URAP

Alice Agogino - Professor, Mechanical Engineering

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

Description: Squishy robots are rapidly deployable mobile sensing robots for disaster rescue, remote monitoring and space exploration. Our emergent technologies are at the fusion of robotics, mobile sensing, machine learning, big data fusion and smart IoT (Internet of Things). Our first target market was the HazMat and CBRNE (Chemical, biological...

Alice Agogino - Professor, Mechanical Engineering

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

Squishy robots are rapidly deployable mobile sensing robots for disaster rescue, remote monitoring and space exploration. Our emergent technologies are at the fusion of robotics, mobile sensing, machine learning, big data fusion and smart IoT (Internet of Things). This semester we will focus on smart sensor robots for early detection...

Reza Alam - Professor, Mechanical Engineering

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

We are seeking motivated students to contribute to the design, fabrication, and testing of wave energy converters (WECs) for autonomous sailboat drones. The goal is to develop compact, efficient systems that harvest wave energy to extend mission endurance. Students will gain hands-on experience in mechanical design, marine engineering, prototyping...

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...

David Bamman - Professor, Information, School of

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

In this project, we will explore the techniques that fiction uses to evoke suspense in readers, as well as how these techniques represent anxiety in fictional characters in US and UK short fiction from 1800 to 1960. We will also investigate the extent to which computational models can capture suspense...

David Bamman - Professor, Information, School of

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

In this project, we will build a multilingual corpus of literary texts and their translations. We are seeking three apprentices, one specialized in French, one in Polish, and one in Spanish-language literature. The primary research will involve locating and compiling relevant primary texts in the target language, including preparing...

Jeff Belkora - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

PLEASE NOTE A PROJECT-SPECIFIC VARIANCE FROM THE GENERAL URAP STATEMENT OF INTEREST INSTRUCTIONS IN THE DESCRIPTION BELOW. *** This project is a semester-long pre-requisite (requirement) for students interested in continuing on with the main Patient Support Corps URAP project. You can read the main project description at the...

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...

Liz Galvez - Professor, Architecture

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

This research project investigates weaving as both a structural and environmental strategy for architecture. Students will develop and construct a series of physical models that combine lightweight wood structures with woven surfaces. These models will be used as experimental prototypes to study how variations in weaving pattern, density, geometry, and...

Liz Galvez - Professor, Architecture

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

Project Description: This project addresses the challenges posed by extreme weather conditions and growing energy instability by exploring experimental approaches to managing interior environments. The research proposes architectural strategies that allow for multiplicity of indoor climates and environmental management. To bridge academic exploration with real-world applications, the project culminates...

Liz Galvez - Professor, Architecture

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

This research project explores how a single interior can produce multiple thermal environments through architectural form, material, and passive environmental strategies. Organized as a loft containing distinct climatic zones, the project investigates how differences in temperature, air movement, solar exposure, thermal mass, and enclosure might allow occupants to move between...

Paul Gertler - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

Interested in field experiments, primary data collection, and research management? Join a research team at UC Berkeley studying how to support student mental health at scale. Laura Chioda, Paul Gertler, and Gautam Rao are leading a randomized evaluation of a new approach to wellness support for students at UC Berkeley...

Paul Gertler - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

This research project examines the landscape of GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) medication access and availability in the United States, with particular focus on how policies, insurance coverage, and healthcare infrastructure shape patient outcomes. Undergraduates will contribute to a comprehensive policy analysis that traces the evolution of GLP-1...

Paul Gertler - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

Join a dynamic research team conducting multiple randomized controlled trials (RCTs) studying financial inclusion, digital credit, and entrepreneurship training in East Africa and around the world. This position offers hands-on experience with active field experiments and completed studies now in the analysis phase—ideal preparation for predoc positions and...

Peng He - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

This project provides a hands-on introduction to benchmarking or advancing state-of-the-art computational tools used in single-cell and spatial transcriptomics analysis. With the rapid growth of available software and datasets, there is a pressing need to evaluate, compare, and optimize tools across a wide range of...

Peng He - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

The map of cells in our body is far from being complete. This project is a computational and conceptual exploration of human biology through the lens of integrated single-cell atlases. Students will collect and reanalyze published single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-seq datasets to discover rare or underappreciated...

Peng He - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

This project investigates how cells behave and interact in their native environments by analyzing spatial gene expression data. Interns will use Visium and Xenium spatial transcriptomics datasets to identify tissue microenvironments, reconstruct 3D spatial maps, and apply computational tools like NicheFormer, and contribute to research articles by generating publication-grade...

Peng He - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

This project focuses on the discovery, optimization, and interpretation of gene signatures in massive single-cell and spatial transcriptomics datasets. Students will contribute to the development of scalable computational methods to extract meaningful biological patterns across thousands of samples and millions of cells. The research involves both algorithm development and...

