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Project Descriptions
Spring 2026

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Showing 50 projects out of 339 found. On page 1 out of 7.
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Modeling and analysis of neural activity in visual cortex through the lens of machine learning

Reza Abbasi-Asl - Professor, Neuroscience

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: Off Campus

Characterizing the the neural function in the brain and its relationship with connectivity is an eminent question of visual sensory processing. With the recent increase in the amount of the data collected from brain, tools based on machine learning principles play an essential role in understanding the brain function. The...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Biological & Health Sciences

Unsupervised pattern recognition in biomedical image data

Reza Abbasi-Asl - Professor, Neuroscience

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: Off Campus

Computational tools based on machine learning principles have shown promising results in analyzing medical images. Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are one of the most successful tools in this domain. While most of the algorithms based on CNNs are supervised and with the increasing amount of un-labeled datasets, it...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Biological & Health Sciences

Large language models for guiding research in bioinformatics

Reza Abbasi-Asl - Professor, Neuroscience

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: Off Campus

There is an immense amount of unstructured and uncollated data in neuroscience and bioinformatics that could be used to guide knowledge discovery. Large language models (LLMs) have shown potential in extracting and analyzing unstructured natural language corpora and are promising for semi-automated processing of text into scientific knowledge such...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Biological & Health Sciences

Formalizing A-infinity category theory in Lean

Mina Aganagic - Professor, Mathematics

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

Today’s gold standard for establishing new theoretical results in mathematics is an accompanying formal computer-verification of the main theorems and their proofs (see reference below). Systems known as interactive theorem provers (ITPs), first designed to formally verify computer algorithms, have recently gained significant momentum in many mathematics communities. These...

 Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Superpower competition; middle powers in a world of superpowers

Vinod Aggarwal - Professor, Political Science

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

The Berkeley Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Center (BASC) brings together scholars from various disciplines, institutes, and centers from Berkeley and around the world to foster collaborative research on APEC and other trade-related issues. We are looking for students interested in working on the US-China superpower competition, particularly...

 Social Sciences

Characterization of a growth regulator of epigenetically repressed chromatin domains

Bassem Al-Sady - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Genes in our genome can be kept in active or inactive states in different cell types. Genes coding for opposing cell types are heritably kept inactive. This is possible because a gene repressive structure called heterochromatin can “grow” over regions containing these genes in some, but not other cell types...

Building Agentic LLMs for Community Health

Ahmed Alaa - Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Community health workers need to navigate guidelines to make healthcare decisions for patients. The goal of this project is to develop an LLM-based system to assist community health workers retrieve information for the patient hand using multiple international guidelines...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Engineering, Design & Technologies

Design, Fabrication and control of a swarm of ocean drones

Reza Alam - Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

This project develops swarm of autonomous sailboat drones powered by a hybrid renewable energy system that integrates wind propulsion, wave energy harvesting, and solar power generation. The vessels are designed for long-duration, self-sustained operation at sea, enabling continuous environmental monitoring without reliance on external charging infrastructure. The platform...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies

Strengthening Early Childhood Systems Through Networks: Alumni Engagement, Campus Partnerships, and Community Outreach Sponsored by UC Berkeley Equity & Excellence in Early Childhood (E3C) (interdisciplinary initiative across education, public policy, public health, social welfare, psychology, and affiliated centers)

Katie Albright, Education

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

E3C is building a public-impact alliance to strengthen early childhood systems in California. This URAP role will help E3C grow and connect three networks that help make systems change possible: (1) our alumni network, (2) internal interdisciplinary connections across UC Berkeley centers and programs, and (3) community and public...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences   Biological & Health Sciences

Biotransformation of PFAS in Contaminated Environments

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen - Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

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

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of synthetic chemicals used in various industrial and consumer products, including Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF), widely used since the 1960s for firefighting. Due to their persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic nature, PFAS pose significant environmental and health risks. Despite their widespread use...

UCSF Neurosurgery: Patient Outcomes from Open Spine Surgery

Christopher Ames - Professor, Neurological Surgery

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

At the UCSF Spine Center, Dr. Christopher Ames has a number of studies related to patient outcomes after open scoliosis surgery: ranging from bioelectrical impedance gait analyses and assessments of fall risk to validating AI diagnostic tools and tracking frailty/activity levels/complications/pain medication usage before and after surgery...

 Biological & Health Sciences

Social Psychology and Business Lab

Cameron Anderson - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

Please write Project 2: Social Psychology and Business Lab at the top of your application if you are interested in applying to our lab. We are seeking to recruit 2-3 new Research Apprentices who are interested in finding out more about social psychology and business research to join our research...

