Awardees

Dean's Prize for Excellence in Research and Creativity: Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Award Winners

The Dean’s Prize for Excellence in Research and Creativity Award for humanities, arts, and social science students is awarded for outstanding recorded presentations and multimedia at the Undergraduate Research & Creativity Showcase.

Year	Student’s Name	Major	Project Title	Mentor
2025	Narod Arisian	History	Anjar’s Urban Fabric and the Stranger Within: Tracing the Evolution of Armenian Diasporic Consciousness and Transnationalism	Dr. David N. Myers
2025	Madison Bishop	Psychology	From Hearing to Understanding: How Parents’ Language Impacts Children’s Emotion Categorization	Dr. Catherine Sandhofer
2025	Isabella Brannon	Religion, Public Affairs- Digital Humanities Minor	Theodicy In the Trenches: Shifts in Christian Apologetics After the Great War	Dr. Nick Sabo
2025	Joshua Chandran	Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology	Evaluation of Water Access, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Implementation in the Nama Sub-county of Uganda	Dr. Gregory Pierce
2025	Dhanya Charan	Cognitive Science + Linguistics and Psychology	Resyllabification as a form of Empty-Onset Repair in English-Learning Children	Dr. Megha Sundara and Dr. Victoria Mateu
2025	Gianna Clarot	Psychobiology	Heightened Risk of Psychopathology in Siblings of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder	Dr. Jennifer Silvers
2025	Kristina Dove	Anthropology	“On the Razors Edge:” Women’s Sex Work, Roles of Advocacy, and the Law	Dr. Jessica Cattelino
2025	Anne Gabrielle Go	Human Biology & Society	Assessing a Role-playing Game for Public Health Decision Making	Dr. Michelle Rensel
2025	Ananya Katappagari	Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics	Evaluation of Water Access, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Implementation in the Nama Sub-county of Uganda	Dr. Gregory Pierce
2025	Kristina Guadalupe Lopez	Psychology and Chicanx Studies, with a minor in Applied Developmental Psychology	Inequalities in Child Welfare	Dr. Lauren C. Ng
2025	Ellen Lu	History	Laundry Swindlers and Lost Sisters: The Gendered Dimensions of Anti-Chinese Activism, 1868-1905	Dr. Katherine Marino
2025	Chengzhen (Angelina) Meng	Psychology	Tuned In Together: How Early Caregiver Interactions Shape the Child’s Interoceptive Function	Dr. Bridget Callaghan
2025	Sanjana Narayanan	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Their Eyes, Their Lens: Empowering Student Voices Through Photographic Storytelling and Exploring Youth Perspectives on School Environment and Civic Engagement in Vadamanapakkam, India	Dr. Eri Srivatsan
2025	Isabella Patton	Human Biology and Society B.S	Evaluation of Water Access, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Implementation in the Nama Sub-county of Uganda	Dr. Gregory Pierce
2025	Yanci Rosales Huezo	Anthropology	“We Do Not Depend on You”: Nawat-Pipil Efforts in Preserving Identity and Ancestral Knowledge in western El Salvador	Dr. Shannon Speed
2025	Emily Rusting	Political Science, History	Identity Politics: The Effect of Affective Polarization on Americans’ Attitudes Toward Outparty-Stereotypical Groups	Dr. Efren Perez
2025	Shreya Sundar	Public Health	Their Eyes, Their Lens: Empowering Student Voices Through Photographic Storytelling and Exploring Youth Perspectives on School Environment and Civic Engagement in Vadamanapakkam, India	Dr. Eri Srivatsan
2025	Mai Vu	Public Affairs	Designing Utopia: A Historical Investigation into the Interplay of Power and Space in Los Angeles’s Built Environment	Dr. Marques Augusta Vestal
2025	Tiara Weedagama	Sociology	Bridging the Gaps: Regional Disparities in Global Nutritional Aid Networks	Dr. Chris Wegemer
2025	Jerry Wu	Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology	Evaluation of Water Access, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Implementation in the Nama Sub-county of Uganda	Dr. Gregory Pierce
2025	Jeannine Xu	Sociology & Communications	Perceived Unfairness in AI Interactions: Examining Trust, Attribution, and Emotional Responses	Dr. Steven Peterson
2025	Wanchen Yu	Psychology, Communication	Trust in AI: The Influence of Embedded Ideologies in AI-Generated Content on People’s Perceptions	Dr. Steven Peterson
2024	Arezo Ahmadi	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Like, Comment, and Subscribe: An Investigation Into the Current Accessibility of Social Media for Individuals With Disabilities and the Call for Expanded Access	Dr. Caitlin Solone
2024	Adelene Bertha	Psychology	Skid Row: Community or Individualistic?	Dr. Patricia Greenfield
2024	Emily Calkins	Anthroplogy	“Soy Dueña de mi Tiempo” How Women in Antigua, Guatemala ‘Own Their Time’ and Money through Food Vending	Dr. Monica Smith
2024	Kaitlyn Coons	History and Classical Civilization double major	William Leybourn, the broker of knowledge: reconstructing an early modern intellectual network	Dr. Stefania Tutino
2024	Ashley Dao	Musicology	Chúng Tôi Đi Mang Theo Quê Hương: Intergenerational Nostalgia, Trauma, & Empathy in the Musicking of Little Saigon	Dr. Raymond Knapp