Cesunica Ivey, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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

Healthy Martinez is a grassroots community group created to hold Martinez Refining Company (MRC), their parent company (PBF Energy) and other refineries in our area accountable for fires, flaring, and daily emissions that are polluting our air, water and soil. Apprentices will support personal measurements of speciated PM2.5 and time...

Cesunica Ivey, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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

Marin City Climate Resilience is dedicated to safeguarding the environment and promoting sustainability. We focus on implementing strategies to enhance climate resilience and mitigate environmental risks in Marin City, CA. By engaging with the community and advocating for sustainable practices, we aim to create a more resilient and environmentally conscious...

Yehuda Kalay - Professor, Architecture

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

How can AI help save lives during high-rise building fires? High-rise residential buildings present unique fire-safety challenges because of their high occupant density, complex evacuation conditions, and extended egress times. In 2023, San Francisco adopted a Fire Code amendment requiring automatic sprinkler retrofits in all residential high...

Waqas Khalid - Associate Scientist, QB3

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

Be the first to utilize/use cutting edge nanotechnology developed by Dr. Waqas Khalid, Berkeley Scientist and collaborators to solve problems in healthcare, energy and semiconductor industries. Join Dr. Khalid’s URAP program and learn about nanostructure based devices that have applications in monitoring human health, energy harvesting, energy storage, environmental...

Asir Intisar Khan - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

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

As nanoelectronics evolves, managing heat becomes critical, particularly in high-density 3D chips for AI workloads. Uneven power dissipation leads to localized ‘hot spots’ that compromise device reliability and safety. Current thermal management approaches, such as using high thermal conductivity materials, optimizing through-silicon vias, and passive cooling, often overlook...

Lu Liang - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

Schoolyard trees are a low-cost, nature-based solution to environmental and social challenges, from reducing extreme heat and improving air quality to supporting student well-being. Research shows that access to trees can lower stress, boost attention, foster social connections, and even improve academic performance. However, many schools lack...

Simo Makiharju - Professor, Mechanical Engineering

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

Gas-liquid flows play an important role in the environment, and in many transportation, biological and industrial processes. The FLOW lab is presently studying 1) structures of gas jets in water, 2) gas entertainment by plunging water jets, 3) air-water flows for frictional drag reduction, and 4) forces on...

Karen Nakamura - Professor, Anthropology

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

The Berkeley Disability Lab (https://disabilitylab.berkeley.edu/) has been involved in several projects surrounding disability, technology, art, activism, and access in the Bay Area. We welcome students from all fields of the university (arts, engineering, social sciences, communications, CS, design, music, architecture, etc.). People with personal experience of disability or exclusion...

Zachary Pardos - Professor, Education

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

The AskOski project (https://askoski.berkeley.edu/about) is a research and development effort led by Professor Pardos to transfer the latest in big data and machine learning research to the domain of course guidance in higher ed. The recommender system is live in-production at Berkeley, with partial deployments at several...

Zachary Pardos - Professor, Education

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

Adaptive tutoring systems are designed to provide students in K-12 and intro college courses a personalized homework experience. This means giving the right problem to a student at the right time based on a continuous assessment of their mastery of a skill. At Berkeley, the ALEKS system is used...

Saul Perlmutter - Professor, Physics

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

Developing a deep understanding of complex public policy issues often requires more time than most citizens can reasonably devote. Because of this, political polls tend to measure people’s first impressions rather than what their more informed opinions might be. Deliberative Polling is a process designed to address this limitation. Participants...

Saul Perlmutter - Professor, Physics

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

It has been thought that the accelerated expansion of our universe is caused by an unknown "dark energy" which has a constant energy density. However, there are currently hints that dark energy is actually evolving over time. If this were true, there would be implications on fundamental physics and potentially...

Amy Pickering - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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

We aim to develop methods for expanding wastewater surveillance to new pathogens, enabling population-scale monitoring of a wide variety of infectious diseases. We are developing a novel Cas9-based targeted sequencing method to enrich antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) in wastewater alongside their genomic context to identify the species and...

Amy Pickering - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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

The Pickering Lab at UC Berkeley is working to bring safe drinking water to communities globally by disrupting pathogen transmission pathways in drinking water through in-line chlorination. In-line chlorination is a water treatment practice where low-cost, electricity-free devices automatically add chlorine into water for the disinfection...

Amy Pickering - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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

Contaminated water supplies in health facilities place patients at risk for antibiotic resistant infections, leading to poor health outcomes. Globally, more than 20% of health facilities lack even basic water services. To provide low-cost water treatment, the Pickering Lab has been developing a passive in-line chlorination technology, known...

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...

