the heterogeneous preferences of borrowers and savers to explain the lengthening of the financial intermediation...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Social Sciences

Undergraduate Humanities Writer

Stephen Best - Professor, Townsend Center

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

The Undergraduate Humanities Writer covers humanities-related events and programs at Berkeley's Townsend Center for the Humanities and across campus...

 Arts & Humanities

Use your CS/AI/ML coding and hacking skills to help direct cash transfers to poor households in need!

Joshua Blumenstock - Professor, Information, School of

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

At the Global Opportunity Lab (gol.berkeley.edu), we view the world’s most pressing policy challenges as opportunities to develop transformative policy solutions. Harnessing state-of-the-art data science, computation, and analytic tools, we generate insights and innovations that promote prosperity and expand opportunity across the globe. Our lab is currently...

 Social Sciences   Digital Humanities and Data Science

Documenting Latinx Contributions to Health Care Access and Services

Charles Briggs - Professor, Latinx Research Center

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Project Title: Documenting Latinx Contributions to Health Care Access and Services “That's what you call solidarity. Everybody pitching in, everybody doing their part. We each one, teach one, each one, reach one!” - Yolanda Chacon- Serna (labor organizer and health advocate) “Health is politics by other means.” Alondra Nelson, author of...

 Social Sciences   Biological & Health Sciences

The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO): Undergraduate Research Apprentice (Role 1 of 3)

Travis Bristol - Professor, Education

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Background: The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO), launched by Faculty Director Travis J. Bristol, at UC Berkeley School of Education, uses research to shape policy and practice in service of creating opportunities for students and adults historically at the margins to move closer to the center in...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO): Undergraduate Research Apprentice (Role 2 of 3)

Travis Bristol - Professor, Education

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Background: The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO), launched by Faculty Director Travis J. Bristol, at UC Berkeley School of Education, uses research to shape policy and practice in service of creating opportunities for students and adults historically at the margins to move closer to the center in...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO): Undergraduate Research Apprentice (Role 3 of 3)

Travis Bristol - Professor, Education

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Background: The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO), launched by Faculty Director Travis J. Bristol, at UC Berkeley School of Education, uses research to shape policy and practice in service of creating opportunities for students and adults historically at the margins to move closer to the center in...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

Supporting Bay Area Immigrant Families through Community-Engaged Research and Practice

Stephanie Canizales - Professor, Sociology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

UC Berkeley is a premier migration research institution with a wealth of knowledge that can be powerfully leveraged by local organizations serving immigrant families in the region. The "Supporting Bay Area Immigrant Families" Project aims to survey immigration-related research produced by UC Berkeley scholars to create a publicly available...

 Social Sciences

Rater Effects in School-Based Mental Health Screening: A Mixed-Method Approach

Maggie Chan - Professor, Education

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Universal social-emotional and behavioral (SEB) screening in school is a recognized solution to the mental health crisis among children and youth. However, the effectiveness of school-based SEB screening to address this public health concern is contingent on the fairness and validity of the assessments. Most SEB screeners are...

Mechanism underlying visual processing in people with visual impairment

Susana Chung - Professor, Optometry

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

This research project focuses on the understanding of how the visual system works in people with normal vision, as well as in people with uncorrectable sub-normal vision (visual impairment). Uncorrectable sub-normal vision can occur as a result of an eye disease (e.g. macular degeneration, the leading cause of...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Plasticity of the visual system following vision loss

Susana Chung - Professor, Optometry

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

This research project focuses on the understanding of how the visual system responds to the onset of vision loss as a result of eye diseases. By understanding how the visual system responds to vision loss, our ultimate goal is to develop effective rehabilitative strategies to help people with vision loss...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Face and Object Recognition: Normal and Low Vision

Susana Chung - Professor, Optometry

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

The research project focuses on the understanding of how the visual system recognizes faces and other objects in normally sighted people and people with low vision. Psychophysical methods, retinal imaging and functional brain imaging will be used to answer the research question...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Feature detection and enhancement in peripheral vision

Susana Chung - Professor, Optometry

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Loss of vision in the central visual field brings about dramatic changes to everyday activities (e.g. reading, identifying objects). This research project focuses on identifying how the informative features of objects contribute to overall visual function, with the clinical goal of visual performance improvement by enhancing selected parts of objects...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

The Archive of Latinx Feelings: 19th Century Letters, Notebooks, Diaries, Books

Raul Coronado - Professor, Ethnic Studies

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

How can we write a history of Latine feelings? How can private writing give us access to how Mexicans in the Southwest thought about their feelings, their interiority, their sense of self? Knowing more about this can give us a better sense of two things: how have Latine communities expressed...