2024	Ashlie Dao	Psychology	The Unseen Scholars: Understanding Challenges Among Caregiving Students in Higher Education	Dr. Lene Levy-Storms
2024	Matthew Espinoza	Global Studies	Third Places and Neoliberalism at the University of California, Los Angeles: Ackerman Union as a Case Study	Dr. Christopher Wegemer
2024	Lucas Guazelli	Theater	Video Design for the Play “Fairview:” Utilizing Nontraditional Technologies for the Theater	Dr. Jeff Burke
2024	Abigail Rubtsova Henderson	Anthropology and Political Science	Fostering PhotoVoice: Understanding the Impact of the Foster Care System on Youth and Their Familial Relationships	Dr. Todd Franke
2024	Audrey Lai	Cognitive Science	The Impact of Social Physical Activity on Cognitive Control in Adolescents	Dr. Jennifer Silvers
2024	Satema Lopez	Education and Social Transformation	Restoring Trust: Experiential approaches to culturally competent health care for American Indians in Los Angeles	Dr. Charles Alexander
2024	Ryo Sato	Sociology; Statistics and Data Science	Colloge Application, Class Socialization, and Narrative Identity Project	Dr. Steven Clayman
2024	Cailin Semro	Political Science	Beyond Individual Rights and Private Property: Understanding Lockean Liberty in American Constitutional Jurisprudence, 1937-2023	Dr. Tejas Parasher
2024	Amanda Solis	Sociology	Fostering PhotoVoice: Understanding the Impact of the Foster Care System on Youth and Their Familial Relationships	Dr. Todd Franke
2024	Asante Spencer	Political Science and African American Studies	Critical Race Theory and Policy Dispositions: A Study of White College Students, Empathy, and Their Support for Progressive Policies	Dr. Natalie Masuoka
2024	Qiran (Cheryl) Sun	Psychology	Increasing Memory Accuracy Through Computerized Memory Specificity Training (C-MeST): The Role of Depression Severity	Dr. Michelle G. Craske
2024	Chanaporn Tohsuwanwanich	Geography	Leaving No One Behind? Shifting Vulnerabilities of Participants of Baan Mankong Program in Bangkok, Thailand	Dr. Lieba Faier
2024	Anna Tong	Linguistics & Computer Science; Cognitive Science	The Language of Trauma: A Linguistic Analysis of Ukrainian Trauma Narratives	Dr. Daria Bahtina
2024	Michaela Trelby	English Literature – double minor: Scandinavian Studies & Classical Civilizations	The Golden Boar: The Multifaceted Role of Porcine Symbolism in Pre-Christian Scandinavian Religion	Dr. Kimberly Ball
2024	Jonathan Valenzuela Mejia	Global Studies and Public Affairs	The development of Central American communities and individual immigrant experiences in Western Europe.	Dr. Patricia Arroyo Calderón
2023	Maritza Campos	Biochemistry	Medical History of Female and Nonbinary UCLA Undergraduates and their Understanding/Opinions about Sexual and Reproductive Health	Mindy Steinberg
2023	Joleen Chiu	Mathematics/Economics	Increasing Access to a Four-Year College: Impacts of a California State University Guaranteed Admission Program on College Enrollment Rates	Juliana Londoño-Vélez
2023	Hector De Leon	Public Affairs, Geography, Labor Studies, Chicana/o and Central American Studies	Investigating Southern California’s Emerging School to Warehouse Pipeline	Cecilia Rios-Aguilar
2023	Cynthia Gong	Statistics	Location, Location, Location: An Exploration of Geographic Disparities in Bank and Alternative Financial Service Access in Los Angeles County	Wendy Perla Kurtz
2023	Renée Grange	Human Biology and Society B.S.	Women of Color Seek Justice After Deaths in LA County Jail: The Feminization of Labor that Contests Official Determinations of Death	Nicholas E. Shapiro
2023	Eleanore Hoffmeyer	History	Evangelicalism x Neoliberalism: A History of how the Pervasive Economic Theory Seeped into America’s Mega-Churches	Robin Kelley
2023	Jiayang Li	Cognitive Science, Statistics	Emotion Compass: Investigating Relationship Between Depression and Trauma Symptom Profiles and Dynamic Emotional States Evoked by Music Using a Mobile Emotion Tracker	David Clewett
2023	Leah Likin	Psychology	Feelings of Uncertainty in the Times of Covid, Climate Change, and Handheld Digital Spaces: Collection and Exhibition	Ron Astor
2023	Tess Louie	Political Science, Economics	Beyond Oil: Exploring the Effects of Resource Rents in Today’s Information Landscape	Michael Thies
2023	Charlotte Oxley	Film and Television	Purple and Green: Thesis Film	Steven Anderson
2023	Rafael Matos Pacheco	Economics	Symbolic Fines: An Analysis of Deforestation Policies in Brazil	Will Rafey
2023	Aiden D. Mayhood	Political Science, Economics	Thomas Skidmore’s Critique of John Locke’s Second Treatise: A Novel Theory of Express Consent and Early American Discourse on Intergenerational Equality	Giulia Sissa
2023	Jennifer Aira Miyaki	Linguistics	The Phonology of Compound Signs in American Sign Language (ASL)	Claire Moore-Cantwell
2023	Lucas Ophoff	Statistics and Data Science, Political Science	The Impact of Twitter Election Misinformation on Voter Behavior: The Blue Canary in the Coal Mine	Cesi Cruz