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

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

The largest dam removal project in history was completed in August 2024 in the Klamath River basin, in Northern California and Southern Oregon. Led by Indigenous Tribes, the removal of four hydroelectric dams restored hundreds of kilometers of habitat for salmon that are of cultural and economic significance. Indeed within...

Stefano Schiavon - Professor, Architecture

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

It is widely known that providing occupants with a “good” view to the outdoors offers measurable benefits, including higher property values and improved mental, physical, and emotional health. However, the selection and design of fenestration materials can significantly degrade this visibility, and we still have a limited understanding of how...

Youngho Seo - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Molecular imaging using ionizing radiation (i.e., gamma- and x-rays) is a powerful method of interrogating biochemical properties of imaging subjects. Particularly in research, we use small animal positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), which are combined with x-ray computed tomography (CT). More commonly...

Na'ama Shenhav - Professor , Public Policy

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

Beyond being a source of income, jobs can potentially convey information about a worker’s abilities, personality, or values. For example, individuals may assume that a person who is a teacher is empathetic, or that a lawyer is assertive. In turn, this could imply that a person’s job may affect how...

Sameer Srivastava - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

Professor Sameer Srivastava uses computational methods to: (1) unpack the complex interrelationships between group culture, individual cognition, and interpersonal networks; and (2) examine how they jointly relate to individual attainment and organizational performance. Professor Srivastava directs the Berkeley Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation and the Berkeley-Stanford Computational Culture...

Nicole Starosielski - Professor, Film Studies

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

Every satellite image, command signals to control a spacecraft or probe, and all the resulting science dataset from space missions are made possible by a largely invisible layer of ground-based digital infrastructure—complex systems that enable the transmission, storage, and processing of high-volume data across facilities distributed across...

Nicole Starosielski - Professor, Film Studies

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

Our research team’s forthcoming (September 2026) pair of online guides/slidedecks traces how digital infrastructures, such as data centers, are intertwined with geopolitics. The two guidebooks map digital infrastructure and discrete technologies at national borders as sites of contested sovereignty. Both of them explore the tension between border securitization and...

Rowland Taylor - Professor, Optometry

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

Amacrine cells are inhibitory interneurons in the retina that shape how visual information is processed before it leaves the eye. Although there are upwards of 60 distinct amacrine cell types in the mammalian retina, only a small subset have been well characterized. This gap in knowledge limits our ability to...

William Thompson - Professor, Psychology

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

The Computational Cognitive Science lab (https://ccs-ucb.github.io) conducts experimental studies of human intelligence, focusing on reasoning and learning in multi-agent contexts. We have new and ongoing studies surrounding e.g. discovery, problem-solving, and belief formation during interactions between human participants and AI systems. Our studies leverage web technologies...

William Thompson - Professor, Psychology

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

The computational cognitive science lab (ccs-ucb.github.io) studies how knowledge is transmitted from one agent to another, among humans and machines. This project examines the transmission of knowledge from one model to another using open source LLMs. You will learn about methods for on-policy distillation (e.g. https://thinkingmachines.ai/blog...

Eleanor Tubman - Professor , Nuclear Engineering

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

Fusion is an ongoing effort worldwide to produce a ‘clean’ energy resource. There are several approaches to achieving net energy gain that are being utilised. Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a method of achieving fusion energy, typically using lasers to implode and heat the fuel. However, there are, and will...

Bryan Wagner - Professor, English

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

Berkeley's Folklore Program is working with Arhoolie Foundation on several projects involving their extraordinary archive of recordings, photographs, films, and manuscripts related to vernacular music and the vernacular arts broadly conceived. Arhoolie Foundation nonprofit organization rooted in the life's work of its founder Chris Strachwitz and his acclaimed independent label...

Bryan Wagner - Professor, English

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

The Berkeley Anthropology Department has received a donated collection of over three hundred rave flyers documenting the electronic dance music scene in San Francisco, and the greater Bay Area from the mid-1980s through the early 2000s, now being digitally archived through the Folklore library. The donated collection includes handbills...

Peter Washington - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

We are seeking a highly motivated student to join a project to develop an LLM-powered chatbot for personalized vaping cessation counseling for young people. This project involves designing, implementing, and evaluating a secure, cloud-based conversational system that integrates large language models (LLMs) with structured prompting, safety guardrails (via...

Peter Washington - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Project 1=== Our interdisciplinary research team is developing the next generation of GAME PROs, a digital health platform designed to help people with cancer regularly monitor symptoms, understand changes in their health, and communicate more effectively with their healthcare teams. GAME PROs builds upon the recently completed GAME Pilot Study...

Peter Washington - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

We are looking for a motivated undergraduate or graduate student interested in working on a research project at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), AI, data visualization, and digital mental health. The student will contribute to the design and evaluation of personalized visualizations that help individuals better understand and...