 Social Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Election Rules and Representation in U.S. Local Government

Sarah Anzia - Professor, Public Policy

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

In the wake of the events of Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, the descriptive and substantive under-representation of minorities in local governments has become an issue of pressing concern. Reformers and litigators have focused almost exclusively on the notion that minority representation is a simple matter of creating minority-majority...

 Social Sciences

Folklore Archive URAP

Folklore Archivist - Archivist, Folklore Program

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

The Folklore Archive is seeking a detail-oriented student to help digitize archival materials. This role provides a hands-on opportunity to engage with archival processes and contribute to the preservation and dissemination of rich cultural materials from the Berkeley Folklore Archive. No prior experience in archival work or digitization...

 Social Sciences   Arts & Humanities

Identifying diagnostic errors using large language models

Andrew Auerbach - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Our team at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is seeking a motivated undergraduate student to assist with interesting work identifying diagnostic errors using data from a national study called Achieving Diagnostic Excellence through Prevention and Teamwork (ADEPT). The overall goal of this project is to use LLM tools...

Youth and Allies Against Homelessness: Mixed Method Research Projects (PI: Prof. Colette (Coco) Auerswald, MD, MS, UC Berkeley School of Public Health) - YEDI Affiliated Project

Colette (Coco) Auerswald - Professor, Public Health

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

BACKGROUND Youth and Allies Against Homelessness (YAAH) is a research team based in i4Y (Innovations for Youth), a Berkeley School of Public Health research center. YAAH is made up of people with lived experience of homelessness or that have a deep commitment to ending youth homelessness. This includes youth community...

 Social Sciences   Biological & Health Sciences

Battle of the Sexes - Testing for cheating Sex Chromosomes during Meiosis

Doris Bachtrog - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

Sex chromosomes are expected to segregate equally during meiosis, but in many species they show signs of genetic conflict. In Drosophila, certain genes are found in unusually high copy number on the X or Y chromosome, suggesting they may act as “meiotic drivers” that bias their own transmission at the...

 Biological & Health Sciences

The Social Psychology of Authenticity

Erica Bailey - Professor , Business, Haas School

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

The goal of this set of research projects is to understand how people experience the psychological phenomenon of authenticity. These research questions include - what personality traits are associated with seeming the most authentic? How does the use of rationales or explanations impact perceptions of authenticity? What role does self-awareness...

 Social Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

MicroRNA Regulation of Plant Innate Immunity

Barbara Baker - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

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

In eukaryotes, small RNAs (20–30 nt) derived from double stranded RNA precursors direct proteins to regulate chromatin function, transcription, RNA stability, and translation through sequence-targeted mechanisms termed RNA silencing. Two main categories of plant small RNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs) and short interfering RNAs (siRNAs), guide cleavage of mRNA and...

 Biological & Health Sciences

Annotating datasets for the computational analysis of film

David Bamman - Professor, Information, School of

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

Methods in computer vision have reached a level of maturity that we can now develop computational instruments to measure a wide range of phenomena in film -- which actors are present in frame, the poses they have with respect to each other, the boundaries between shots -- which opens the door to...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Arts & Humanities   Digital Humanities and Data Science

Measuring suspense in fiction

David Bamman - Professor, Information, School of

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

In this project, we'll be exploring the techniques that fiction uses to evoke a sense of suspense in readers and to represent suspense experienced by its characters, and measure the degree to which computational models are able to capture that degree of uncertainty in what is going to unfold in...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Arts & Humanities   Digital Humanities and Data Science

Computational project in cultural analytics/computational social science

David Bamman - Professor, Information, School of

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

This URAP position is a placeholder for mentorship of a project of your design. If you are an advanced student in CS, data science, or another discipline with a strong computational background and have a topic of interest in the space of cultural analytics or computational social science, feel free...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Arts & Humanities   Digital Humanities and Data Science

The Patient Support Corps at UCSF

Jeff Belkora - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

INDICATION OF INTEREST - JANUARY 12, 2026: Fill out this form ASAP so I can contact you during the application period about an information session and other topics: https://forms.gle/eYRcXJFNAVSub3T4A **** **** UPDATE - JANUARY 15 - INFO SESSION **** We are tentatively planning an information session on Thursday January 22 at 7:15 pm in...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Social Sciences   Engineering, Design & Technologies   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Customer demographics, fintech entry and the structure of financial intermediation

Matteo Benetton - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

The project is part of a large agenda trying to understand how banks compete in an evolving environment affected by changing demographics and the entry non fintech lenders and bigtech firms. One project is studying the heterogeneous preferences of borrowers and savers to explain the lengthening of the financial intermediation...

 Digital Humanities and Data Science   Social Sciences

Documenting Transgender Identity in California Child Welfare Systems

Jill Berrick - Professor, Social Welfare

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

Transgender children are disproportionately overrepresented in the United States child welfare system and experience many unique challenges during their child welfare experiences. The state of California began collecting data on transgender children in the child welfare system in 2019, but before this data can be analyzed, social workers' use of...