2023	Justine Sargent	English	The Feminine Episteme: Tracing the Experimental Body in Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, and David Cronenberg	Joseph Bristow
2023	Kyle Schmidt	Political Science	A New Age of Empire: China’s Compounding Influence on the Continent of Africa and its Implications for Global Powers–The South African Advantage	Anthony Pagden
2023	Katherine “Kat” Sharp	Education and Social Transformation, Psychology	An Investigation of Autistic Masking through the Lens of Second Language Acquisition	Caitlin Solone
2023	Kelsey Takaha	Communication, Gender Studies	Face masks and Nonverbal Communication: The Effects of Partial Facial Occlusion on Approachability and Friendliness in Dyadic Interactions	Steve Peterson
2023	Paulina Torres	Public Affairs and Education and Social Transformation Studies	Proud and Unafraid: Serving Undocumented Students at University of California Emerging Hispanic Serving Institutions	Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas
2023	Lex Von Klark	Political Science	‘Robbery of the Masses’: Novel Theories of Primitive Accumulation in the Works of Wen Tiejun and Qin Hui	Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld
2022	Steven-Clyde R. Bech	History	“We Stand on the Brink of War:” The Reactions of West and East Germany to the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962	Kevin Y. Kim
2022	Eve Boyd	History	Britain’s Second Empire: The City of London and the Rise of Offshore Tax Havens	Robin D.G. Kelley
2022	Ashley Chen	Psychology	Effects of Lecture Speed and Note-Taking on Retention of Educational Material	Elizabeth Bjork
2022	Rachel Cheung	Economics	The Effects of Uninsurance and Uninsurance Length on Health Outcomes, Healthcare Utilization and Health Expenditure	Kathleen McGarry
2022	Shira Gratch	Sociology	Bridging Policy and Practice in Homeless Service Organizations: Exploring Policy-In-4Action at Housing for Health in Los Angeles County Department of Health Services	Carolina San Juan
2022	John Ha	Computational and Systems Biology	Gut Response: How Scientist Conceived of Microbes in the Stomach after the Germ Theory of Disease (1870 – 1935)	Chien Ling Zeleny
2022	Gloria Jiyoon Kim	Psychology, Education & Social Transformation	Exploring Asian Americans’ Attitudes Towards Mental Health Treatment Based on Therapist-Client Racial/Ethnic Match	Lauren Ng
2022	Ashley Leung	English	Liberate the Asian American Writer: Embracing the Flaws of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club	Jinqi Ling
2022	Lizzet Lopez	Physiological Science	Redefining Patient Care: The Impact of Primary Care Appointment Duration on Patient Satisfaction and Preventative Service Delivery for Vulnerable Populations in South LA	Diana Alfaro, Sam Macam
2022	Yingying Luo	Communication & Cognitive Science	Case Study of the UCLA Communication Campaign During the COVID-19 Pandemic	Michael Suman
2022	Sienna Martinez	Psychobiology	Environmental Hotspots and Women’s Reproductive Health: Evaluating the Impact of a Community Based Program	Carolina San Juan
2022	Kate McInerny	Public Affairs	The Racialized Impacts of Law Enforcement Helicopter Surveillance in Los Angeles	Nicholas Shapiro
2022	Alisson Maciel Ramos	Political Science and Chicano/a Studies	Black-Latino Relations: What Generates Political Solidarity Among People of Color?	Efrén Pérez
2022	Lauren Scott	Anthropology (B.S.)	An Evolutionary Perspective of Facial Expressivity Through Analysis of Domestic Cat Social Interactions	Brooke Scelza
2022	Urvi Shah	Cognitive Science	Memorization and generalization performance after listening to a children’s science podcast	Catherine Sandhofer
2022	A. Jinha Song	English	Queering the Rocks: Three Readings of the “Grisly, Feendly Rokkes Blake” of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale	Matthew Fisher
2022	Hailey Valles	Biology	Religion as a Barrier to Reproductive Health Literacy and Health Outcomes Amongst Young, Latinx Women in Los Angeles County	Carolina San Juan
2022	Ashley Vargas Cabada	Biology	The importance of occupational safety protocols in reducing infection rates among Latino-immigrant food and agriculture laborers during the COVID-19 pandemic	Diana Alfaro, Sam Macam
2021	Evan J. T. Sakuma	American Literature and Culture	Subjection to Abjection: Performance of Queer Asian-American Asociality in American Theatre	Mitchum Huehls
2021	Hannah Boyle	Anthropology	An Oral History of the Cuisine of Incarcerated People in California (1980-Present)	Nicholas Shapiro
2021	Isabella Ding	Anthropology	Dewy Skin Over Scruffy Beards: Critical U.S. Fan Reception of K-pop’s Male Gender Performativity	Purnima Mankekar
2021	Natalie Sarafian	Biology	How to Use Sex to Gain Power in the Ancient Patriarchy: A Medical Humanities Investigation of Cleopatra and Theodora	Kara Cooney
2021	Shannon Boland	Classical Civilization	Antigone in Chinatown	Lydia Spielberg
2021	Camryn Wilneff	Communication	It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane… It’s Military-Funded Protagonism: How the Department of Defense and Hollywood Use Superhero Films to Influence Young Viewers	Francis Steen
