URAP

Daniel Okamoto - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Climate change is dramatically altering the oceans. These changes include increases in sea surface temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and primary productivity. We use experiments and field data to assess how these changes affect the physiology, growth, reproduction, and behavior of marine animals. We have numerous samples from past experiments and...

Daniel Okamoto - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

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: Open     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...

Jessica Olney - Executive Director, International Studies, Institute of

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

Requires weekly workshop attendance, Mondays 10 am - 12 pm, 223 Philosophy Hall ** This project engages students in research that supports the Berkeley Institute of International Studies (IIS) and its collaborator, the human rights organization PAEMA (Preventing And Ending Mass Atrocities). The Berkeley lead researcher is Jessica Olney, IIS Executive Director...

Todd Olson - Professor, Art History

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

The early seventeenth-century Italian artist Caravaggio painted a series of works for a chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. The altarpiece and the two lateral paintings are the subject of a chapter in my book "Caravaggio’s Pitiful Relics." My current research project returns to...

David Oppenheimer - Professor, Law

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

Professor David Oppenheimer seeks 4-5 research apprentices to work with him on five book projects. They are 1) a series of essays on global systemic racism; 2) a simulated housing discrimination casefile used for teaching civil procedure; 3) a textbook on comparative equality and anti-discrimination law; 4) a legal...

Victor Ortega Jimenez - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Phantom crane flies (Bittacomorpha clavipes) are one of the most mysterious fliers in the insect world because it has been suggested that they are able to use their legs and body to generate aerodynamic forces and still keep a tight aerial control. Our research can be applied to micro aerial...

Victor Ortega Jimenez - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Helicopters seeds (Samaras) are remarkable for their aerodynamic capabilities with insects wings. We Investigate the aerodynamics and kinematics of samaras in a vertical wind tunnel. The goal of this project is to understand the unsteady mechanisms they have to fly on unsteady flow conditions...

Victor Ortega Jimenez - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Water boatmen are renowned for their remarkable adaptations for both diving and flying. However, the physical mechanisms these insects employ to overcome the constraints imposed when transitioning between aquatic and aerial environments remain poorly understood. We investigate in the lab their locomotion performance using High-speed video and fluid dynamics...

Jorge Otero-Millan - Professor, Optometry

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

Blinks are usually treated as noise in eye-tracking research: intervals to be detected and discarded before analyzing gaze. Yet blink rate, duration, and timing relative to task events are informative measures of visual and cognitive state in their own right, and they are also relevant to ocular surface health...

Jorge Otero-Millan - Professor, Optometry

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

This project designs and runs human-subject experiments in which participants read passages while eye position, pupil, and eyelid movements are recorded with video cameras. We will manipulate factors about the text, display and physical conditions, ask how each shifts blink rate and how correlated they are to other metrics...

Jorge Otero-Millan - Professor, Optometry

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

This project focuses on turning blink behavior recordings into quantitative answers: How does blink rate change over the course of a reading session? Are blinks temporally coupled to line sweeps and sentence boundaries, or is the apparent clustering explained by chance given the base rate? Do blink duration and inter...

Christian Paiz - Professor, Ethnic Studies

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

The University of California, Berkeley played a critical role in the development of Chicanx Studies and in the student, community, and labor activism that fostered the field’s expansion in the mid-to-late twentieth century. This apprenticeship project asks: what goals, contexts, and visions inspired early Chicano/a scholars at...

Christian Paiz - Professor, Ethnic Studies

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

This apprenticeship focuses on farmworker history in the Coachella Valley, a small agricultural desert in Southern California. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Coachella Valley played a critical role in the development, successes, and challenges of the United Farm Worker (UFW) movement, one of the most important agricultural labor movements...

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...

Rahul Parson - Professor , South and Southeast Asian Studies

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

The initiation of a liberalized economy and rise of right-wing nationalist politics has increased the precarity of vulnerable communities, minorities, women, and those seen as outsiders or immigrants. This project uses historical, archival, ethnographic, and literary critical approaches to vernacular cultures in order to make visible the new political...

Laurie Pearce - Lecturer, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures

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

Are you interested in ancient civilizations and modern technologies? Would you like to contribute to the preservation of knowledge and cultural heritage? Do you have or would you like to develop skills with databases and project management? Research apprentices associated with the URAP project Ancient Texts, Modern Tools will assist...

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: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Strong gravitational lenses are very rare occurrences and are a powerful tool in studying dark energy and dark matter, two mysterious entities that together account for 95% of the energy in the universe. The strong lensing team works on a range of projects with cutting-edge AI/ML techniques. We...

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 profound implications on fundamental physics and...

Angie Perone - Professor , Social Welfare

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

Founded in 2018, Village Movement California (VMC) is a statewide coalition of 50+ villages: local networks that connect people over 50 to the community, support and resources they need to live independently with dignity, choice and belonging. VMC represents more than 10,000 older Californians. Aging in America can be a...

Christine Philliou - Professor, History

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

This is a collaborative research and Digital Humanities project I initiated in 2020 and our team includes scholars in Greece, Turkey, and several other countries. We are reading Ottoman Turkish and Greek sources about the population of Greek Orthodox in Istanbul and creating data sets, and then visualizations and interactive...

