URAP

Carl Boettiger - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

Become familiar with the mathematical, statistical, and computational tools used in the group and learn how to apply these methods to answer questions in ecological research and conservation decision making. Emphasis on the use of deep reinforcement learning and best practices in data science software development...

Carl Boettiger - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Develop, test, and visualize methods for forecasting ecological variables such as carbon flux, beetle abundance, or indicators of aquatic ecosystem health...

Justin Brashares - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Monitoring the status of wildlife populations is critical to assessing ecosystem health. Rapid advances in machine learning and engineering have recently allowed researchers to deploy acoustic recorders that autonomously capture and classify population trends for vocalizing species, such as birds. Currently, UC Berkeley is preparing to launching the first ever...

Justin Brashares - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

Several aspects of global change are changing the dynamics of fire ecology across California and around the world. Recent fires have had devastating effects on livelihoods across the state, but little remains known of the direct and indirect impacts of these fires on wildlife species and the implications of those...

Justin Brashares - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Non-invasive techniques are increasingly valuable for ecologists to be able to collect data on the distribution, population sizes, behavior, and diet of wildlife species. The California Wolf Project led by Arthur Middleton and Justin Brashares at UC-Berkeley is teaming up with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife...

Tianna Bruno - Professor, Geography

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

In this project, undergraduate student researchers will focus on one or two of the following aspects of a broader digital humanities project: 1) archival analysis of historical records related to 'environmental burdens' in an environmental justice community. Students will work to chart a history of the country's largest refinery and...

Tianna Bruno - Professor, Geography

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Students will assist in the creation of a digital humanities project on Black geographies and environmental justice. Over the past four years, I have collaborated with community organizations and community members to collect oral histories focused on Black history, environmental relationships, and connections to place in Port Arthur, Texas, a...

Tamma Carleton - Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

We are looking for highly motivated students interested in conducting research and analyses on a project investigating the impacts of climate change on human migration at global scale. This research initiative aims to leverage large historical datasets to empirically quantify how human migration responds to climate change, both within and...

Roger Eardley-Pryor - Oral History Interviewer, Oral History Center of UC Berkeley

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The Oral History Center (OHC) of The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley has conducted thousands of oral history interviews since its establishment in 1953, including hundreds of deeply researched, multiple-session interviews with women and men engaged in natural resource extraction, energy production, and environmental activism. Transcripts and original audio...

Gordon Frankie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Under the direction of Dr. Gordon Frankie, the UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab is monitoring diversity and abundance of California native bee species (1600 species state-wide) and their plant preferences at various locations throughout the state. In addition to studies in California, the Lab also investigates native bee diversity...

Rosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

This project looks at how communities of organisms come together, and the role of ecology (migrating into a community, trophic level) and evolution (adaptation and speciation) in determining the composition of species in a community. This in turn will provide information on sensitivity to invasion and probability of speciation and...

Rosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

No matter the size, all organisms interact with the world via their senses. Sensory input dictates reactions to stimuli, and the ability of organisms to adapt their neurological and sensory structures is critical to success and survival. Web building spiders in particular use webs as an extension and enhancement of...

Rosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

There are two key projects here: (1) Temporal Diversification and Evolutionary History of the Cribellum in Mesh-web Spiders: Webs play many essential roles in spider biology, including communication, prey capture, locomotion, and reproduction. One interesting morphological feature of many spiders is the cribellum, a plate located near the silk...

Rosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

This project focuses on the biodiversity of insects and spiders on Pacific islands. Biodiversity surveys often accumulate a ton of specimens, but it is usually hard to figure out what the species actually are. Many species cannot be identified because they are immature, or are not yet described. In this...

John Harte - Professor, Energy and Resources

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Students will work with Prof. Harte to formulate and explore mathematical models describing ecosystems that are far from steady state as a consequence of human and/or natural disturbance. Testing of model predictions with available data sets will also be carried...

John Harte - Professor, Energy and Resources

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Vegetation and microclimate data collected from Sierran red fir forest will be used to assess the role of environmental parameters (e.g., temperature, soil moisture) in successful establishment of conifer tree seedlings. The project will advance niche theory by examining spatially-explicit relationships between the environmental parameters and measures of seedling...

Barbara Haya - Research Fellow, Public Policy

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

Carbon offsets are being widely used to meet carbon neutrality goals. Improved forest management offset projects have generated around 45% of credits from projects based in the United States but research has shown that programs are grossly over-estimating project benefits. We are working with an interdisciplinary team of researchers...

