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Galateia Kazakia - Professor, UC San Francisco, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: Off Campus
Our research group focuses on advanced imaging techniques for the study of musculoskeletal structure and function (for details please see: http://www.radiology.ucsf.edu/research/kazakia). For this project, we plan to use two recently developed imaging tools to investigate the structure and composition of bone. State-of-the-art micro computed...
Biological & Health Sciences Engineering, Design & TechnologiesGalateia Kazakia - Professor, UC San Francisco, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: Off Campus
Our research group focuses on advanced imaging techniques for the study of musculoskeletal structure and function (for details please see: http://www.radiology.ucsf.edu/research/kazakia). For this project, we will be performing advanced image processing and analysis on high resolution computed tomography (CT) images of the skeleton. These images are being...
Biological & Health Sciences Engineering, Design & TechnologiesAndrew Kim - Professor, Anthropology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: On Campus
This project examines the neuroendocrine, immunological, and psychiatric pathways underlying the consequences of trauma exposure in adults living in South Africa. Data come from two separate studies: the first on intergenerational trauma from apartheid in a longitudinal birth cohort study in Soweto, South Africa and the second on long COVID...
Social Sciences Biological & Health SciencesMimi Koehl - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
We are studying the biomechanics and biofluiddynamics of how organisms interact with their physical environments. Our interdisciplinary work is at the interface between biology and engineering, so students majoring in biology, engineering, physics, or math have all participated in research in our lab. There are a variety of projects that...
Biological & Health Sciences Engineering, Design & TechnologiesMichelle Koo - Staff Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
The world's natural history museums are responsible for documenting over 1.8 billion species known as a result of 300 years of biological exploration of the planet. The information contained in museums include observational and specimen-based data, text, images, sound and video and form the foundation of what we know...
Biological & Health Sciences Arts & Humanities Digital Humanities and Data Science 150 Years of Women at BerkeleyMichelle Koo - Staff Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) is a vibrant research and informatics center for the campus and the natural history communities around the world. If you enjoy sharing natural history news and research as well as connecting people in our community and the public, this is the apprenticeship for you...
Biological & Health Sciences Arts & Humanities Digital Humanities and Data Science 150 Years of Women at BerkeleyMichelle Koo - Staff Curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) is a vibrant research and informatics center for the campus and the natural history communities around the world. The world's natural history museums are responsible for documenting over 1.8 billion species known as a result of 300 years of biological exploration of the planet...
Biological & Health Sciences Arts & Humanities Digital Humanities and Data Science 150 Years of Women at BerkeleyBritt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
Microbiomes change over time, often with important functional consequences for their hosts. But the ecological drivers of microbiome succession are poorly understood. We are studying the role that microbial interactions play in this process by examining the constituents of the digestive microbiome of the insectivorous California pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica...
Biological & Health SciencesBritt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
Phage, viruses that infect and kill bacteria, are ubiquitous, yet their impacts on beneficial bacteria that colonize plants are not well understood. Phage are abundant in the soil and therefore soil-dwelling bacteria must hone defenses against phage in order to survive. Likewise, phage must hone their capacity to infect...
Biological & Health SciencesBritt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
We are building a new system (fire blight of pear trees) to better understand how bacteriophage viruses might impact the ability of a bacterial pathogen (Erwinia amylovora) to colonize and infect pear trees. We are tracking bacteria-phage interactions through time by isolating individual phages from each of 25 diseased...
Biological & Health SciencesBritt Koskella - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs Location: On Campus
In natural systems, microorganisms interact with myriad other microbial populations which influence their evolution and ecology. When associated with a eukaryotic host, these complex microbial communities (known as microbiomes) also interact with and impact their host’s ecology and evolution, nutrient acquisition, and pathogen susceptibility. Despite the microbiome's...
Biological & Health SciencesKsenia Krasileva - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
Filamentous fungi are hosts to pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, parasitic fungi, and grazing nematodes. Besides RNAi to protect fungal genomes from mycoviruses, a fungal inducible defense upon recognition of bacteria has yet to be fully described. Genes encoding nucleotide-binding domain Leucine-rich repeat-like (NLR-like) proteins are...
Biological & Health SciencesKsenia Krasileva - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: On Campus
Plants have powerful defense mechanisms, which rely on an arsenal of plant immune receptors. Major classes of plant immune receptors include Receptor like kinases (RLKs), receptor like proteins (RLPs), and Nucleotide Binding Leucine Rich Repeat (NLR) proteins. On the population level, plant immune receptors provide plants with enough diversity to...
