URAP

Bryan Wagner - Professor, English

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

The Berkeley Folklore Program is partnering with Berkeley Art Museum to support an extraordinary exhibit, Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California (June 7, 2025 — November 30, 2025). The work for this URAP team involves supporting the museum's marketing and communications department in creating media to promote the...

Laura Waller - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

We are building new microscopes that use computation to do things that microscopes normally can't, like 3D imaging, gigapixel imaging or phase imaging. We need motivated people with at least two of these: 1) signal processing experience (EE120) for programming our image processing algorithms in Python, and/or machine learning...

Julia Walsh - Professor Emerita, Public Health

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

Learn how to read and assess draft laws submitted to California Legislature that are aimed at alleviating climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and related issues for their potential Health impact on Environmental/Climate Justice (EJ/CJ) communities. This information will strengthen the ability of CJ Advocacy Groups to...

Ian Wang - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

What makes some groups of animals species rich, while other groups are species poor? This project will examine the diversity of spiny lizards (genus Sceloporus), a group of 100+ described species that range across North and Central America. We will quantify the phenotypic, ecological, and genetic diversity of spiny lizards...

Ian Wang - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Understanding how phenotypic variation is generated and maintained in natural populations is a fundamental goal in biology. We are studying the evolution of color and other phenotypic traits in Aegean wall lizards (Podarcis erhardii), an island-dwelling lizard native to the Greek Cycladic islands. Our goal is to understand how...

Ian Wang - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Genetic diversity is crucial for adaptation and may be a key factor that shapes species responses to climate change, habitat loss, and other stressors. Recently, the California Conservation Genomics Project (CCGP) has gathered genomic data for over two hundred species across California in order to inform conservation efforts. This dataset...

Ian Wang - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

This research investigates the genetic basis of lizard coloration, which is an ideal trait for studying evolution. Animal coloration is divided into pigments and structural colors. Pigments, often red and yellow, are small particles that directly absorb and reflect light of different colors. Structural colors, often blue, are caused by...

Haichen Wang - Professor, Physics

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

Haichen Wang - Professor, Physics

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

Particle detectors like the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are complex apparatuses whose language is made of data recorded in sub-detectors and sophisticated readout modules. Inspired by large language model's revolutions in natural language processing, this project ultimately aims to develop one or more language models at...

Haichen Wang - Professor, Physics

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

High-energy physics data analysis deals with a huge amount of data. Machine learning applications are often developed to assist the analysis of data and to improve our understanding of fundamental physics laws. My research group is developing multiple applications for high energy physics experiments, such as the ATLAS experiment...

Haichen Wang - Professor, Physics

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

We are seeking enthusiastic students to help create engaging STEM education and outreach materials to communicate the exciting science of high-energy physics to the public. This project will involve a directed reading component, during which students will conduct a literature review and discuss the material with a mentor. Together...

Ramon Weber - Professor , Architecture

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

The UN predicts a doubling of floor area until 2050, estimating a fantastic 230 billion square meters of buildings to be built in the next decades. Meanwhile, buildings should drastically lower their carbon emissions and energy use in order to avoid climate disasters. The project tackles this question with a...

Noah Whiteman - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Approximately fifty percent of all insect species are herbivorous and together with plants, comprise over half of all named species of life. To feed on a plant, an herbivore must evolve strategies to overcome the chemical defenses (toxins) that plants produce to protect themselves from herbivory. These toxins may inhibit...

Noah Whiteman - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

During the evolutionary transition from one feeding guild to another, such as microbe- to plant-feeding, it is hypothesized that behavioral adaptations are among the first to evolve. In insects, changes to the chemosensory systems that determine host preference are necessary, not only for finding an appropriate host, but in...

Noah Whiteman - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

NOTE TO APPLICANTS: This project is only open to onboard a previous Whiteman Lab undergraduate researcher who had not been enrolled through URAP. We will not be evaluating new applications for this project at this time.] While much of genetic inheritance occurs via vertical transmission (i.e., from parents to offspring...

David Whitney - Professor, Psychology

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

The human perceptual system processes faces in an unique manner. Humans perceive faces holistically (i.e. as a whole) rather than as a set of separate features. The face inversion effect is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for holistic processing of faces. Upright faces are identified faster than...

David Whitney - Professor, Psychology

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

The recent advent of autonomous vehicles (AV) in the last decade has changed the traditional role of drivers. Currently, autonomous cars being developed and commercialized are not fully autonomous. In fact, commercially-available AV take control of only some of the driving functions, such as speed, or are highly automated...

