URAP

Dengke Ma - Professor, UC San Francisco

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Life requires a constant supply of energy, yet animals can adapt by slowing down or temporarily shutting off costly processes. One key strategy is ribosomal hibernation, in which ribosomes—the cell’s protein-making machines—pause activity to conserve resources. In the nematode C. elegans, ribosomal hibernation is linked to sleep...

Dengke 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...

Isabel Madzorera - Professor, Public Health

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

About the Project What if AI could help improve nutrition, food systems and health for millions of people around the world? We're building new tools that use artificial intelligence (AI), data science, and technology to understand what people eat, improve nutrition and health programs, and help governments and organizations make...

Lisa Maher - Professor, Anthropology

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

About 10,000 years ago in Southwest Asia farming communities began to settle in large villages and produce their own food; forever changing the social and physical landscape of this region. However, the emergence of social complexity and the dramatic social and economic changes that led to the origins of agriculture...

Simo Makiharju - Professor, Mechanical Engineering

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

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

Ulrike Malmendier - Professor, Economics

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

We are looking for highly motivated apprentices interested in behavioral economics or behavioral finance research for the 2026 fall semester. The Experience Effects Book Professor Malmendier’s upcoming book combines all the insights she has gained through her extensive research on “experience effects” in economics. Experience effects refer to the ways...

Ulrike Malmendier - Professor, Economics

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

One of the most exciting areas of research in economics is “Law and Economics/Finance." This research starts from a central question in economics: What are the causes of financial development and economic growth? Why do some countries flourish while others do not? The “Law and Finance” literature suggests that...

Ulrike Malmendier - Professor, Economics

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

This project studies how predictability and control shape workers' response to economic stress. The project builds on a growing body of neuroscience research showing that the same stressful event — a job loss, a pay cut, an unpredictable schedule — can have very different effects on a person's mental health and long...

Malu Mandelli - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

The Dyslexia Phenotyping Project involves a large-scale collaboration of UCSF investigators to understand the phenotype (the neural, genetic, cognitive, and behavioral expression) of dyslexia throughout the lifespan. Our aim is not only to identify language-specific weaknesses associated with dyslexia, but also the associated individual strengths. Participants complete a...

Malu Mandelli - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

The ALBA Language Neurobiology Laboratory within the UCSF Memory and Aging Center is directed by Dr. Maria Luisa Gorno-Tempini and collaborates with the Biomagnetic Imaging Laboratory, directed by Dr. Srikantan Nagarajan. This group’s research focuses on Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), a neurodegenerative syndrome in which communication abilities become progressively...

Michael Manga - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

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

The overall goal of this project is to understand how and why volcanoes erupt. This includes what happens when volcanoes erupt under the sea, how changes in sea-level and lake-level affect eruptions, and how eruptions evolve on ocean worlds (e.g., Saturn's moon Enceladus). For the first...

Michael Manga - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

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

Long-Valley caldera is an active magmatic system in California. The goal of this project is to explore seismic attenuation changes with ambient noise seismic interferometry to characterize subsurface hydrothermal fluid/magma movement and surface snow loading deformation process. This project will use over 20-years of seismic data to...

Michael Manga - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

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

Olivine-rich rocks, such as those from the mantle, react with water to form serpentine, other minerals, and release hydrogen. There is a large volume change from this reaction. Stresses from volume changes can create cracks which enable water to enter the rock. This project seeks to unravel the history...

Michael Manga - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

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

Mono Lake hosts some of the youngest volcanoes in California and one of them is actively sinking into the lake. The goal of this project is to quantify active volcanic deformation in Mono Lake and reveal the mechanisms that are driving it. This project will use InSAR, LiDAR, and geologic...

Raffaella Margutti - Professor, Astronomy

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

The La Silla Schmidt Southern Survey (LS4) is a high-cadence time-domain astronomical survey based at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile leveraging a new wide-field imager to search for optical transients (e.g., supernovae, tidal disruption events, active galactic nuclei variability, multi-messenger events) in the southern...