2021	Gabrielle Sones	Communication	Stan Twitter and Its Influence on the Success of Musical Artists	Steven Peterson
2021	Ivana Damjanovic	Design Media Arts	Audio Map: Environment Sonification Using Location Based Audio	Victoria Vesna
2021	Abigail Brostrom	Geography	Unequal Spaces and Covid-19 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin: a Geographic Information System-Based Approach	Sierra Burkhart
2021	Isabel Wong	Global Studies	Winds of Otaku: Anime Conventions as Forums of Globalization	Tara Prescott-Johnson
2021	J.W. Clark	Musicology	Voicing the Fox: Vulpine Bodies and the Zoopolitics of Listening	Mitchell Morris
2021	Elliot Bear Yu	Philosophy	Lost in a Dream: Wandering and Queer Exploration in the Video Game Yume Nikki	Daniel Snelson Snelson
2021	Loren Ben David	Political Science	Assigning Responsibility: A Theoretical Framework For Assessing Asymmetrical Warfare Under The Just War Theory	Anthony Pagden
2021	Catherine Ahmadi	Political Science & Communication	It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane… It’s Military-Funded Protagonism: How the Department of Defense and Hollywood Use Superhero Films to Influence Young Viewers	Francis Steen
2021	Anna L. Yan	Psychobiology	The Effect of Leader’s Gender, Race, and Leadership Style on Men’s Support of Gender Parity	Yuen Huo
2021	David G. Figueroa	Psychology	Buy It All and Then Some: How Social Status Induces Selfishness Under Resource Scarcity	A. Janet Tomiyama
2021	Claire Waller	Psychology	Sexual and Romantic Orientation in Youth: Links to Mental Health and Social Support	Jennifer Silvers
2021	Cindy Berganza	Psychology & Political Science	Online Politicking: The Effects of Social Media on Contemporary Activism	Efrén Pérez
2021	Rimsha Saeed	Public Affairs	Islamophobia and the Muslim College Experience: Understanding the Context, Type, Frequency, and Effects of Islamophobic Incidents in College Settings	Meredith Phillips
2021	Michelle Lee	Statistics	Developing a Digital Humanities Methodology to Analyze 78,000+ Holocaust Survivor Interview Questions	Todd Presner
2020	Julianne Rodriguez	Anthropology	Frustrated Freedom: The Perception of Choice Among Women in Malawi, Africa	Brooke Scelza
2020	Sharon Yuen	Asian American Studies	Asian Pacific Islander Desi American College-Aged Womxn: How They Gain Sexual and Reproductive Health Education	Grace Hong
2020	Hetvi Doshi	Cognitive Science	Appraisal in the 21st century: Mapping the Dimensions beneath Complex Social Emotions	Matthew Lieberman
2020	Rhiannon Wilson	English	Computer Room	Daniel Snelson
2020	Mariah Furtek	Geography	Tracing the Evolution of CPEC from an Economic Initiative into a Geopolitical Project	John Agnew
2020	Daniel Leibowitz	Geography and Environmental Studies	Tropical Dry Forest Restoration in Hawaii: Monitoring Success Using Remote Sensing and UAV Technology	Thomas Gillespie
2020	Hannah Barrett	Geography and International Development Studies	From Heimat to Vaterland: Political Constructions of Spatial Identity & Nationalism in Germany, 1930-2017	John Agnew
2020	Rucha Modi	Global Studies	“My Faith Does Not Discriminate”: Media Visibility of the Religious Left in the Movement for LGBTQ Equality	James Desveaux
2020	Jason Vu	Global Studies and Asian American Studies	“We Have Hearts”: Memory, Diaspora, and Resistance in Lan Nguyen’s “Fighting for Family”	Thu-Huong Nguyen-Vo
2020	Haocong Cheng	History	Making the New Socialist People: The Ideal and Practice of Laojiao System, 1950s –1960s.	Andrea Goldman, R. Bin Wong
2020	Therese Boles	History	The Rise and Flaws of the Independent Press: 1892 Homestead Strike as a Case Study for Public Trust in Gilded Age Journalism	Joan Waugh
2020	Patrick Yu	History	The Case for U.S. Fluoridation: The Politics and Science Behind a Struggling Public Health Initiative (1950-1960s) and its Impact on the Current Public Debate	Soraya de Chadarevian
2020	Christine Tran	International Development Studies and Asian American Studies	Moving Beyond Asian Culture: Narratives and Perspectives of Domestic Violence from Asian American Women	Grace Hong
2020	Alyssa Arbolante	Linguistics and Spanish	An Acoustic Analysis of /s/-lenition in Cibaeño Spanish	Matthew Faytak
2020	Michael Kim	Psychobiology	Youth Reactions to Repeated Daily Diary Assessments of Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors	Joan Asarnow
2020	Julia Nakamura	Psychobiology	Early-life Stress, Depressive Symptoms, and Inflammation in Older Adults: Perceived Support and Social Contact as Protective Factors	Julienne E. Bower
2020	Valda Han	Psychobiology	Marital Compassion in the Context of the Daily Lives of Families	Rena Repett
2020	Caleb Kealoha	Psychology	We are (Not) in Sync: Inter-Brain Synchrony During Interpersonal Conflict	Matthew Lieberman
2020	Priya Dahiya	Psychology	Sexual Violence Survivor Solidarity: Social Support and Policy Attitudes	Tiffany Brannon
2020	Joelle Rosenberg	Sociology	“Asesinas, terroristas, putas”: Genocide, Gender, and Sexual Violence Under the Argentinian Dictatorship of 1976-1983	Zsuzsa Berend
2020	Lizhou Fan	Statistics	Using Text Mining and Information Extraction Methods to Analyze Holocaust and Genocide Testimonies	Todd Presner