Barbara Haya - Research Fellow, Public Policy

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

Carbon offsets are being widely used to meet carbon neutrality goals. Many offset credits sold on the offset market represent significantly less climate benefit than they claim. We are conducting a series of studies of major offset project types to better understand their impact and quality...

Barbara Haya - Research Fellow, Public Policy

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: Off Campus

The Berkeley Carbon Trading Project's Voluntary Registry Offsets Database is an important source of information and transparency in the carbon offset market and has been widely used by researchers, offset credit raters, offset buyers, and others. We welcome help from two or three advanced undergraduate students in automating the database...

Kristina Hill - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Air pollution can have major effects on people's health, with impacts ranging from asthma to Type II diabetes. We wanted to support SF Bay Area disadvantaged communities by giving them data that tracks their exposure to pollutants like PM2.5. By making an interpolated surface of Purple Air sensor data for...

Daniel Kammen - Professor, Energy and Resources

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

California has committed to fully eliminate carbon pollution from electricity by the year 2045, by passing landmark state bill SB100. Alongside, several bills have been passed to move towards deep emissions reduction in all sectors, including buildings and transport. Decarbonizing existing buildings (around 13 million residential homes along with large...

Daniel Kammen - Professor, Energy and Resources

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The technological basis for launching and operating orbiting solar generating plants is rapidly improving due to decreases in the cost of rocket launches ($/kg of payload), and improvements in durable thin-film solar and microwave beaming technology. The project is to build data-sets to inform a series of projections...

Daniel Kammen - Professor, Energy and Resources

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

The purpose of this project is to collect, analyze and visualize data on energy, transportation, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, GHG drivers, household carbon footprints, climate action planning, and equity into a single, data-driven climate action portal for all California cities and communities...

Daniel Kammen - Professor, Energy and Resources

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

This project focuses on assessment of energy system resources, GHG balances and design of regional opportunities for expansion of distributed generation and micro grids in urban-agriculture interface zones across regions in California and regions with similar geo-physical resources and socio-economic features. The project will use Geographic Information...

Michael Kiparsky - Associate Director, Law

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

California faces major challenges with groundwater governance. Groundwater is a crucial source of water for Californians, but Californians are pumping more groundwater than is naturally replenished. That leads to growing aquifer depletion, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley, with a variety of negative human health, environmental, and economic consequences. Some...

Michael Kiparsky - Associate Director, Law

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In 2014, California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). This law tasks local government agencies with developing and implementing groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) to achieve sustainable groundwater management within their groundwater basins. Among other things, GSPs explain what management actions local agencies will take to achieve sustainability (for example...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Influenzas infect 3-5 million hosts annually. Originating in avian hosts, novel strains of influenza virus have high mortality when they are transmitted to humans. Live poultry markets, including those in Bangladesh, are known focal points of disease transmission. We have collected data on building dynamics, worker exposures, and airborne avian...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

In large parts of Sub Saharan Africa, health facilities (e.g. hospitals and clinics) lack appropriate energy infrastructure. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where much of the continent's unelectrified are exposed to both climate and conflict pressures, the near-total absence of a central grid requires the health sector...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Exposure to animal feces can cause diarrhea, but not all animal feces are the same. While chicken poop can cause many child health issues, cow dung is used for many practical and spiritual purposes. What are people using cow dung for? How does this affect their spiritual lives, health, and...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

As temperatures continue to rise, workplace heat exposure presents an increasing challenge to occupational health and safety. This reality positions climate change as an important labor rights issue. Workers in developing countries will be among those most affected. Still, there exists limited research on the impacts of climate change on...

Lu Liang - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

The summer of 2023 witnessed record-breaking temperatures, with July being marked as the hottest month on record. The southern United States bore the brunt of this heat catastrophe, exemplified by the Dallas-Fort Worth area's numerous daily high temperature records—20 days surpassing 105°F and 42 days exceeding...

