URAP

Barbara A. Romanowicz - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

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

Seismology has revealed mysterious patches with extreme seismic properties on the boundary from Earth’s liquid outer core to its rocky mantle. There still are many scientific unknowns about these structures which are called ultralow velocity zones. We do not understand what their origin is, what they are made of, or...

David Romps - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

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

This project will design, build, and test instrumentation to measure temperature, humidity, air currents, and infrared radiation in extreme heat and humdity. These instruments are needed for laboratory studies that will evaluate models of human physiology that, in turn, are used to project the future of heat stress on a...

Veerle Rottiers - Professor, Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology

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

Aging is a process of maturation and decline that affects all organisms. Understanding the conserved mechanisms of aging could lead to new strategies for the prevention of age-associated disease. Sex specific differences in longevity occur throughout the animal kingdom, including in humans. Those differences are proposed to be caused...

Veerle Rottiers - Professor, Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology

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

Aging affects all organisms. Understanding the conserved mechanisms of aging could lead to new strategies for the prevention and treatment of age-associated disease. C. elegans, a small roundworm, is one of the most widely used model organisms to study aging. Worms live for about 3 weeks making it practical...

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

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

The flux of leaf litter from the riparian zone is a major energy pathway into streams, and, thus, litter breakdown is a critical ecosystem-level process affecting both the carbon and nutrient cycles as well as stream food webs. Leaf litter decomposition is influenced by litter quantity and quality (i.e...

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

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

How could we best manage local water supplies in ways that benefit communities and rivers? Los Angeles County in Southern California imports the majority of its water. After residents use this water, wastewater treatment facilities clean it and then generally discharge it into local streams, such as the Los Angeles...

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

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

Climate change is shifting the distribution of the Earth’s water resources spatially and temporally. In most of California, multi-year droughts are projected to increase in frequency and magnitude by the end of the century. Predicting the impacts of drought on freshwater ecosystems remains, however, a key challenge. This is...

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...

Sayeef Salahuddin - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Location: On Campus

A remarkable development in the recent years has been the demonstration that a nanoscale magnet can be switched by a spin-polarized current, without having to apply any external magnetic field. It is a fascinating phenomenon from two different perspectives. Firstly, this effect is purely mediated by quantum mechanics, but...

Sayeef Salahuddin - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Status: Current Term Now Closed     

It is widely believed that the rate of change in current in conventional MOSFETs cannot be decreased below 60 mV/decade. This means that to change every decade of current one must apply at least 60 mV. As a result, the power supply voltage in modern MOSFETs cannot be reduced...

Sayeef Salahuddin - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

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

Artificial Intelligence is becoming prevalent in many applications. In this research effort we are investigating new ideas of learning and inference. In addition to develop fundamental understanding of the algorithms, we are also designing novel hardware solutions that are specifically suitable for these Learning Machines, going beyond mere implementation of...

Daniel Savson - DVM, Integrative Biology, OLAC

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

The role of the veterinarian in the research environment has become increasingly critical in recent years. Not only are lab animal veterinarians involved in research involving animal health, but in research endeavors as they relate to and intersect with human or public health (e.g., nutrition, cancer studies, and infectious disease...

Raluca Scarlat - Professor, Nuclear Engineering

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Actinide-containing fluoride and chloride molten salts are utilized as fuel salts in molten salt reactors (MSR’s) and have applications in pyrochemical-processing for fuel recovery. However, the thermophysical property data of these salts such as melting point, viscosity, and density and the effects on these properties of varying levels...

Klara Scharnagl - Curator, University and Jepson Herbaria

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Welcome to the lichen lab! We study lichens; symbiotic associations between filamentous fungi and green algae or cyanobacteria. We are interested in how the symbiosis forms and is maintained over the lifetime of a lichen and over evolutionary time. We use a variety of approaches, including field work, culturing, and...

Klara Scharnagl - Curator, University and Jepson Herbaria

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

We are using a combination of microscopy and stable isotope (carbon and nitrogen) analyses to better understand the intimacy of the relationship between the filamentous fungal partner and the photosynthetic (green algae or cyanobacteria) partner within the lichen symbiosis, and how this will impact their ability to respond to global...

Klara Scharnagl - Curator, University and Jepson Herbaria

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Natural history collections are incredible repositories of information. However, due to the sensitive nature of the specimens, they remain largely closed to the public. In the Lichen Collection in the University Herbarium at Berkeley, we are endeavoring to make our collections more visible while maintaining their integrity...

Klara Scharnagl - Curator, University and Jepson Herbaria

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

The University and Jepson Herbaria are a natural history museum on campus, home to over 2 million dried plant and fungal specimens. The Herbaria currently suffer from outdated/faded signage. We seek one or two creative individuals to help us spruce up our image and signage while simultaneously learning about...