 Social Sciences

Rapid Reviews\ Infectious Diseases (RR\ID)

Stefano M. Bertozzi - Professor, Public Health

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

Rapid Reviews\Infectious Diseases (RR\ID) [rrid.mitpress.mit.edu], is an initiative of the MIT Press and the University of California, Berkeley. It is an open access, rapid-review overlay journal for the accelerated curation and peer review of infections disease-related research. RR\ID takes a transdisciplinary approach to discuss, curate...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Digital Humanities and Data Science

Undergraduate Humanities Writer

Stephen Best - Professor, Townsend Center

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

The Undergraduate Humanities Writer covers humanities-related events and programs at Berkeley's Townsend Center for the Humanities and across campus...

 Arts & Humanities

Use your CS/AI/ML coding and hacking skills to help direct cash transfers to poor households in need!

Joshua Blumenstock - Professor, Information, School of

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

At the Global Opportunity Lab (gol.berkeley.edu), we view the world’s most pressing policy challenges as opportunities to develop transformative policy solutions. Harnessing state-of-the-art data science, computation, and analytic tools, we generate insights and innovations that promote prosperity and expand opportunity across the globe. Our lab is currently...

 Social Sciences   Digital Humanities and Data Science

Using atmospheric dynamics to predict hazards in Asia and Africa

William Boos - Professor, Earth and Planetary Science

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

The coupling of rainfall in Earth's tropics with atmospheric fluid dynamics is a vigorous area of research; it is also enormously consequential for many millions of people working in agriculture in Africa and Asia. In this project we will use theoretical atmospheric dynamics, large satellite datasets, and new AI weather...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Cacophonous Geographies: The Symbolic and Material Landscapes of Race

Anna Livia Brand - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

This project explores how racism and racial geographies were reenacted after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. It traces the redevelopment of three neighborhoods and the evolution of planning processes and development decisions, asking who they most benefit and who they most exclude...

 Social Sciences

Claiborne on the Verge: The Black Mecca in 21st Century America

Anna Livia Brand - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

Black meccas have been characterized by their economic and political opportunities and their cultural and social characteristics. Known for drawing African Americans to specific urban territories, black meccas have historically brought Blacks great social, economic, and psychological benefits, despite the vast inequalities and denigration they have faced in America. Yet...

 Social Sciences

The Mathematics of Patriarchy

Anna Livia Brand - Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

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

This project explores systems of patriarchy through a feminist lens, conceptualizing the everydayness and ubiquity of patriarchal power. Drawn initially from personal experiences, I am interested in naming the divergent array of patriarchal practices and conceptually mapping the various ways that patriarchy and anti-feminist systems imprint spatial and social...

 Social Sciences

Identifying California's Wildlife using Sound

Justin Brashares - Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management

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

Monitoring the status of wildlife populations is critical to assessing ecosystem health. Rapid advances in machine learning have recently allowed researchers to deploy acoustic recorders that autonomously capture and classify animal vocalizations, such as birds calls. Currently, UC Berkeley is preparing to launching the first ever SoundHub -- an open source...

 Social Sciences   Environmental Issues

Benchmarking and Development of Computational Methods to Predict the Pathogenicity of Human Structural Variants

Steven Brenner - Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology

Status: Open     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Structural variants (SVs) encompass diverse genomic alterations spanning hundreds to millions of base pairs and can profoundly impact genome function by disrupting coding sequences, altering gene dosage, or perturbing regulatory landscapes. However, it remains challenging to determine which SVs contribute to disease due to their complex effects on gene regulation...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Engineering, Design & Technologies

Documenting Latinx Contributions to Health Care Access and Services

Charles Briggs - Professor, Latinx Research Center

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

Project Title: Documenting Latinx Contributions to Health Care Access and Services “That's what you call solidarity. Everybody pitching in, everybody doing their part. We each one, teach one, each one, reach one!” - Yolanda Chacon- Serna (labor organizer and health advocate) “Health is politics by other means.” Alondra Nelson, author of...

 Social Sciences   Biological & Health Sciences

The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO): Undergraduate Research Apprentice (Role 1 of 3)

Travis Bristol - Professor, Education

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

Background: The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO), launched by Faculty Director Travis J. Bristol, at UC Berkeley School of Education, uses research to shape policy and practice in service of creating opportunities for students and adults historically at the margins to move closer to the center in...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO): Undergraduate Research Apprentice (Role 2 of 3)

Travis Bristol - Professor, Education

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

Background: The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO), launched by Faculty Director Travis J. Bristol, at UC Berkeley School of Education, uses research to shape policy and practice in service of creating opportunities for students and adults historically at the margins to move closer to the center in...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO): Undergraduate Research Apprentice (Role 3 of 3)

Travis Bristol - Professor, Education

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

Background: The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO), launched by Faculty Director Travis J. Bristol, at UC Berkeley School of Education, uses research to shape policy and practice in service of creating opportunities for students and adults historically at the margins to move closer to the center in...

