URAP

Jim Bishop - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

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

California Coast is dominated by streams, creeks, and ephemeral surface and groundwater flows that terminate in bar-built estuaries, many of which become seasonally isolated from direct flow to the ocean. Flowing water often seeps directly into the sand and may undergo significant reaction before entering the ocean; furthermore, there...

Justin Brashares - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Check back for status     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 have recently allowed researchers to deploy acoustic recorders that autonomously capture and classify animal vocalizations, such as birds calls. Currently, UC Berkeley is preparing to launching the first ever SoundHub -- an open source...

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

This project focuses on ecological and place relations in various sites facing climate and environmental injustice around the globe. This portion of the project focuses on Port Arthur, Texas...

Stephanie Carlson - Professor , Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Sacramento Pikeminnow are a large and long-lived predatory fish endemic to California and native to many rivers and streams in our area. One place they are not native to, however, is the Eel River Basin, a major river system to our north. Since their 1980 introduction, these fish have...

Stephanie Carlson - Professor , Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Mobile consumers may move across landscapes to exploit spatially and temporally variable resources and conditions, which can impact individual survival, growth, and reproduction. Furthermore, variation in movement patterns within populations can impact demography and stability. Understanding the factors that drive animal movements (and their consequences) is paramount to conserving imperiled...

Ethan Elkind - Director, Climate Program, 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...

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

This project asks, "What defines the "health" of an ecological community, and can the signatures of "health be detected from communities of insects and spiders? And to what extent is that signature captured across scales, from plants, on to imagery – drones, helicopters, and satellites? The work aims to show how...

Rosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

This project addresses dynamics of plant microbial communities under disease pressure through the study of Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death (ROD) in Hawaiʻi. ROD is caused by two fungal pathogens, Ceratocystis lukuohia and C huliohia, which co- occur on Hawaiʻi Island. Fieldwork was conducted across an altitudinal gradient (from 100 to 1,800...

Rosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

This project seeks to further develop and apply a new method of collecting environmental DNA (eDNA) from forest ecosystems through the collection of rain water from tree canopy throughfall. This data will be used to make inferences about ecosystem health and the forest community’s resilience to species invasion by building...

Rosemary Gillespie - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Every biodiversity analysis starts with a species survey. However, biodiversity surveys often yield large numbers of specimens difficult to identify because the samples collected are too small, immature, or belong to species that have not yet been formally described. In this project, we focus on identifying species, especially spiders, herbivorous...

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

Mangrove restoration offers some of the greatest promise for directing private funding into projects with climate change mitigation, ecosystem, and resilience benefits. However, only a small portion of the close to 10,000 projects on the current voluntary carbon market supports mangrove restoration. This study brings together an interdisciplinary team of...

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: 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 advanced undergraduate students in updating the database code in Python...

Cesunica Ivey - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Status: Current Term Now Closed     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 - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Status: Current Term Now Closed     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...

Matt Kondolf - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

Conservation groups estimate that half of the 5,000+ riparian meadows in the Sierra Nevada have become “degraded”, or converted from wet to dry meadows as indicated by the dominance of non-meadow vegetation species (e.g. lodgepole pines or sagebrush). Meadows cover less than 1% of Sierran forests, but have an...

Matt Kondolf - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

In wet meadows of the Sierra Nevada, seasonal productivity of hydrophytic species depends on near-surface groundwater to sustain photosynthesis through the region’s summer drought. Seasonal meteorological patterns of energy and water (e.g. temperature, light availability, groundwater levels and humidity) drive plant phenology, the cycles of plant growth, reproduction and...

Lu Liang - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

Status: Full- no new appr needed     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...

Lu Liang - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

Status: Full- no new appr needed     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...

Lu Liang - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

Parcel boundary data provide essential information about the location, shape, and organization of land ownership. These data support research in land-use planning, housing, environmental justice, disaster preparedness, wildfire risk, infrastructure, and community development. However, the United States does not currently have a single, complete, and consistently documented open database...

Cynthia Looy - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     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. We expect...

Peter Nelson - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Indigenous communities in California are leading efforts in cultural and prescribed fire to enhance subsistence and cultural resources, as well as to mitigate wildfire spread. A key management objective for Indigenous communities, and this project, is to reduce insect infestations in oak (Quercus spp.) acorns, which are a critical food...

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...

Daniel Okamoto - Professor, Integrative Biology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

In kelp forests, food resources are a key contributor to a kelp forest inhabitant’s fitness. Recently, sea urchin herbivory has been shown to rapidly reshape the food landscape within these forests, converting areas of high productivity to desert-like ‘urchin barrens’. We aim to study food assimilation as it relates...

Daniel Okamoto - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

This URAP opportunity in the Okamoto lab focuses on understanding the reproductive phenology of golden mussels (Limnoperna fortunei), a fast-spreading invasive species in the California river delta. Students participating in this URAP opportunity will conduct field work in the delta including mussel collections, collecting and deploying larval settlement plates...

Daniel Okamoto - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Seaweeds (e.g., kelp, nori) are important primary producers, food sources, and essential fish habitat around the globe. While many species are resilient to climate change, many important species are also exhibiting declines in recent years and especially in response to marine heatwaves. We are conducting laboratory experiments and fieldwork focused...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Soil is the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir, playing a major role in regulating carbon storage and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Within soil carbon management and climate change mitigation, agriculture is an important focus as a dominant human land-use and significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Integrated crop-livestock systems...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Despite a surge in sustainability and financial data—from greenhouse gas inventories to climate and nature-related risk metrics—the challenge remains linking sustainability initiatives to financial outcomes. Data is abundant but siloed, limiting its ability to guide decision-making and creating missed opportunities for research, entrepreneurship, and capital deployment...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Faced with ever-increasing anthropogenic pressures, including land use change and climate change, today’s biodiversity is in crisis. Anthropogenically induced species extinction rates have become high enough to prompt researchers to dub this phenomenon the “Sixth Great Extinction”. Meanwhile, emerging voluntary biodiversity markets, in parallel to voluntary carbon markets, hold...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

PROJECT OVERVIEW Digital infrastructures—such as cryptocurrency mining, AI data centers, and renewed metal mining—are reshaping landscapes, ecosystems, and communities worldwide. This project is part of the Digital Ecologies Research Group, an interdisciplinary initiative examining the socio-environmental health impacts of digital transformations across El Salvador, the Pacific Northwest...

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: 6-8 hrs     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. Outreach and communication are as critical...

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...

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

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

Aquatic ecosystems transport more than just water, they also move energy, nutrients, and pollutants to adjacent terrestrial ecosystems. One of the key connections between aquatic and terrestrial systems is the movement of biomass via emergent aquatic insects (think mosquitoes): insects which start their life as aquatic larvae, metamorphose, then emerge...

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

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Sacramento Pikeminnow are a large and long-lived predatory fish endemic to California and native to many rivers and streams in our area. One place they are not native to, however, is the Eel River Basin, a major river system to our north. Since their 1980 introduction, these fish have...

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

Status: Current Term Now Closed     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: Current Term Now Closed     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...

Christopher Schell - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

The Schell Lab integrates animal behavior, physiology, and genetics to study how carnivores adapt to the challenges and opportunities of life in cities. This project focuses on raccoons in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region that provides an ideal natural laboratory for examining how wildlife persists in densely populated...

Christopher Schell - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Rapid urbanization is a major driver of the transition to the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch in which ecosystems are dominated by human influence. Urban regions have been drastically transformed compared to their historical antecedents, and though many species have been unable to persist in these altered landscapes, a surprising...

Carol Spencer - Staff Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     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: Current Term Now Closed     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: Current Term Now Closed     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...