Lu Liang - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

The urban heat island (UHI) and urban pollution island (UPI) represent critical socio-environmental challenges that have a global impact on cities. These phenomena, characterized by elevated temperatures and increased pollution levels compared to non-urban areas, are the result of significant shifts in human settlement patterns and associated anthropogenic...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

At present, flowering plants (angiosperms) represent ~90% of the land plant species and are dominant in most global biomes. However, the first flowering plant is known from the fossil record around 135 million years ago (mya) during the Early Cretaceous, much more recent compared to the gymnosperms, which first appeared...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

In many ways, the Earth of the Permian period (298.9-251.9 million years ago) would have looked alien to a modern observer: the Earth’s surface was divided between the supercontinent Pangea and the superocean Panthalassa, strange animals neither mammal nor dinosaur dominated terrestrial faunas, and no flower would bloom for more...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Pollinators are essential components of a healthy ecosystem and provide vital benefits to both plants and animals. The student-run pollinator garden around the Valley Life Science Building (VLSB) supports native arthropods (e.g. insects and spiders) and other wildlife and is an environmental education resource for students. We plan to...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Plants are adapted to the physical conditions in their environments, including temperature, precipitation, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and light level. In cooler and drier habitats, leaves tend to be smaller with condensed venation and toothed margins. While under warmer and wetter conditions, leaves tend to be larger, have ‘drip tips’, and...

Charles Marshall - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

The colonization of land by plants and animals from the oceans was pivotal in our planet’s history, leading to major climate change and the evolution of the great forests, dinosaurs, and our own species. However, the first terrestrial and freshwater aquatic ecosystems are poorly understood due to a spotty fossil...

Charles Marshall - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

This research seeks to understand the factors responsible for species dispersal. Specifically, we are interested in dispersals during an event known as the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI). GABI was a large-scale exchange of taxa between North and South America via the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama. These...

Patina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Streams in California have a variety of forms including: (a) intermittent streams that only flow for part of the year, and often are dry throughout the summer, (b) protected streams in national, state, regional, and county parts, and (c) urban streams that serve recreational needs and stormwater management. The project...

Patina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Studies in ecology and evolution rely on properly curated museum material and access to museum records and specimen. Caddisflies, in the insect order Trichoptera, are aquatic insects closely related to moths and butterflies. In this project, the student will assist with labeling, organizing, and curating caddisflies. The student will also...

Chandra Middleton - Staff Researcher, Center for Law, Energy and the Environment

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

The Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment’s (CLEE) Climate Break podcast brings listeners stories of climate progress and interviews with climate innovators from California and around the world, in under 2 minutes. Our episodes are solution-oriented and almost entirely produced by Berkeley students—including undergraduates, law students, and journalism...

Chandra Middleton - Staff Researcher, Center for Law, Energy and the Environment

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Want a chance to help communities adapt to climate change? Want to support people as they engage with environmental law to help make their world more livable and communities more resilient to environmental hazards? Join the Forging Resilience team! Forging Resilience, a project of the Center for Law, Energy, & the...

Daniel Okamoto - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Climate change is dramatically altering the oceans. These changes include increases in sea surface temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and primary productivity. We use experiments and field data to assess how these changes affect the physiology, growth, reproduction, and behavior of marine animals. We have numerous samples from past experiments and...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Project Overview: California faces dual challenges of ambitious climate commitments and a severe affordable housing crisis. This project aims to address these challenges by developing and scaling the use of Engineered Living Materials (ELM)—advanced biomaterials that integrate living cells with synthetic scaffolds. These materials can sense, respond to, and...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Overview: Public debates and policies are increasingly shifting to include nature and nature-related risks and mitigations in climate discourse. Chief among nature-related risks are issues centered on biodiversity. These frameshifts are evidenced by multilateral agreements such as the Global Biodiversity Framework and a suite of regulations coming out...

Robert Rhew - Professor, Geography

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

We are will accept up to 3 Fall URAP students to join the Atmospheric Biogeochemistry Laboratory for projects involving the terrestrial sources and sinks of trace gases in the atmosphere, including methane, methyl halides, hydrogen, and hydrocarbons. Students will gain laboratory skills and experience, including: prepping air sampling equipment, conducting...

George Roderick - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: Off Campus

This project is focused on the residential urban gardens of the East Bay and how those gardens impact butterfly communities with a focus on the Western Monarch butterfly. The project covers topics of native and non-native plants, invasive arthropods, urban gardens, and changes in species interactions. This project is...

George Roderick - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

In our lab, we are interested in the ecology and evolutionary history of arthropod (insect and spider) species. We mostly study arthropods from Hawaii and other islands in the Pacific, but also species in California and elsewhere. Some are native species, some are recent invasive species, and some are introduced...

George Roderick - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Are you interested in science news and social media? In our lab, we study the ecological and evolutionary history of arthropod (insect and spider) species--the "little things that run the earth." We mostly study arthropods from Hawaii and other islands in the Pacific. Our current project aims...

George Roderick - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Biodiversity surveys often accumulate many many insect and spider specimens, but it is usually hard to figure out what the species actually are. Many species are not yet described and many are found in an area for the first time, or the species are not yet in DNA databases. In...