Angela Marino - Professor, Latinx Research Center

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

The Democracy + Media Lab seeks students with strong writing and/or digital media skills to assist in developing articles, visual media, documentary production, and podcasts. Successful candidates will join a small team to plan, record, edit, and publish research materials on social justice and participatory democracy in the American hemisphere...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     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...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     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...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     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...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Ischemic heart disease and stroke are major drivers of cardiovascular disease mortality. In humans, cardiac injury leads to the formation of a fibrotic scar without replacement of cardiomyocytes. This reduces the heart’s ability to recover, irreversibly lowering an individual’s cardiovascular health. However, the regenerative capacity of the heart after injury...

William Martinez - Professor , UC San Francisco

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

The present study is an ongoing evaluation of the efficacy and effectiveness of a school-based group early intervention program (Fuerte) within the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). Fuerte targets newcomer immigrant youth (five years or less post arrival in the U.S.) who are at risk of experiencing immigration...

Leonardo Martinez - Professor, Public Health

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

Tuberculosis remains highly concentrated in prisons and other carceral settings, yet women deprived of liberty are often underrepresented in prison health research. This project will build on an existing systematic review of tuberculosis among incarcerated women globally and will help move the work toward a publishable manuscript. The review focuses...

Leonardo Martinez - Professor, Public Health

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Many people with pulmonary tuberculosis may have minimal or no symptoms at the time they are diagnosed, particularly when TB is found through active case finding or community-based screening. However, the infectiousness of asymptomatic or subclinical TB remains uncertain and has important implications for TB transmission, screening policy, and...

Leonardo Martinez - Professor, Public Health

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

This project uses national tuberculosis registry data from the Kenya National Tuberculosis Programme, including more than 400,000 people diagnosed with tuberculosis from 2021–2025. The broader goal is to understand patterns in TB diagnosis, treatment, outcomes, and program implementation across Kenya, including variation by age, sex, HIV status, geography, disease...

Norma Cecilia Martinez Gomez - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Methylotrophs are microbes that can use one-carbon molecules, like methanol, as an energy and carbon source for growth. They have two major applications; primarily, they can be used to efficiently upcycle one-carbon metabolites from organic waste into value-added products like bioplastics and biofuels. Secondarily, methylotrophs are plant...

Norma Cecilia Martinez Gomez - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Metals are essential for all life on earth. The lanthanides, often referred to as Rare Earth Elements, were recently added to the periodic table of elements known to be important to life. Certain bacteria, called methylotrophs, use lanthanides in an enzyme that allows them to eat methanol. To acquire lanthanides...

Donald J. Mastronarde - Professor, Classics

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

This project involves research for a new and more complete edition of the scholia to Euripides. Scholia are annotations written in the margins and between the lines of medieval manuscripts of classical authors. In the scholia we find filtered through many generations of reuse parts of ancient scholarly discussions of...

Donald J. Mastronarde - Professor, Classics

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

Gaspar Stiblinus, a scholar working in Switzerland, produced a massive edition of the surviving plays of Euripides in Basel in 1562. His work is of interest because he is the first modern scholar to provide summaries and analyses of the plays. His edition is very rare (although now images of...

Michaela Mattes - Professor, Political Science

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

How do countries move from rivalry and conflict toward more cooperative relations? Why do some attempts at rapprochement succeed, while others stall or collapse? Consider a few examples. France and Germany transformed from “hereditary enemies” to close partners at the heart of European integration. The United States and Vietnam fought...

Michaela Mattes - Professor, Political Science

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

On September 20, 2001, right after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush addressed the nation and declared war against terror. In his speech, the President repeatedly used religious connotations. For instance, “Prayer has comforted us in sorrow, and will help strengthen us for the journey ahead.” President showed...

Michaela Mattes - Professor, Political Science

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

Throughout history countries have done terrible things to one another: genocide, war crimes, forced displacements etc. Apologizing for past wrongs was very rare before the 1990s and has become only slightly more common. Interestingly, there is a lot of variation in whether a country apologizes, when it does so, the...

Michaela Mattes - Professor, Political Science

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

This project synthesizes work done by URAP teams led by Professors Arriola, Matanock, and Mattes in previous semesters.) Countries around the world are increasingly confronting violent irregular threats such as insurgencies and terrorism. Yet, many countries have proven unable to effectively deploy their security institutions (including regular militaries, paramilitaries, and...

Jimmy 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...

Jimmy McGuire - Professor, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

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

Marisa Medina - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

There are a limited number of human omics datasets that include menopausal status information for female subjects and include enough premenopausal and postmenopausal women. For instance, multi-omics data has been generated for thousands of All of Us Research Program participants. We will compare transcriptomic and proteomic profiles of premenopausal...