David Whitney - Professor, Psychology

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

Accurately knowing the timing of different events happening around us is a crucial ability of all human beings. In natural scenes such as movies or everyday life, dynamic events could happen either in the left or right visual field. Given that information coming through our left visual field will be...

David Whitney - Professor, Psychology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

The ability to quickly and accurately perceive emotion is essential in our daily lives. However, how does the brain process multiple sources of emotional information when making emotional judgments? The brain must take into consideration facial expression, tone of voice, body movement, contextual information, and even beliefs in its judgment...

Mary Wildermuth - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Check back for status     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Powdery mildew is an obligate biotrophic fungus that infects a broad variety of plants including plants of agronomic (e.g. grapevine) and ornamental (e.g. roses) import. It has lost many essential metabolic pathways and relies on the plant for these compounds. We are interested in figuring out the powdery mildew genes...

Christine Wildsoet - Professor, Optometry

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

Myopia or short-sightedness has become the focus of increasing concern as its prevalence steadily climbs. Figures of around 90% have been recorded for some Asian university student populations and a recent US-based study also reported a dramatic increase in the prevalence of myopia, especially among AfroAmericans. Myopia is...

Christine Wildsoet - Professor, Optometry

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

This research has a number of different aspects. One aspect involves collection of optical images of the back of the eye, using an advanced high resolution SD-OCT imagining machine. Initial work will involve images already collected. It will involves working with large amounts of data in excel, using smoothing...

Christine Wildsoet - Professor, Optometry

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

Myopia or short-sightedness has become the focus of increasing concern as its prevalence steadily climbs. Figures of around 90% have been recorded for some Asian university student populations and a recent US-based study also reported a dramatic increase in the prevalence of myopia, especially among AfroAmericans. Myopia is...

Christine Wildsoet - Professor, Optometry

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

There is increasing interest in the role of sunlight and light exposure in the development of myopia. In this project, we are using a wearable light sensor/activity monitor (Actiwatch), for human subjects. The sensor will record the intensity of light subjects are exposed to, and will allow us to...

Michelle Wilkerson - Professor, Education

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

My research so far has focused on how teacher education programs incorporate justice and critical consciousness into K-12 computer science curricula. By investigating both their theoretical foundations and the lived experiences of CS pre-service teachers (PSTs), I have found significant variance in how these programs prepare educators to...

Caroline Williams - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

The Williams Lab in the Department of Integrative Biology studies the life history and physiology of the California variable field cricket. Crickets are a model system to study how animals can adjust energetic investments to activity, reproduction, and maintenance throughout their lifetime because there are winged and wingless types within...

Caroline Williams - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

We are using grasshoppers from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to study the biological impacts of recent anthropogenic climate change, from the level of genes and molecules to whole organisms and communities...

Clancy Wilmott - Professor, Geography

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

This project builds partnerships between community groups and academic researchers at studio.geo-?, an experimental mapping studio hosted out of the Department of Geography + the Berkeley Centre for New Media. It connects people and organisations who need cartographic assistance, from simple technical advice, access to geographic data + other resources to community...

Clancy Wilmott - Professor, Geography

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

In partnership with a wide range of Pacific-based organizations including Fåha’ Digital Media, Pacific Islanders in Communication, the Northern Marianas Humanities Council, and Blue Ocean Law, this wide-ranging research consists of two central projects: - Researching, compiling and mapping films about Pacific Islander stories, made by or in partnership...

Clancy Wilmott - Professor, Geography

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

This project is in collaboration with the UC Berkeley Botanic Gardens. It focuses on the use of signage and interpretive materials within the Crops of the World garden (and the gardens more broadly), with specific focus on geographical, cartographical and decolonial frameworks. It would suit an undergraduate student with interests...

Clancy Wilmott - Professor, Geography

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

General Description The breaking apart of the American state is as old as the concept of the United States itself. This project seeks to document the scale of state secessionist movements through time using primary and secondary sources. The broader context of this project is a study of the co...

Mark Wilson - Professor, Education

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

Critical Reasoning for College Readiness (CR4CR) is a project that seeks to develop psychometrically sound assessments that can be used by teachers in the classrooms at the high school and early college levels. Our goal is to develop, revise, and validate a suite of assessments, including unique assessment tasks and...

Carol Wilson - Research Botanist, University and Jepson Herbaria

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

Mistletoes are shrubby, aerial-branch parasites belonging to order Santalales. Most are hemiparasites that obtain water and mineral nutrients and a portion of their carbon from the xylem sap of their host plants. Although they can be forest pathogens, particularly to conifer tree species that are under stress from drought...