Christopher Schell - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Human-wildlife interactions that end with negative consequences (i.e., conflict) typically come from bolder individuals within a population that are more risk-prone and willing to approach humans and human entities. These interactions may also stem from individuals with superior cognitive abilities that use learning and problem-solving to exploit...

Hilde Schjerven - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

The Schjerven Lab at UCSF studies the transcription factor Ikaros (encoded by the Ikzf1 gene) and its different biological roles in immune cell development and disease. In a recent collaborative work, we found that the transcription factor Ikaros is expressed in medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTEC), and important for the...

Hilde Schjerven - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

The Schjerven Lab at UCSF studies the transcription factor Ikaros (encoded by the Ikzf1 gene) and its different biological roles in immune cell development and disease. We have found that the transcription factor Ikaros is important in development of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell that is part of...

Hilde Schjerven - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

The Schjerven Lab at UCSF studies the transcription factor Ikaros (encoded by the Ikzf1 gene) and its different biological roles in immune cell development and disease. Ikaros is an important tumor suppressor in B-cell lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and we have multiple projects in our lab to study how...

Benjamin Schoefer - Professor, Economics

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

We will conduct research in macroeconomics and labor economics. The student may work on early-stage and advanced research projects. For an overview of potential topics, please see my website: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~schoefer/ Please do not reach out by email before you have been selected. I cannot respond to email...

Marieka Schotland - Executive Director, Public Health

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

Innovations for Youth (i4Y) is a cross-disciplinary research-action center that catalyzes on innovative interventions, practices and policies to improve equity and well-being for youth locally and worldwide. Our current portfolio includes work on marginalized youth, youth voice, youth participatory action research, and student mental health and wellbeing...

Juliana Schroeder - Professor, Business, Haas School, Psychology

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

Founded in 2004, the Experimental Social Science Laboratory (Xlab) conducts experiment-based investigations of issues of interest to social scientists. Xlab supports UC Berkeley’s world class research by providing resources such as access to participant pools, experiment coordination, payment support, access to softwares, grants, and more. It also provides technical...

Juliana Schroeder - Professor, Business, Haas School, Psychology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Technology is rapidly changing, giving humans more options than ever to decide how to communicate with each other. Whereas online options to engage with others are expanding, in-person contact seems to be decreasing. How are these changes affecting the way people connect with each other? How does this affect...

Juliana Schroeder - Professor, Business, Haas School, Psychology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

If humans are social animals, then why do they choose to remain disconnected with people sometimes? Here we explore when people don’t want to connect with others, such as when they are strangers. In one set of studies, we asked strangers to have conversations on public transportation (e.g., buses, cabs...

Juliana Schroeder - Professor, Business, Haas School, Psychology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Human-GAI Interaction is inevitably becoming more common. We seek to address the following research questions: 1. What are the pros and cons of mandatory disclosure of non-political deepfake commercials? Would the disclosure affect people's trust towards the political information they see? 2. How could GAI aid crowd-based...

David Sedlak - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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

Constructed wetlands can passively treat pollutants including nitrogen, pathogens, and trace organic chemicals. Given their low-maintenance and design flexibility, treatment wetlands are appropriate for rural, decentralized, and low-resource settings, and can provide effective, environmentally friendly water-treatment in urban areas. As part of our research, we are conducting...

Youngho Seo - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Keywords: cancer, radiopharmaceutical therapy, targeted alpha therapy, alpha particles, image processing, dosimetry, machine learning, digital autoradiography Radiopharmaceutical therapy with alpha-particle emitters (⍺RPT) is an emerging cancer treatment method that has demonstrated high efficacy in clinical trials for several types of cancer. Improvement of these drugs requires thorough pre-clinical...

Youngho Seo - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Molecular imaging is a powerful method of interrogating biochemical properties of imaging subjects. Particularly in research, we use small animal positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), which are combined with x-ray computed tomography (CT). More commonly, these imaging modalities are known as microPET/CT...

Youngho Seo - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Radiotherapy with alpha-emitting nuclides is an extremely promising technique in cancer therapy. The very short range of alpha particles compared to beta particles allows to deliver a much higher therapeutical dose to the lesion, sparing healthy tissue. A fundamental problem with this technique is the inability of current radiation...

Youngho Seo - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Keywords: deep learning, artificial intelligence, prediction, Alzheimer's disease, positron emission tomography, PET, image processing, FDG, glucose metabolism, amyloid Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia, and a debilitating condition that affects a large number of aging populations. When symptoms occur, there are a very limited set of...

Carlo Sequin - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

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

Students will participate in the development of JIPCAD, a design environment that can describe geometrical shapes (e.g., abstract sculptures by famous artists such as Charles Perry, Eva Hild, or Robert Engman) either through a simple procedural language or through an interactive graphical user interface. The typical workflow would start with...

