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Lisa Bloom - Scholar-in-Residence, Gender and Women's Studies
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Building upon the ideas presented in my recent book, Climate Change and the New Polar Aesthetics: Artists Reimagine the Arctic and Antarctic, published by Duke University Press (2022), we will delve into new avenues of research and writing. This fall, we aim to explore the vital role of artist-activists...
Social Sciences Environmental Issues Arts & HumanitiesCarl Boettiger - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed 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...
Engineering, Design & Technologies Environmental Issues Digital Humanities and Data ScienceCarl Boettiger - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed 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...
Engineering, Design & Technologies Environmental Issues Digital Humanities and Data ScienceTim Bowles - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
Despite extensive efforts to measure on-farm soil conditions, the concept of soil health continues to be a murky concept across soil science, agriculture, and policy disciplines. However, soil health is critical to productive agriculture and long-term, whole-farm resilience. At present, most measurements of soil health on organic...
Environmental IssuesTim Bowles - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: Off Campus
Are you longing to engage deeper in food sovereignty and agroecology? Do you long to connect sustainable farming practices to on-the-ground research centered around agroecology, food access, and social movements? This year-long internship with the Gill Tract Community Farm will offer training in agroecological farming methods, engagement...
Environmental IssuesJustin Brashares - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Rapid climate change has amplified drought conditions in deserts, where many species already subsist at their physiological limits. However, management interventions, such as artificial water catchments may allow some wildlife to persist despite drought. This project examines the influence of artificial water catchments on large mammals, bats, birds, and reptiles...
Social Sciences Environmental IssuesJustin 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...
Social Sciences Environmental IssuesTianna Bruno - Professor, Geography
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated 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...
Digital Humanities and Data Science Environmental Issues Social SciencesTianna 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...
Digital Humanities and Data Science Environmental Issues Social SciencesMeredith Fowlie - Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
As global temperatures rise, more and more people are being exposed to extreme heat. Coping with heat-related risks is particularly stressful for households with limited access to cooling technologies such as fans and air conditioners. We have been working in India where it's estimated that over 300...
Environmental Issues Social SciencesMeredith Fowlie - Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
The clean energy transition will require a massive build-out of clean energy infrastructure. Because wind, solar, and associated transmission infrastructure are very land-intensive, the projected scale of infrastructure expansion (a doubling or tripling of capacity) could significantly impact areas with high conservation value. Meanwhile, an estimated 1 million...
Environmental Issues Social SciencesGordon Frankie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed 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 UC Hopland and at avocado orchards in southern California. Collaborating with farmers at these orchards, we have been...
Environmental IssuesRosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Current Term Now Closed 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesRosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesRosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Current Term Now Closed 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesRosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Current Term Now Closed 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesJohn Harte - Professor, Energy and Resources
Status: Full- no new appr needed 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesJohn 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesBarbara Haya - Research Fellow, Public Policy
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: Off Campus
Carbon offsets are being widely used to meet carbon neutrality goals. Avoided deforestation (also called REDD+) is generating the greatest number of credits on the offset market. The goal of this project is to study the quality of these avoided deforestation offset credits. This is an interdisciplinary study involving ten...
Environmental Issues Social SciencesBarbara 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...
Environmental Issues Social SciencesBarbara Haya - Research Fellow, Public Policy
Status: Current Term Now Closed 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...
Environmental Issues Social SciencesCarly Hyland - Professor, School of Public Health
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: Off Campus
This pilot study will describe previously uncharacterized worker exposures to work-related stress and constituents of diesel exhaust from off-road diesel equipment through a mixed methods approach. Farmworkers are uniquely vulnerable to job insecurity, low wages, few benefits, long hours, and/or lack of managerial oversight, and experience many...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesDaniel 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...
Engineering, Design & Technologies Environmental IssuesDaniel 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...
Engineering, Design & Technologies Environmental IssuesDaniel 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...
Engineering, Design & Technologies Environmental IssuesDaniel 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...
Engineering, Design & Technologies Environmental IssuesMichael 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...
Social Sciences Environmental IssuesMichael 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...
Social Sciences Environmental IssuesLayla Kwong - Professor, Public Health
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
In rural, low-resource settings globally, such as subsistence farming communities in Nepal, diarrheal diseases are common, driven by exposure to fecal pathogens (bacteria, viruses, and other harmful organisms found in human and animal waste) in their household. In subsistence farming households where households frequently own livestock and poultry, handling...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesLayla 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...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesLayla Kwong - Professor, Public Health
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
Dive into the world of health communication by contributing to our project focused on co-creating and evaluating the effectiveness of videos to enhance vaccine literacy and confidence. In the context of misinformation surrounding vaccines, particularly in Malay-speaking communities of Southeast Asia, we aim to develop culturally and linguistically...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesLu 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...
Engineering, Design & Technologies Environmental IssuesLu 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...
Engineering, Design & Technologies Environmental IssuesCynthia 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...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesCynthia 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...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesCynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
The goal of our project is to restore the student-run pre-pandemic pollinator gardens around the Valley Life Science Building (VLSB) that support native arthropods (e.g. insects and spiders) and other wildlife, and will function as an environmental education resource for students. We plan to engage students both inside...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesCynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed 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...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesCharles 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesCharles Marshall - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesPatina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: Off Campus
Species distribution models use collection-based observations (museum specimens) and relate where we find species to the local habitat conditions. This relationship can be used to infer where else we expect to find these species, which can then be used to ask questions about historical distributions and how species distributions...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesPatina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
Strawberry Creek is an urban stream the flows through the UC Berkeley campus. Over the past 30 years, the campus has focused on improving water quality, restoring habitat, and using the stream as a campus laboratory. In this project, we will monitor adult caddisfly activity over the year to determine...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesPatina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: Off 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...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesPatina Mendez - Lecturer, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: Off Campus
Intermittent streams are streams that only flow for part of the year, and often are dry throughout the summer. Aquatic insects rely on having access to water for at least some of their life cycle. In this project, we explore species diversity of adult aquatic insects during the dry months...
Environmental Issues Biological & Health SciencesChandra Middleton - Staff Researcher, Center for Law, Energy and the Environment
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 3-5 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...
Environmental IssuesBrent Mishler - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
It has been hypothesized that 10% of taxa introduced into novel environments would naturalize, while only about 10% of naturalized alien taxa would become invasive. I am interested in investigating which traits are commonly found in naturalized and invasive plants in Nigeria, West Africa...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesBrent Mishler - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Even though sound and sufficiently robust data is the essence of a good scientific paper, the presentation of the findings is of equally great importance in communicating discoveries to the scientific community and advancing the overall knowledge in a field. Presenting data in a clear and accurate manner and putting...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesBrent Mishler - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Herbaria are museums that house collections of preserved plants maintained for scientific purposes. For centuries, plant specimens of all kinds have been collected from near and far, mounted on herbarium sheets, labeled with pertinent data, and stored and maintained for use by the scientific community as well as the public...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesBrent Mishler - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
Ancient and current anthropogenic activities have resulted in the sweepstakes movement of plant germplasms from their native ranges to new geographical regions. Some of these introduced taxa have become daily staple foods in West Africa (e.g., Zea mays, Manihot esculenta, etc.), and crops with significant economic values (e.g., Theobroma cacao...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesDaniel 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...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental IssuesStephanie Pau - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
Phenology, “nature’s calendar”, refers to periodic life history events such as the timing of plant leafing or bird migrations. Changes in plant phenology have provided some of the strongest markers of climate change impacts on species and ecosystems. However, most of this evidence comes from temperate or high-latitude ecosystems...
Biological & Health Sciences Environmental Issues