Carol Wilson - Research Botanist, University and Jepson Herbaria

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

Carol A. Wilson is conducting research that examines phylogeny, biogeography, endemism, and ecology of a lineage of Iris that mostly occur in a biodiversity hotspot (California Floristic Province). Iris comprise a highly diverse genus of perennials that provide significant food resources including nectar, pollen, arils, and underground structures, as well...

Ashley Wolf - Professor, Public Health

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

Bacteroidetes is one of the main bacterial groups of the human gut microbiome. Although several reference strains related to species such Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, Bacteroides fragilis and Phocaicola vulgatus have been investigated and even used as model organisms to understand the gut microbiome, strain level diversity is extensive and remains to...

Ashley Wolf - Professor, Public Health

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

The gut microbiome is a complex community of microbes that have unique enzymatic capabilities. Some gut bacteria metabolize sialic acids that are found in the diet and/or produced by host cells. We have identified putative genes that encode enzymes responsible for sialic acid metabolism. This project will use cloning...

Ashley Wolf - Professor, Public Health

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

Dietary ingredients can provide fuel to the gut microbiome and influence the abundance of particular bacterial species in the gut. During heating steps in food processing, Maillard reaction products (MRPs) are formed from non-enzymatic reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars. As one of the MRPs, ε-fructoselysine (FL...

Winnie Wong - Professor, Rhetoric

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

This is an ongoing historical research project on the visual culture produced by Chinese painters in Guangzhou, China, for European and American markets during the period of the Canton Trade (1700-1850). The project explores the intersection of art and science, art and plants, art and animals, and lesser known parts...

Winnie Wong - Professor, Rhetoric

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

A collaboration with the Asian Art Museum, this project researches the art and visual culture of Hong Kong, in its history and present...

Winnie Wong - Professor, Rhetoric

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

This project centers on the daily diary of a literatus in early modern Guangzhou, China. Through reading and translating the diary, we examine the everyday life of an urbane gentleman, his navigation of an early modern city and its social networks. We see the centrality of painting, poetry, music, and...

Winnie Wong - Professor, Rhetoric

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

Research on the modern and contemporary artists Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Banksy, Constantin Brancusi, Matthew Wong, Agnes Martin, and others...

Fei Xu - Professor, Psychology

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

The Berkeley Early Learning Lab, under the direction of Professor Fei Xu, researches statistical inference, Bayesian reasoning, conceptual representation, belief revision, social cognition, and language acquisition in infants and children aged 4 months to 10 years. Children participate in our studies at our Berkeley Way West lab, at preschools, and...

Fei Xu - Professor, Psychology

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

This projects explores the origins of referential communication by analyzing the properties of parent-infant and parent-child interactions and infants' sensitivity to parents & contingent responsiveness. We use a combination of methods, including video annotation of video-recorded parent-infant dyads, eyetracking experiments, and behavioral experiments. The age range for...

Guo Xu - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

This project studies the time use of presidents by digitizing and leveraging the presidential diaries (1900-2017). The presidential diaries contain hourly information about activities and meetings of presidents throughout history, allowing us to take an unusually close look at how different political leaders allocate their time and attention...

Guo Xu - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

Many business schools offer a course on business ethics. Does being exposed to business ethics make you a more ethical business leader? Despite being a simple question, the answer is quite ambiguous. This project aims to answer the question...

Wendy Yue - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Spiny mice are among the few mammals capable of shedding and regenerating large areas of skin, a unique adaptation that helps them escape predators. However, this ability comes with a challenge: how do they manage the pain from such severe injuries? This project aims to investigate potential mechanisms that allow...

Avideh Zakhor - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

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

In this project, we will design algorithms that use computer vision to navigate in GPS denied environments to reach a pre-specified target. Two problems will be considered: first, apply visual slam to reach a waypoint at a specific offset from the initial position; second, use place/object recognition to...

Avideh Zakhor - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

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

In this project, we will use inverse kinematics type ideas to teach a hose mounted on a robot to vacuum the immediate area in front of the robot. We will also design autonomy algorithms and methods for joint movement of robot and hose in order to vacuum a large area...

Avideh Zakhor - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

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

In this project, we will develop methods to enable a drone equipped with perception and depth sensors to follow a dynamic object such as a bird or another drone. All computation must be done on board the drone and real time. You will have a chance to implement your method...

Emily Zazulia - Professor, Music

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

This project aims to develop a new visualization tool for the study of Renaissance musical culture. Recognizing that central information about musicians and musical institutions is scattered across thousands of often hard-to-access documents and published volumes, and appreciating the potential for dynamic, easy-to-use digital visualization tools...