Biological & Health SciencesKsenia Krasileva - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
Plant diseases pose a significant threat to global agricultural crop production. Developing genetically modified plants with boosted disease resistance offers an economical and environmental solution. Plant immune receptors are naturally evolved resistance determinants that recognize target pathogen molecules to initiate defense responses. They have been widely used as transgenes. However...
Biological & Health SciencesKsenia Krasileva - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
Stripe rust along with stem and leaf rust are the major threat to wheat production worldwide. It is estimated that wheat rust pathogens cause a global annual loss of approximately 15 million tons, with a value of US$ 2.9 billion. Plant breeders are constantly putting in the effort to develop...
Biological & Health SciencesLayla 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 SciencesEileen Lacey - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Broadly, we seek to understand how mechanisms in the brain contribute to the vast differences in social behavior evident among mammals, with particular interest in the evolution of such neural and behavioral diversity. Dispersal is an important behavioral and life history transition. Much variation in sociality arises due to differences...
Biological & Health SciencesPeggy G. Lemaux - Cooperative Extension Specialist, Plant and Microbial Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
General Description Are you facing unusual heat waves or increased rainfall where you or your family live? Every country is facing the effects of climate change. They are not limited to heatwaves but also include changes in rainfall, more severe and frequent storms, increased threat of wildfires and more severe...
Biological & Health SciencesPeggy G. Lemaux - Cooperative Extension Specialist, Plant and Microbial Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench), is the fifth most important cereal crop worldwide and is a critical food, forage, and emerging biofuel crop. Understanding the photosynthetic mechanisms by which sorghum can capture sunlight more efficiently under adverse climate conditions is critical to using this crop to remove carbon dioxide that...
Biological & Health SciencesDennis Levi - Professor, Optometry
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: On Campus
Research in my lab focuses on how we perceive visual forms and patterns, and how form and depth perception are degraded by abnormal visual experience early in life (amblyopia). Specifically, we use psychophysics, eye-movements, computational modelling and brain imaging (fMRI) to study the neural mechanisms of normal pattern vision...
Biological & Health SciencesDennis Levi - Professor, Optometry
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: On Campus
Most observers experience the world in three dimensions (3D) made possible by a combination of monocular and binocular cues to depth. In Amblyopia, a developmental disorder of spatial vision, a significant portion of observers have very coarse or no stereopsis (a cue for 3D perception). Previous research has shown that...
Biological & Health SciencesDennis Levi - Professor, Optometry
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: On Campus
Amblyopia is a neurodevelopmental disorder of spatial vision characterized by a reduction in visual acuity. Previous research has shown that several neuro, oculomotor and perceptual deficits are also present in persons with amblyopia. Particularly, research has shown that amblyopes have longer saccadic and manual latencies to stimuli (i.e., the time...
Biological & Health SciencesDennis Levi - Professor, Optometry
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: On Campus
Most people with degraded vision (amblyopia) lack 3D-depth vision (stereoblindness). Using a simple training, the depth perceptual sense can be recovered and some people can experience depth in 3D movie theatres for the first time. The goal of the project is to test this phenomenon extensively and investigate what...
Biological & Health SciencesJennifer Lewis - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: Off Campus
The plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae causes disease in a large number of different plant species, using the type III secretion system to secrete and translocate effector proteins into the plant. Many of these effector proteins are believed to function primarily in the suppression of host defense signaling. However recognition of...
Biological & Health Sciences Digital Humanities and Data ScienceJennifer Lewis - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: Off Campus
The plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae causes disease in a large number of different plant species. Virulence is primarily achieved by the type III secretion system, which secretes and translocates effector proteins into the plant. Many of these effector proteins are believed to suppress host defense signaling. However recognition of these...
Biological & Health Sciences Digital Humanities and Data ScienceSamantha Lewis - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
The goal of the project is to create a digital repository documenting the life and works of cell biologist Dr. Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941). As the first prominent Black scientist in the United States, Just broke barriers not only via the uncommon elegance of his experimental designs but in integrating...
Social Sciences Biological & Health SciencesMeng C. Lin - Professor, Optometry
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: On Campus
Dry eye disease (DED) is pervasive with some reports estimating over 16 million adults diagnosed with DED in the United States. Currently, artificial tears remain an integral part of managing dry eyes and are mainly used for symptomatic relief. Lipid based artificial tears are often administered by dry eye patients...
Biological & Health SciencesFenyong Liu - Professor, Public Health
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
The long-term goals of our research are (1) to study the functions of genes of human herpes simplex virus (HSV) (the causative agent of genital herpes and cold sores) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) (the leading cause of congenital abnormalities in newborns and blindness and death in AIDS patients) in regulation...