2020	Aaliyah Murphy	World Arts and Cultures	“Mi Cuerpo, Mi Voz, Mi Poder”: A Case Study of Arts and Movement-Based Reproductive Health Empowerment for Afro-Mexican and Indigenous Women in Oaxaca, Mexico	Dallas Swendeman, Melissa Smith
2019	Hamza Saleh	Anthropology	The Herb As Resistance: How Bedouin in Beida Maintain Cultural Identity Through Healthcare Choice	Aomar Boum
2019	Nirinjan Khalsa	Anthropology	Stamp the Yard: Embodied Experiences and Globalization in Block-Printed Textile Production in Bagru, India	Monica L. Smith
2019	Grace S. Kim	Anthropology	“Skinny is Cosmetic Here, Not Clinical”: Exposing Clinical Significance of Eating Disorders within South Korea’s Dual Medical System	Robert B. Lemelson
2019	Rocio Sanchez-Nolasco	Art History	Framing Chicana Agency in 1980s Los Angeles Punk: The Photography of Patssi Valdez	Charlene V. Black
2019	Chloe Landis	Art History	At the Pleasure of the Pharaoh: Decoding the Reliefs of the Medinet Habu Eastern High Gate	Kathlyn M. Cooney
2019	Alejandro Juarez	Chicana/o Studies	Influence of Chicanx Studies on Student Outcomes of Chicanx Continuation High School Students	Alice Ho
2019	Teanna Feng	Cognitive Science	Using Game-Based Measures to Assess Children’s Scientific Thinking About Force	Gregory Chung
2019	Jonathan Feldman	Communication	Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Broadcast News Media Reporting on Blockchain Technology	Steven Peterson
2019	PwintPhyu Nandar	Environmental Science	UNTAPPED: Exploring Water Conservation of Immigrant Households in Los Angeles	Jessica R. Cattelino
2019	Jessica Moritz	Geography	Social Pathologies as Possible Barriers to Timely Diagnosis of Endometriosis in Hispanic Adolescent Females	Alice Ho
2019	Erik Salazar	History	Healers of a Changing World: Rural Medical Practice in Mexico Amidst the Cholera Epidemic of 1850	Fernando Perez-Montesinos
2019	Christian Choe	History	Growing Pains: Corporate Rivalries as the Catalyst for Innovation in Business History	Mary A. Yeager
2019	Sophia Luo	Linguistics and Spanish	Sinitic Interrogative Particle KE: Corpus Evidence for Diachronic Change	David Goldstein
2019	Isabella Page	Political Science	Infant Mortality Rate and Abortion in Cuba: Complex Truths Among Politicized Narratives	Michael L. Ross
2019	Zahra Hajee	Psychology	Applying Antitrust Law to Zero-Price Markets: A Case Study with Facebook, Inc.	James Desveaux
2019	Avery Larkin Horne	Psychology	Facial Recognition Software’s Unconstitutional Role in Schools	N/A
2019	Marisol Dominguez	Sociology	A Latina’s Guide to Navigating School While Working	Alice Ho
2019	Jade Frank	Sociology	Racialized Implications of Magnet School	Alice Ho
2019	Lik Teng Ung	Statistics	Suicide and Homicide in LGBT Population in the United States: A Machine Learning Approach	Vickie M. Mays

Dean's Prize for Excellence in Research: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering Award Winners

The Dean’s Prize for Excellence in Research Award for life science, physical science, and engineering students is awarded for outstanding livestreamed presentations of faculty-mentored research at the Undergraduate Research & Creativity Showcase.

Year	Student’s Name	Major	Project Title	Mentor
2025	Murtadha Al Msari	Bioengineering	Soft, Strain-Insensitive Biosensors for Real-Time In Vivo Monitoring of H₂O₂ and pH Dynamics	Dr. Sam Emaminejad
2025	Lily Anderson	Biology	Examining Species-Specific Seed Bank Persistence in an Annual Grassland	Dr. Nathan Kraft
2025	Isabel Angres	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Analyzing the Formation of Human Primordial Germ Cell-Like Cells Through a Peri-Gastruloid Model	Dr. Amander Clark
2025	Madison Bang	Biochemistry	Epigenetic Regulation by Histone Demethylase UTX Mediates Chronic Autoimmunity in Inflammatory Neuropathy Model	Dr. Maureen Su
2025	Chloe Borja	Physiological Science	Liver-Directed Disruption of Hsd3b7 in Adult Mice to Study Bile Acid and Lipid Physiology	Dr. Thomas Vallim
2025	Maria Caballero	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Investigating the Effects of MECP2 Mutation on Neurogenesis in a Mosaic Brain Organoid Model for Rett Syndrome	Dr. Bennett Novitch
2025	Precious Calderon	Biochemistry	Editing Efficiency Analysis of Adeno-Associated Viral (AAV) CRISPR/Cas9 Targeting Genes in the Bile Acid and Lipid Metabolic Pathways	Dr. Thomas Vallim
2025	Erika Cha	Psychobiology	Optimizing Cardiomyocyte Differentiation from iPSCs Using Heparin and Metabolic Selection	Dr. Rene Packard
2025	Katie Chan	Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences	Dust, Ice, and Arctic Clouds: Evaluating representations of dust as ice nucleating particles to improve mixed-phase cloud modeling for Arctic geoengineering studies	Dr. Jasper Kok
2025	Kushal Chatterjee	Neuroscience	Enhancing Plasma Membrane Hyperpolarization to Mitigate Pro-Inflammatory Responses During Acute Lung Injury	Dr. Andreas Swingshackl
2025	Winston Chen	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Denosumab Enhances Primary Stability of Dental Implants in Mice	Dr. Rueben Kim