 Education, Cognition & Psychology   Social Sciences

Tracing the History of Polarization in Congress

David Broockman - Professor, Political Science

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

Scholars and commentators argue that Congress is broken because both parties' politicians take increasingly extreme positions on issues, failing to listen to voters. However, these claims are based on assuming that politicians of both parties don't adjust which proposals they make as voters' demands and the world change. In other...

Field data review for Madagascar fruit bat project

Cara Brook - Professor, Integrative Biology

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

The Brook lab runs a longterm field research project, capturing and collecting biological samples for molecular analyses of zoonotic viruses from three species of wild fruit bat endemic to the island nation of Madagascar. The lab seeks a student researcher to carry out data cleaning, curation, and visualization when new...

 Biological & Health Sciences

Supporting Bay Area Immigrant Families through Community-Engaged Research and Practice

Stephanie Canizales - Professor, Sociology

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

UC Berkeley is a premier migration research institution with a wealth of knowledge that can be powerfully leveraged by local organizations serving immigrant families in the region. The "Supporting Bay Area Immigrant Families" Project aims to survey immigration-related research produced by UC Berkeley scholars to create a publicly available...

 Social Sciences

Rater Effects in School-Based Mental Health Screening: A Mixed-Method Approach

Maggie Chan - Professor, Education

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

Universal social-emotional and behavioral (SEB) screening in school is a recognized solution to the mental health crisis among children and youth. However, the effectiveness of school-based SEB screening to address this public health concern is contingent on the fairness and validity of the assessments. Most SEB screeners are...

Time-series Analysis of Physiological Measurement Data

Jan Christoph - Professor, UC San Francisco

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

Our group studies heart rhythm disorders and cardiac pathophysiology. In our lab, we produce high-resolution imaging data of intact isolated hearts ex vivo. This data shows action potential waves propagating across the ventricular surface of isolated beating hearts. A common pathophysiology, which we simulate in this ex vivo setting...

 Engineering, Design & Technologies   Biological & Health Sciences   Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Mechanism underlying visual processing in people with visual impairment

Susana Chung - Professor, Optometry

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

This research project focuses on the understanding of how the visual system works in people with normal vision, as well as in people with uncorrectable sub-normal vision (visual impairment). Uncorrectable sub-normal vision can occur as a result of an eye disease (e.g. macular degeneration, the leading cause of...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Plasticity of the visual system following vision loss

Susana Chung - Professor, Optometry

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

This research project focuses on the understanding of how the visual system responds to the onset of vision loss as a result of eye diseases. By understanding how the visual system responds to vision loss, our ultimate goal is to develop effective rehabilitative strategies to help people with vision loss...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Face and Object Recognition: Normal and Low Vision

Susana Chung - Professor, Optometry

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

The research project focuses on the understanding of how the visual system recognizes faces and other objects in normally sighted people and people with low vision. Psychophysical methods, retinal imaging and functional brain imaging will be used to answer the research question...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Feature detection and enhancement in peripheral vision

Susana Chung - Professor, Optometry

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

Loss of vision in the central visual field brings about dramatic changes to everyday activities (e.g. reading, identifying objects). This research project focuses on identifying how the informative features of objects contribute to overall visual function, with the clinical goal of visual performance improvement by enhancing selected parts of objects...

 Biological & Health Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

Subversive Legacies: Language, Truth and the Written Philosophical Dialogue

Marianne Constable - Professor, Rhetoric

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

Short book-length manuscript on rhetorical issues in dialogic philosophical texts from Plato to Heidegger (based on upper-division course I have taught several times...

 Arts & Humanities   Social Sciences

The Archive of Latinx Feelings: 19th Century Letters, Notebooks, Diaries, Books

Raul Coronado - Professor, Ethnic Studies

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

How can we write a history of Latine feelings? How can private writing give us access to how Mexicans in the Southwest thought about their feelings, their interiority, their sense of self? Knowing more about this can give us a better sense of two things: how have Latine communities expressed...

 Arts & Humanities   Social Sciences

The Psychology of Forecasting, Politics, Consumer Behavior, and Morality

Clayton Critcher - Professor, Business, Haas School

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

In my lab, we work on a variety of topics at the intersection of social psychology, judgment and decision making, and consumer behavior. Almost all questions are addressed with the use of behavioral experiments. At present, we are answering questions like the following: *When do consumers defer to product-review...

 Social Sciences   Education, Cognition & Psychology

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