Marisa Medina - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Not all women reach menopause at the same time. Some of this inter-individual variation is due to underlying genetic differences between women. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been conducted to identify a list of common genetic variants that are associated with age at natural menopause. We would like...

Marisa Medina - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Electronic health record (EHR)-linked biobanks, such as the All of Us Research Program, do not contain reliable information about the timing of menopause for most women. Recent studies suggest that physiological changes associated with menopause can be detected through longitudinal patterns in routinely measured clinical biomarkers (e.g., in metabolic...

Marisa Medina - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Electronic health record (EHR)-linked biobanks, such as the All of Us Research Program, do not contain reliable information about the timing of menopause for most women. However, clinical notes can give additional clues about the timing of this important milestone in women's lives. The All of Us Research Program...

Tony Mercer - Research Scientist, Space Sciences Laboratory

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

The undergraduate researcher will assist in the operations of the Solar Probe SWEAP instruments and the MAVEN PF instruments, including spacecraft coordination, science data pipeline and processing, instrument health and safety, and python data reduction and visualization software. As a note, the researcher may need to visit the lab occasionally...

Craig Miller - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

A fantastic diversity in organismal form is seen in nature, yet we know little about the genetic basis of evolutionary change. We are using the head skeleton of the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as a model system to study the genetic basis of development and evolution. Sticklebacks have undergone one...

Dana Miller-Cotto - Professor, Education

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

The Community Practice Partnerships project seeks to build sustained relationships between the research team and organizations serving children and families throughout the Bay Area, including preschools, children’s museums, community organizations, and other informal learning spaces. These partnerships will create opportunities for researchers and community practitioners to learn from one another...

Dana Miller-Cotto - Professor, Education

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Executive function, or our ability to hold information in mind, ignore distractions, and shift between goals, predicts many important outcomes in life, including educational outcomes and social development. Research indicates that there are differences in how children display executive function skills across race/ethnicity and socio-economic status. There is...

Dana Miller-Cotto - Professor, Education

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

This online study examines how children ages 8–10 use external supports to manage the demands of learning and problem solving. “Cognitive offloading” occurs when people reduce demands on memory or attention by using tools or actions outside the mind—for example, writing information down, drawing a representation, using fingers...

Joy Milligan - Professor, Law

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

The Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality Anti-Discrimination Law brings together academics, advocates and activists from six continents to address issues of systemic inequality and discrimination. The Center is directed by Law Professors Joy Milligan and David Oppenheimer. We are assisted by two recent Berkeley graduates who were URAP students...

Don Moore - Professor, Business, Haas School, Psychology

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

Have you ever scored lower on a test than you expected, lost a competition to a competitor you thought you would trounce, been certain about a fact only to have Google prove you incorrect? People are frequently overconfident. Understanding overconfidence can help us become more accurate about our self-perceptions...

Don Moore - Professor, Business, Haas School, Psychology

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

Human judgments are routinely biased. Can artificially intelligent agents correct for this human bias and achieve greater accuracy in their judgment...

Don Moore - Professor, Business, Haas School, Psychology

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

The scientific world is changing quickly as scientists improve their research practices and correct errors in the published record. This project seeks to test the replicability of published work that is now suspect. This is a chance to play a role in a project in the vanguard of open science...

Don Moore - Professor, Business, Haas School, Psychology

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

Have you ever read a research article and wondered if the authors truly tested the research question they purported to test? The focus of this project concerns the evaluation of research methodology. You would work primarily with a senior graduate student in the lab on her research. It is an...

David Moore - Professor, Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology

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

The Liver Receptor Homolog-1 (LRH-1) is an orphaned nuclear receptor (a family of protein transcription factors that regulate gene expression in the cell). Nuclear receptors contain a physical pocket known as the ligand binding domain (LBD) that is capable of binding and sensing various compounds. LRH-1&#039...

David Moore - Professor, Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology

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

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) form a subset of nuclear receptors, currently comprising three distinct members: PPARα, PPARγ, and PPARδ. Each receptor seems to influence pathways situated at the crossroads of intermediary metabolism and inflammation, imparting significant physiological and clinical relevance to them (Bensinger and Tontonoz, 2008). PPARα, a well...