2025	Helen Elmer	Biochemistry	Brome Mosaic Virus Phase Diagram for Optimization of RNA Packaging within Virus-Like Particles	Dr. William Gelbart
2025	Peter Fernandez	Biochemistry	A Novel Small Molecule Modulator That Inhibits Mitochondrial Import of Mutant Alanine-Glyoxylate Aminotransferase via High Throughput Screening of Human Cell Models of Primary Hyperoxaluria Type 1	Dr. Carla Koehler
2025	Jacob Fischer	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	The Role of the POLYCOMB REPRESSIVE COMPLEX 2 in Defining Expression Boundaries in Arabidopsis	Dr. Jeffrey Long
2025	Tess Fleser	Physiological Science	A Novel Function for Sarcospan in Skeletal Muscle Membrane Repair	Dr. Rachelle Crosbie
2025	Sofia Garza	Human Biology and Society	Leveraging Patient Derived Xenograft Models to Elucidate Gynecologic Carcinosarcoma Pathophysiology	Dr. Sanaz Memarzadeh
2025	Anne Go	Human Biology and Society	Determining Effects of HDAC6 Knockout and HDAC(6) Inhibition on Human-Induced Cortical Neurons	Dr. Harley Kornblum
2025	Anton Guo	Physiological Science	The Role of nmnat and wallenda on Sleep-Dependent Synaptic Reorganization in Drosophila	Dr. Jeffrey Donlea
2025	Galen Heuer	Computational and Systems Biology	Fragmentomic Cell-Free DNA Features in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis	Dr. Noah Zaitlen
2025	Kenneth Ho	Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics	Characterizing The Transcriptional Factor Network That Define Human Memory Natural Killer Cells	Dr. Timothy O’Sullivan
2025	Henry Hsieh	Psychobiology	Mapping the mitochondrial and lysosomal landscape in microglia during aging and models of PD	Dr. Lindsay De Biase
2025	Rio Hundley	Psychobiology	Reorganization of Prefrontal Circuits Drives Long-Term Memory	Dr. Laura DeNardo
2025	Kyle Kalindjian	Computational and Systems Biology	Interferon-Gamma Responsive Oasl1 and Oasl2 Drive the Transition of Cardiac Fibroblasts Towards a Pro-Inflammatory Phenotype During Aging	Dr. Pearl Quijada
2025	Joanna Kim	Neuroscience	Sex Differences in Gastrointestinal Symptoms and Healthcare Utilization Among Individuals with DGBI in the Global Population	Dr. Lin Chang
2025	Jonathan Le	Molecular, Cell, and Development Biology	Targeting STING to improve functions of CAR Macrophage	Dr. Anjie Zhen
2025	Rachelle Le	Computational and Systems Biology	Novel T Cell Determinants of Female-Sex Bias in Autoimmune Thyroid Disease	Dr. Melissa Lechner
2025	Cecilia Lei	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Understanding the Role of Autophagy in Dendritic Cells in Melanoma	Dr. Hilary Coller
2025	Chengyuan Li	Molecular, Cell, and Development Biology	Topological measures on phylogenetic trees of the antibody repertoire reveal the underlying kinetics of B-cell fate decisions	Dr. Alexander Hoffman
2025	Coline Luo	Molecular, Cell, and Development Biology	Electronic Cigarette Smoke Induced Injury Effect in Airway Cilia Structure and Function	Dr. Brigitte Gomperts
2025	Sophia Luo	Molecular, Cell, and Development Biology	Myeloid-specific Polymerase Gamma is critical for the maintenance of mitochondrial function and metabolic health of female mice	Dr. Andrea Hevener
2025	Daniela Montero	Molecular, Cell, and Development Biology	Regulation of Cardiomyocyte Hypertrophy By Knockout of Slit2	Dr. Pearl Quijada
2025	Lilane Morath	Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics	Post-transcriptional Regulation of Trained Immunity	Dr. Quen Cheng
2025	Ethan Nguyen	Biophysics	3D Stress Analysis of Blood Vessels During Thrombectomy Using Multi-View Imaging	Dr. Katsushi Arisaka
2025	Sarah O’Malley	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Optimizing Lentiviral Vector Design to Enhance Anti-HIV CAR Function and Efficacy	Dr. Scott Kitchen
2025	Sophia Ong	Microbiology, Iummunology, and Molecular Genetics	A Biomimetic 3D Vascularized Tumoroid System to Model Glioblastoma Angiogenesis In Vitro	Dr. Yvonne Chen
2025	Elizabeth Park	Psychobiology	Analysis of Premature Death Risk from Lupus Reveals Profound Racial/Ethnic Differences: A Nationwide Population-based Study, 2018-2024	Dr. Ram Singh
2025	Sydney Silverman	Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics	Designing Pathogen-Inspired Cationic Polymers to Promote Endosomal Escape	Dr. Andrea Kasko
2025	Arnav Singh	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Estrogen Receptor Alpha Deficiency Induces Fibrosis in a Cellular Model of the Postmenopausal Heart	Dr. Andrea Hevener
2025	Lavie Tran	Physiological Science	Klotho Accelerates Muscle Fiber Growth Following Acute Injury of Old Muscle	Dr. James Tidball
2025	Saskia Vaillancourt	Bioengineering	High Resolution Spatial Transcriptomics profiling of Neuroinflammation induced by Tick-Borne Powassan viral infection	Dr. Vaithilingaraja Arumugaswami
2025	Sarah Wang	Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics	Drp1 Regulates Mitochondrial Health and Controls Skeletal Muscle Mass Through the Erk1/2-Nur77 Pathway	Dr. Zhenqi Zhou
2025	Samantha Wu	Biochemistry	Leveraging site-specific click-mediated fluorescent labeling to track the aggregation of a-synuclein and other amyloidogenic proteins	Dr. Jose Rodriguez