 Arts & Humanities   Social Sciences

Investigation of the mechanism of sleep pressure and its dysregulation in Parkinson's disease

Yang Dan - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Sleep problems are a common symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and in some cases an early warning sign before movement deficits. Sleep problems in PD are diverse and can be made worse by medications that treat other PD symptoms by affecting dopamine or norepinephrine levels in the brain. While dopamine...

 Biological & Health Sciences

Harnessing data to enhance youth wellbeing: Quantitative research for THESIS (Thriving and Health Equity through Social Inclusion in Schools)

Sean Darling-Hammond - Professor, Public Health

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

The THESIS Lab (Thriving and Health Equity through Social Inclusion in Schools) features a vibrant team of postdoctoral scholars / staff, PhD students, Masters students, and undergraduate students. Led by Dr. Sean Darling-Hammond with support from Dr. Stephanie Guinosso, we are conducting an array of quantitative methods projects using data...

 Social Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Research Assistant for Local Laws

Diag Davenport - Professor, Information, School of

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

According to the internet (and ChatGPT), it is unlawful to whistle for a lost canary before 7 AM in Berkeley. Are you skeptical of this claim? In which case, you would probably want to look up canary laws in Berkeley. Unfortunately, you cannot easily do this. If you could, you...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

Empirical Analysis & Data Visualization -- Behavioral Evidence & Algorithmic Bias

Diag Davenport - Professor, Information, School of

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

This project examines how institutions shape behavior not only through incentives, but through responsibility, timing, and attention—and how individuals and algorithms adapt to those institutional environments. Across a set of empirical and experimental papers, we study situations where people are placed into short-run institutional “states” (e.g., waiting for...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

Database creator -- legal knowledge facilitator

Diag Davenport - Professor, Information, School of

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

According to the internet (and ChatGPT), it is unlawful to whistle for a lost canary before 7 AM in Berkeley. Are you skeptical of this claim? In which case, you would probably want to look up canary laws in Berkeley. Unfortunately, you cannot easily do this. If you could, you...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

"Aim at Empire": Image Research Assistants for Book Project on the Arms Trade in the Age of Revolutions

Brian DeLay - Professor, History

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

None of the revolutionaries who transformed the Americas in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries could mass-produce their own guns and ammunition. They had to rely on the international arms trade. Aim at Empire is the first book to explore how access to weapons (or lack thereof) shaped...

 Social Sciences   Arts & Humanities   Digital Humanities and Data Science

Early-Stage Research in Behavioral Economics and Applied Micro

Stefano DellaVigna - Professor, Economics

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

This URAP project exposes the students to 2-3 ongoing projects that the professor (Stefano) is working on. The idea of this URAP group is to provide a sampling of research at the frontier in applied behavioral economics and in other areas of applied microeconomics that Stefano works on. As such...

 Social Sciences

Transcription and analysis of archival documents dealing with the history of the transatlantic slave trade

Jeroen Dewulf - Professor, Dutch Studies

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

My research focuses on the history of the transatlantic slave trade, for which I collect archival materials from/about Africa and the Americas. I am requesting assistance from one or several URAP students for the transcription of some archival documents...

 Arts & Humanities

Using AI to measure the quality and equity of private health services serving the poor in Mexico

William Dow, Public Health

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Mexico’s public healthcare system has faced underfunding, leading to saturation of primary services and reducing the quality and accessibility for the population. Moreover, there is still a large population that remains uninsured. As a response, people have sought private services to cover their demands. In the last 20 years, Pharmacy...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Social Sciences

A Robotic Model for the Evolution of Insect Flight

Robert Dudley - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Flying insects are the most diverse and abundant form of animal life in the terrestrial biosphere. However, the origins of insect flight remain obscure given the absence of a transitional fossil record. This project will involve construction of a small robot that mimics the likely morphology of early insects, and...

 Biological & Health Sciences

Law & Finance

Ofer Eldar - Professor, Law

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

I am seeking a Research Assistant to support a law and finance project under my supervision at Berkeley Law. The work will involve scraping and analyzing corporate filings from the SEC website. The position requires strong proficiency in Python, including web scraping and data processing, and experience with large language...