Biological & Health SciencesJuan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Lateral line sensory system, or lateral line organ, or simply the lateral line, is a system of sensory organs found in fish and some tetrapods (four-legged vertebrates). The lateral line enables those vertebrates to detect and perceive the hydrodynamic and physical environment they inhabit including movement, vibration, and pressure...
Arts & Humanities Biological & Health SciencesJuan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Scientific illustration is art in the service of science by drawing, painting, or rendering images of scientific subjects to accurately inform and communicate sciences. Research in fossil fishes (paleoichthyology) is at the junction of paleontology and ichthyology, and therefore, possesses characteristics of both —-- the incomplete nature of fossil preservations and...
Arts & Humanities Biological & Health SciencesJuan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Our study aims to explore the intricate details of mammalian hearing, with a specific emphasis on the function and evolution of the middle ear, with comparative anatomy with fish hearing apparatus. This critical aspect of auditory anatomy plays a pivotal role in the way mammals perceive and interpret sound. By...
Arts & Humanities Biological & Health SciencesJuan Liu - Professor, Integrative Biology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
Catfishes (Siluriformes) are remarkable among hearing specialist fishes in their possession of the Weberian apparatus, a conductive multi-ossicle chain linking the inner ear and swim bladder that is analogous to the middle ear ossicles of the mammalian tetrapods. Work with laboratory animals has produced considerable insight into the role...
Arts & Humanities Biological & Health SciencesCynthia 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 SciencesDengke Ma - Professor, UC San Francisco
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
Genome evolution has enabled organisms to live in and adapt to nearly every ecological niche on Earth. Humans live in an oxygen-rich ecosystem and human tissues are susceptible to deprivation of oxygen (hypoxia) under pathological conditions, including ischemic stroke and heart attack. Many organisms, from anaerobic bacteria to hibernating...
Biological & Health SciencesDengke Ma - Professor, UC San Francisco
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs Location: Off Campus
The nematode C. elegans can be frozen alive, suspend life and revive later virtually any long after freezing, unlike many other multicellular organisms, including flies, fish, mice and humans. How C. elegans achieves this feat remains a fascinating unsolved mystery. This project will use our newly established reporters and assays...
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 IssuesMegan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
The huge diversity of animal lifeforms that occupy virtually every ecological niche on our planet are all produced through the transformation of a single-celled zygote to a multicellular, fully functional organism via the processes encompassed by embryogenesis. It is through tweaks and changes to these developmental mechanisms that new...
Biological & Health SciencesMegan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
The evolution of vertebrates is intimately linked to the advent of the neural crest, a migratory and multipotent cell population that gives rise to many defining vertebrate characteristics, such as the jaw and peripheral gangilia. Where the neural crest arise along the body axis during developmement has great impacts on...
Biological & Health SciencesMegan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
The neural crest (NC) is a transient stem cell population that emerges during early vertebrate embryogenesis. Characterized by its migratory behavior and multipotency, the NC gives rise to diverse cell types and tissue derivatives including elements of the peripheral nervous system, the craniofacial skeleton, and the cardiovascular system. The NC...
Biological & Health SciencesMegan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours Location: On Campus
Neural crest is an embryonic stem cell population that originates in the neural tube and migrates into the developing organs such as the heart and gut to form diverse cell types, including neurons and muscle cells. BMP signaling plays an important role in their terminal differentiation, yet how BMP target...
Biological & Health SciencesSusana Matias - Cooperative Extension Specialist, Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology
Status: Current Term Now Closed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
Household food waste is a major problem in the U.S. The average U.S. household wastes 31.9% of the food it buys, with an estimated value of $240 billion. Household food waste is a complex and multi-faceted issue and is affected by food-related practices (planning, shopping, storing, cooking, eating...
Biological & Health SciencesJimmy McGuire - Professor, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: to be negotiated Location: On Campus
The island of Sulawesi in Indonesia is a hotspot of biodiversity and model system for studying the evolution of organisms. Our lab has conducted numerous expeditions to the island to document its biodiversity and collect samples for genetic analysis. Our lab uses molecular and morphological tools to reconstruct the evolutionary...
Biological & Health Sciences Arts & HumanitiesJimmy McGuire - Professor, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Status: Full- no new appr needed Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs Location: On Campus
Amphibians are the world’s most imperiled vertebrate group. Confounding efforts to combat amphibian declines is that we have little knowledge concerning most of the species and much of it not easily accessible. Since 2000, we have been developing an informatics platform to create a web page for every species of...
Biological & Health Sciences Arts & HumanitiesPatina 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 Sciences