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...

Michael Polson - Staff Researcher, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Students will be working to support a project on the cannabis industry and the general work of the Cannabis Research Center in disseminating research and engaging the public. The project is a mixed method investigation of: 1) anti-competitive and monopolistic practices of cannabis investors and owner-operators; 2) protective...

James Porter - Professor, Rhetoric

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

Philosophy bibliographical research, collection, and digital scanning, with a special focus on the ancient Cynics and their afterlife, from the 4th century BC to the present...

James Porter - Professor, Rhetoric

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

I am editing a book of essays and correspondence by Rachel Bespaloff, who lived during WW I and II and wrote in French. The translated essays are nearing completion, but a good deal of work remains: * filling in bibliographic information based on notes I have already made * checking the translated...

Antje Postema - Lecturer, Slavic Languages and Literatures

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

On November 1, 2024, a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, Serbia collapsed, killing 16 people beneath it. In the days that followed, evidence pointed to widespread corruption as the cause of the disaster. What began as solemn vigils for the victims quickly transformed into the largest and most sustained...

Matthew Potts - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Open     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: Open     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...

Ali Rahmati - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

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

The Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) instrument onboard the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission is primarily designed to measure energetic electrons and protons. SEP, however, has also proven to be a versatile tool for "bonus science" beyond its intended scope. The focus of this project is on reinterpreting several...

Leigh Raiford - Professor, African American Studies

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

Since 1958, Bay Area educator, organizer and writer, Ms. Daphne Muse maintained a collection of correspondence that reflects the political and personal visions, voices, and struggles of activists, revolutionaries, political prisoners, writers, artists, entertainers, heads of state, and educators who profoundly shaped 20th-century Black lives and cultures. Before Ms...

Aruna Ranganathan - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

This project examines how the design of AI-enabled tools shapes people’s work processes and experiences. For an upcoming experiment, we are developing a browser-based workspace in which participants will review task materials, interact with an integrated generative-AI assistant, move through stages of work, and turn in workplace...

Gautam Rao - Professor, Economics

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     

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...

Onja Razafindratsima - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Our research group is interested in addressing various questions related to the elevational patterns of birds in Madagascar. Over the past two years, we have collected field data on species distributions, community assemblages, and population densities along an elevational gradient in northeastern Madagascar. The student will have the opportunity to...

Andrew Reddie - Professor, Public Policy

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

The Berkeley Risk and Security Lab (BRSL) at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy is an academic research institute focused on the intersection of technology and security. The Lab was created as an answer to the growing complexity of the national security and technology landscape, with an interdisciplinary team...

Diana Reddy - Professor, Law

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

This project is a multi-phase exploration of the relationship between the many laws that regulate work in the United States, social movement activism, political economy, and evolving public opinion on work and inequality...

Hunter Rendleman - Professor, Political Science

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

Public service is under strain. Government agencies today face unprecedented political attacks and mounting challenges in attracting and retaining skilled workers. Yet the strength of the state depends on its people: without committed professionals, government cannot carry out its core functions. From public health to law, education, and regulation, a...

Hunter Rendleman - Professor, Political Science

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

Note: This project is co-mentored by Cailin Slattery, Assistant Professor in the Business and Public Policy Group at the Haas School of Business (cailin.slattery@berkeley.edu), and Hunter Rendleman, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science (hrendleman@berkeley.edu) Project Description Lawyers perform an indispensable role in modern democratic societies...

Laurent Reyes - Professor, Social Welfare

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

This project involves working with the life time stories of older Chinese immigrants living in the Bay Area. The stories are focused on the ways they contribute to the community here and prior to immigration. For this phase of the project, we are looking for students who would like to...

Laurent Reyes - Professor, Social Welfare

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

This project explores the experiences of Latine older adults participating in the community. As a URAP apprentice you will have the opportunity to assist with several projects all pertaining to this topic. You will have the opportunity to assist in developing literature reviews, journal formatting, working with community partners to...

Laurent Reyes - Professor, Social Welfare

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

This project offers the opportunity to contribute to the development of engaging educational materials and the communication of academic research. Working closely with the faculty mentor, students will help improve the design, organization, and accessibility of educational resources while gaining experience in design, digital communication, and web content development. Students...

Filipa Rijo-Ferreira - Professor, Public Health

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     

Parasitic diseases cause major health burden worldwide, with over 1 million deaths each year. Despite having the genome of many parasites sequenced, almost half of their genes are of unknown function. There are still major gaps in our understanding of host-parasite interactions and disease transmission by vectors. Our research...

Filipa Rijo-Ferreira - Professor, Public Health

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

The rotation of the Earth has exerted evolutionary pressure on organisms to develop circadian rhythms, enabling them to anticipate day/night cycles. These daily rhythms are observed across all life forms, regulating physiological functions such as sleep, immune response, and metabolism. Our lab focuses on studying circadian clocks in parasites...

Matt Roberts - Professional Researcher, Center for the Built Environment

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

The Center for the Built Environment (CBE) is conducting a research project to supportnpolicy development in California for decarbonizing material consumption related to new construction of buildings. The project aims to develop a series of Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (MACCs) for key materials (included but not limited to concrete, steel...

George Roderick - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

Status: Open     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: Open     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: Open     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...