 Social Sciences

Research Assistant in the Social Origins Lab (Cooperation and Social Reasoning in Children)

Jan Engelmann - Professor, Psychology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

To apply, please fill out this Google form: https://forms.gle/P3za6Er1XdTCzJN88 We address questions about the evolution and development of socio-cognitive skills by comparing humans to other animals (mostly chimpanzees, our closest living relatives) and by studying how children develop. How do children reason? How strongly is reasoning embedded...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

Lead Research Assistant in the Social Origins Lab (Cooperation and Social Reasoning in Children)

Jan Engelmann - Professor, Psychology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

To apply, please fill out this google form: https://forms.gle/3JBREzYm2rGJoALy7 By thinking together, human beings achieve things that are impossible for our primate relatives. In the long term, this is facilitated by cumulative culture: our capacity to absorb and transmit information through subsequent generations. Within each generation, this iterative...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

Open-source software development for conservation genomics

Moisés Expósito-Alonso - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

International conservation policies including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework now consider genetic diversity of wild species in their targets. However, scalable, theory-driven tools to assess and predict genetic diversity loss are still emerging, limiting their use in conservation planning. Analogous to the species-area relationship, recent work has...

 Biological & Health Sciences

Soft Pouch Robots for Minimally Invasive Surgeries and Beyond

Ronald Fearing - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

We are looking for students interested in robot design, fabrication, and testing of pouch-based robots, for applications in minimally invasive surgery and beyond. Current surgical tools cannot navigate tortuous anatomical corridors, and as a result, accessing certain locations requires extensive tissue removal, general anesthesia, and a full operating room...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies

Technical projects involving ML/AI

Anastassia Fedyk - Professor, Business, Haas School

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

This is an opportunity to work on technical projects involving ML/AI. The projects include: (i) working with a large dataset of over 400 million employment profiles (resumes) in order to understand global employment dynamics and firm performance by structuring and analyze the large textual data; (ii) building custom large...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Social Sciences

Web Development and Graphic Design

Anastassia Fedyk - Professor, Business, Haas School

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

This project supports Professor Anastassia Fedyk’s research and policy work with web development and graphic design. The project involves maintaining and improving policy-related web resources such as Econ4UA.org, as well as designing and running experimental RCTs and surveys (sometimes involving new websites, sometimes executing simple Qualtrics surveys). Finally, the...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Social Sciences

Economic Analysis for Public Policy

Anastassia Fedyk - Professor, Business, Haas School

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

This project assists in Professor Fedyk's more practical research, including not only her research papers but also frequent media interviews and the op-eds she writes for outlets such as Washington Post and LA Times. Example topics covered in this project include: Macroeconomic policies in the US and abroad; Measuring...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Social Sciences

Big Data Preparation

Anastassia Fedyk - Professor, Business, Haas School

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

This project focuses on data: hand-collecting new data, improving existing data, and structuring large messy data. Today, very large data sets are often at the heart of many social science research questions. However, those data sets can be plagued by big data problems: missing data, bad data, duplicate data...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Social Sciences

California Puzzle: Expanding Children's Access to Preschool

Bruce Fuller - Professor, Education

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

California is spending billions to widen children's access to affordable preschool. But the growth of the governor's favored program appears to be killing-off existing pre-K centers. This project delves into this unanticipated dynamic and how to prevent greater erosion of preschool supply. The affordability of families (or lack...

Estimating the Impacts of Healthcare Mergers and Acquisitions

Brent Fulton - Associate Director, Public Health

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Healthcare providers and insurers have consolidated in the past decade, leading to higher prices without a commensurate increase in quality. The study will extend the evidence base on the effects of healthcare consolidation, including understanding the impacts of hospital-to-hospital affiliations and the impacts of private equity firms acquiring...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Social Sciences

Improving Equity Using Private Investments

Brent Fulton - Associate Director, Public Health

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In the United States, government spending on programs (excluding health programs) targeting low-income populations total about $450 billion per year, whereas personal savings in the U.S. totals about $1 trillion per year. Hence, the potential for private investment to improve equity is significant, but would be the rate of...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Social Sciences

Yurok transcription and translation

Andrew Garrett - Professor, Linguistics

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Participants will help transform archival field recordings into resources used for linguistic research and language revitalization...

 Social Sciences   Arts & Humanities

Website integration of DNA Sequencing Facility sample submission, data handling, and pipeline development / optimization.

Scott Geller - Research Scientist, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

We are a campus research unit located in Barker Hall at the Northwest corner of the UC Berkeley campus. We support primarily on-campus molecular scientists and related professionals (graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, staff, etc) with their DNA sequencing and analysis needs. As DNA sequencing technologies continually advance, so...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Engineering, Design & Technologies

Neutron Detection for Basic Science and Nuclear Security

Bethany Goldblum - Professor, Nuclear Engineering

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Organic scintillators are materials that emit light when excited by ionizing radiation. They are particularly attractive for fast neutron detection with applications in fusion diagnostics, nuclear security and proliferation detection technologies, and curiosity-driven science. Our group works on a wide range of aspects of scintillator science and engineering, from...

 Mathematical and Physical Sciences

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