URAP

Justin Brashares - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Open     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...

Sharad Chari - Professor, Geography

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

The idea of the Blue Economy has taken hold as a way of thinking about very different things, from deep sea mining to fishing and shipping, and to new ways of thinking about human interaction with the vast oceanic environment that is beyond our understanding. The idea of deepening extraction...

Barbara Haya - Research Fellow, Public Policy

Status: Open     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: Open     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: Open     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 updating the database...

Layla Kwong - Professor, Public Health

Status: Open     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...

Lu Liang - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

The urban heat island phenomenon, characterized by significantly higher temperatures in urban areas compared to surrounding rural areas, is a critical global challenge with significant social and environmental impacts. While satellite remote sensing provides valuable data on land surface temperatures, it does not directly measure the ambient air temperatures that...

Lu Liang - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

Understanding urban climate dynamics, such as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, requires comprehensive datasets on urban morphology and land cover. Local Climate Zones (LCZs) provide a standardized framework for classifying urban and rural areas based on their physical and surface properties. A global LCZ database is essential for analyzing...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Open     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 on the south side of the Valley Life Science Building (VLSB) supports native insects, spiders, and other wildlife and is an environmental education resource for students. Our goal...

Patina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Open     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: Open     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...

Daniel Okamoto - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Open     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...

Daniel Okamoto - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Wild fish populations are often subject to high levels of mortality from industrialized human harvest. Harvest mortality, particularly under certain environmental contexts, may have indirect, unpredictable effects on populations' biology beyond simply the removal of individuals from a population. To study these effects, we are using an experimental model system...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Open     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...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Forest restoration is an increasingly relevant topic across the globe, hailed as a key component to solutions for climate change, biodiversity crises, and sustainable development. Despite a growing awareness of the importance of forests and the need for ecosystem restoration, crucial information on natural forest regeneration processes is often lacking...

Mary Power - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

The Angelo Coast Range Reserve is a UC Berkeley Natural Reserve System site in Mendocino County, on the South Fork of the Eel River. Angelo is the site of numerous historical and current UC Berkeley research studies, and collections by UC Berkeley Natural History museums. The proposed research project is...

Robert Rhew - Professor, Geography

Status: Open     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...

Albert Ruhi Vidal - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

The flux of leaf litter from the riparian zone is a major energy pathway into streams, and, thus, litter breakdown is a critical ecosystem-level process affecting both the carbon and nutrient cycles as well as stream food webs. Leaf litter decomposition is influenced by litter quantity and quality (i.e...

Albert Ruhi Vidal - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

How could we best manage local water supplies in ways that benefit communities and rivers? Los Angeles County in Southern California imports the majority of its water. After residents use this water, wastewater treatment facilities clean it and then generally discharge it into local streams, such as the Los Angeles...

Albert Ruhi Vidal - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Climate change is shifting the distribution of the Earth’s water resources spatially and temporally. In most of California, multi-year droughts are projected to increase in frequency and magnitude by the end of the century. Predicting the impacts of drought on freshwater ecosystems remains, however, a key challenge. This is...

Albert Ruhi Vidal - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

In seasonal wetlands like vernal pools, the hydroperiod fundamentally influences community composition and structure. Vernal pools are seasonal wetlands that are wet during the fall and winter, and dry during the spring and summer. They support many endemic plant and animal species, many of which are listed as federally threatened...

Carol Spencer - Staff Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

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

We are taking new students for Prep Lab Assistant, Bone Numbering and Tag Tying, Bird, Herp, Fish and Mammal Curatorial Assistants. See descriptions below. At the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), University of California, Berkeley, we offer many unique opportunities to participate in MVZ endeavors and learn about natural history...

Nicole Starosielski - Professor, Film Studies

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

In response to the critical role of regenerative agriculture in combating climate change, we seek to conduct groundbreaking research that will drive the development of innovative policies in California to catalyze widespread adoption of regenerative practices. Our team is working to transform California's agricultural landscape through cutting-edge public-private...