2025	Wilson Zheng	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Exploring the Metabolic Flexibility of Stem-Cell-Derived Squamous Cell Carcinomas via Pharmacological Inhibitors	Dr. William Lowry
2024	Justin An	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Characterizing Lipidome Differences Between ecDNA and non-ecDNA Melanoma Types	Dr. Thomas Graeber
2024	Ava Asmani	Electrical Engineering	Extending Flash Memory Lifetime through Optimized Read Thresholds and Voltage Level Adjustments for Advanced Encoding Techniques	Dr. Richard D Wesel
2024	Katie Bogue	Biochemistry	Simple Polymer Physics Used to Model Formin-Mediated Actin Polymerization upon N-Terminal Dimerization	Dr. Margot Elizabeth Quinlan
2024	Eliana Harmony Bohn	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Histone Modification H4K20me3 Mediates Quiescent Cell State Transitions Alongside Changes to Genomic Architecture	Dr. Hilary Ann Coller
2024	Holly Jasmine Do	Microbiology,Immunology& Molecular Genetics	Role of Ubiquitin-Like Modifier FAT10 in Adipose Tissue	Dr. Andrea L Hevener
2024	Zahra Sidhu Gill	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Prediction of Ovarian Cancer Treatment Sensitivity through Nuclear Feature Correlation	Dr. Sandra Orsulic
2024	Juliana Alexa Girdner	Biochemistry	Investigating the Mechanism of Zinc Finger Antiviral Protein Antiviral Activity	Dr. Man Hing Li
2024	Jessica Christina Goeij	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Project Title Withheld.	Dr. Volker Hartenstein
2024	William Peter Harvey	Microbiology,Immunology& Molecular Genetics	Utilizing Barcoded HIV-1 to Examine the Effect of Envelope Tropism on HIV Reservoir Formation	Dr. Jocelyn T Kim
2024	Gilbert Joe Herrera	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Immunotherapy-Induced Macrophages Inhibit Anti-Tumor CD8+ T Cell Activity within the Glioblastoma Microenvironment	Dr. Robert M Prins
2024	Abigail Kenzie Holder	Psychobiology	Developmental Profile of a Language-Related Gene in Birdsong Brain Circuitry	Dr. Stephanie Ann White
2024	Nicole Huang	Human Biology and Society (BS)	Ruxolitinib Prevents Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor-related Diabetes Mellitus via Inhibition of IL-21 and IFNγ	Dr. Melissa Lechner
2024	Elliot Sungwook Kang	Molecular Cell & Developmental Biology	Using Allogeneic iNKT Cell Therapy to Deplete Tumor-Associated Macrophages	Dr. Lili Yang
2024	Madison Paige Klee	Psychobiology	Proteolytic Breakdown Profiles of GFAP and NF-L Suggest Sex and Injury Severity Differences in Chronic Atrophy and Preliminary Time Course Data	Dr. Ina-Beate Wanner
2024	Ella Levine	Chemical Engineering	Improving the Stability of and Light Capture from CsPbBr3 Nanocrystals in Photonic Luminescent Solar Concentrators for High Efficiency, Low Cost Solar Modules	Dr. Carissa Eisler
2024	Alannah Cate Linden	Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences/Mathematics	A Partial Least Squares Regression Model Approach to Extract Pigment Concentration From Tower-Based Remote Sensing Reflectance Spectra in Delta Junction, AK	Dr. Jochen Peter Stutz
2024	Farid Ali Manshaii	Bioengineering	Effect of Gradual Nicotine Concentration Reduction on Vaping: Influence of Flavoring	Dr. Edythe Danick London
2024	Daniel Ryan Meza	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Determining Optimal Calcium Indicator for Imaging Neuromuscular Junction Development in C. elegans	Dr. Pavak Kirit Shah
2024	Amanda Vian Nguyen	Chemistry-Material Science	Isolating the Dopant Counterion Size Effect on the Carrier Mobility of Poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl Thin Films	Dr. Benjamin Joel Schwartz
2024	Anna Konstantinovna Novoselov	Environmental Science	Overexpression of mer operon genes in gut bacterium reduces methylmercury accumulation in vitro and in vivo	Dr. Elaine Yih-Nien Hsiao
2024	Cameron Jonathan Ong	Microbiology,Immunology& Molecular Genetics	Modulating the Epigenome of Cells Derived From Arboleda-Tham Syndrome Patients using Small Molecules	Dr. Valerie A Arboleda
2024	Shivani Prashant Patel	Biochemistry	CRISPR/Cas9 System to Map Haplotype Effects in Hybrid Yeast Strains	Dr. Leonid Kruglyak
2024	Ivan Pavlovic	Neuroscience	Modeling the Developing Human Hippocampus Using Brain Organoids for the Investigation of Rett Syndrome	Dr. Bennett G Novitch
2024	Olivia Peony	Neuroscience	Cardiac Events in Low Cardiovascular Risk Patients with Triple Negative Breast Cancer Treated with Immunotherapy	Dr. Katelyn Atkins
2024	Srihari Prabu	Biochemistry	Ultrafine Particle Inhalation and Chronic Inflammation in Interleukin-10 Deficient Mice	Dr. Jesus A Araujo
2024	Jeff Qu	Biochemistry	Computational Explorations on Amyloid Mining across Proteomes	Dr. Jose Alfonso Rodriguez
2024	Shilpa Padiki Rao	Electrical Engineering	Electromagnetic Locomotion for a Wireless, Invasive Endoscopy Procedure	Dr. Tyler Clites
2024	Isabel Marissa Romero	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Investigating the Knockout of Suv4-20h2 in Mouse Reproductive Development	Dr. Hilary Ann Coller