Aarti Sethi - Professor, Anthropology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 3-5 hrs     Location: On Campus

India is the most unequal country in the world. It is also the most populous country in the world with a population of 1.43 billion people. Currently, 75% of national wealth is owned by only 10% of the population, and 40% of national wealth by only 1% of the population...

Steven Seyedin - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

For patients with limited metastatic (stage IV) bladder cancer, high dose, high precision radiation therapy known as stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), to all sites of disease can improve cancer outcomes and extend the time to needing additional therapy. However which patients truly benefit from SBRT is unclear. This study...

Michael Shapira - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Toxins play important roles in inter-species interactions, and the ability to overcome them can open new niches. The potential of animal genomes to facilitate such adaptations is limited; instead, toxin resistance in animals is often provided by gut bacteria. Human activity and industry has dramatically increased the prevalence of...

Michael Shapira - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Animal microbiotas are increasingly recognized as essential for host health. The gut microbiota is the richest, and was shown to contribute to diverse host functions. Perturbations in microbiota composition are associated with human disease, raising interest in manipulating the microbiota to promote healthier living or treat pathology. However, current understanding...

Michael Shapira - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Aging involves a multi-system physiological deterioration. In addition to affected tissues, and likely as a consequence, aging also affects the gut microbiota, an extensive microbial community which contributes to diverse host functions. Imbalances in microbiota composition, or dysbiosis, are often associated with pathology, and recent reports indicate that aging...

Marjorie Shapiro - Professor, Physics

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

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built and researchers use its data to study what the universe was like shortly after the big bang. Researchers at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) play a key role in all aspects of the ATLAS...

Marjorie Shapiro - Professor, Physics

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

LBNL researchers developed a novel method to restore early sound recordings using methods from precision optical metrology and data analysis (see: irene.lbl.gov). These methods have been applied to a number of important historical collections of early recorded sound. Over the past two years a project at the Smithsonian Institution in...

Valerie Shapiro - Professor, Social Welfare

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

A statewide effort was launched in 2020 to respond to pandemic-accelerated social and emotional needs of young people in schools. This project aims to build capacity at County Offices of Education around California to become regional hubs to support the delivery of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in schools...

Valerie Shapiro - Professor, Social Welfare

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Behavioral health problems like depression, substance misuse, academic disengagement, and anxiety are common in young people, but many of these problems are preventable! Research has demonstrated how social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools can greatly improve the wellbeing and achievement of young people, but this research isn’t easily accessed...

Valerie Shapiro - Professor, Social Welfare

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

Behavioral health problems like depression, substance misuse, academic disengagement, and anxiety are common in young people, but many of these problems are preventable! Research has demonstrated how social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools can greatly improve the wellbeing and achievement of young people, but this research isn’t easily accessed...

Valerie Shapiro - Professor, Social Welfare

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: Off Campus

Research has demonstrated how social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools can improve the wellbeing and achievement of young people, but this research doesn’t always involve the youth themselves. This project will train and support undergraduate students to create SEL tools for a statewide youth program: Friday Night Live. Specific...

Kim Shelton - Professor, Classics

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

The Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology is a research unit in the Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies for our excavation and research program at the Sanctuary of Zeus in Nemea, Greece. The Center archive houses a photographic and text archive that is in the process of being re...

Kim Shelton - Professor, Classics

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

MYCENAE, largest and wealthiest of the palatial citadels of the Late Bronze Age, has been under investigation for more almost 150 years. The site, Petsas House, is a large building complex in the largely unexplored main settlement area. The current project was initiated in 2000 and has uncovered at least...

Na'ama Shenhav - Professor , Public Policy

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

Beyond being a source of income, jobs can potentially convey information about a worker’s abilities, personality, or values. For example, individuals may assume that a person who is a teacher is empathetic, or that a lawyer is assertive. In turn, this could imply that a person’s job may affect how...

Michal Shuldman - Assistant Teaching Professor, Integrative Biology

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

This project looks at how undergraduate biology students perceive their instructors' practices in introductory courses at a large research university. While most education reform efforts in biology focus on “inclusive teaching” have been defined by instructors and researchers, there hasn’t been much focus on how students themselves view inclusion. We’re...

Ellen Simms - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Introduced plants can become invasive when they escape the insect and microbial enemies that control native plant populations. Legumes benefit from symbiotic relationships with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called rhizobia, which colonize nodules in legume roots. We have found that three invasive leguminous plant species (French broom, Spanish broom, and Scotch...

Ellen Simms - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Until recently there was still the idea that when it comes to the microbial world, since it is so small, everything must be everywhere. Much current research is showing this claim does not hold water. Few things are truly everywhere and most things, even on the micro scale, have very...