2024	Kathryn Lily Saxton	Bioengineering	Synergistic Effect of Environmental Stimulation on Brain Organoid Development	Dr. Yen-Chih Lin
2024	Cheyanne Emanuel Shariat	Physics	Predicting the Formation Mechanism of Multiplanetary Systems	Dr. Bradley M Hansen
2024	Idella Ariel Smolyar	Psychology	Beyond Words: How Tone of Voice and Words Labels Interact in Children’s Emotion Categorization	Dr. Catherine M Sandhofer
2024	Faith Greene St Amant	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Characterizing the Effects of Interferons on the Blood-Brain Barrier and Their Subsequent Role in Viral Neuroinvasion	Dr. Man Hing Li
2024	Jordan Alexander Tatang	Biochemistry	This Title has been Withheld.	Dr. Roxana Radu
2024	Mia Taylor	Precomputational and Systems Biology	Differential analysis of transcriptome dynamics reveals biological pathways implicated in pediatric inflammation and mortality	Dr. Anil Sapru
2024	Bowen Wang	Climate Science	Shrub-to-Grass Shift Promotes More Rapid and Intense Wildfire in Southern California	Dr. Park Williams
2024	Margaret Ruyi Wang	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Engineering enhanced anti-HIV CAR T-cells using CRISPR/Cas9	Dr. Scott G Kitchen
2024	Blake Austin Williams	Biochemistry	The Effect of Anti-AAV9 Antibodies and Complement Split Products on AAV9 Uptake and Macrophage Activation	Dr. Melissa J Spencer
2024	Alexander Kailong Wu	Design/Media Arts	Studies of Mouse Gait in Alpha-Synuclein Model of Parkinson’s Disease Using Behavioral Tracking	Dr. Sotirios Masmanidis
2024	Priscilla Yang	Bioengineering	Making Waves: Evaluating Biogas Scrubbing Capabilities of Microalgae for Energy-Positive Wastewater Treatment Technology	Dr. Shaily Mahendra
2024	Charlie Zhi-Lin Zheng	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Snai1b-Mediated Myocardial Growth and Trabeculation in Response to Mechanical Stimulation	Dr. Tzung Hsiai
2024	Adalia Zhou	Neuroscience	Exploring the Metabolic Effect of Phosphatidylethanolamine Synthesis on Natural Killer Cell Function	Dr. Timothy E O’sullivan
2023	Jackson Alga-Sherriff	Physiological Science	Brain Connectivity with Cognitively Burdensome Task Following Closed Head Injury	Neil Harris
2023	Sumitra Ananth	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Elucidating the role of serine metabolism in glioblastoma radioresistance	Erina Vlashi
2023	Aishwarya Atmakuri	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Metabolic regulation of cell identity and therapy response in prostate cancer	Andrew Goldstein
2023	Daria Azizad	Neuroscience	The Role of Hormones on Cortical Development	Aparna Bhaduri
2023	Rodrigo Baltazar-Nunez	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Analyzing the Effects of BAAT, AKR1D1, and AKR1C14 Deficiency on Lipid and Bile Acid Metabolism in Mice	Thomas Vallim
2023	Brazil Bartholomew	Neuroscience	A Deep-Brain Study: Differing Physiological and Neural Responses to Emotional Stimuli in Humans with Anxiety-Related Disorders	Nanthia Suthana
2023	Soulaimane Bentaleb	Bioengineering	Unsupervised Classification of Interictal iEEG Activity as Pathological or Physiological in Epilepsy Patients	Wentai Liu
2023	Ronida Cheko	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Impact of Loss of Autophagy on the Melanoma Microenvironment	Hilary Coller
2023	Lauren Chow	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Supplementing modified-nucleoside mRNA vaccines with inflammatory adjuvants increases dendritic cell maturation and T cell expansion	Caius Radu
2023	Ethan Cook	Biochemistry	Investigating the Role of MT2A in Cannabidiol Mediated Reduction of Type I Interferon Signaling in Human Immune Cells	Anjie Zhen
2023	Francesca Day	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Characterizing the Effect of Retinoic Acid on the Transcriptional Profile and Proliferation of Hepatic Progenitor Cells	Heather Christofk
2023	Theresa D’Silva	Neuroscience	Examining the Role of GLUT3-Mediated Glucose Transport in Huntington’s Disease	Carlos Cepeda
2023	Ariel Fernandez	Physiological Science	Converging Evidence of ARPP21+ Medium Spiny Neurons’ Role in Zebra Finch Sensorimotor Learning via Behavioral & Machine Learning Analysis	Stephanie White
2023	Jackie Gallardo Beltran	Psychology	The Role of ARC ER⍺-expressing Kisspeptin Neurons in Temperature Dysregulation	Edward Van Veen
2023	Kimiya Ghassemzadeh	Physiological Science	CRISPR-A Correction of Haploinsufficient Kleefstra Syndrome Risk Gene KMT2C	Daniel Geschwind
2023	Elizabeth Gulli	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Establishing the Role of Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase in Macrophage Tolerance and Recovery	Anthony Covarrubias
2023	Priya Hegde	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Characterization of Extracellular Vesicles in non-Hodgkin Lymphoma	Marta Epeldegui
2023	Keya Jonnalagadda	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Structure and Function of Microtubule Inner Proteins in the T. brucei Doublet Microtubule	Kent Hill
2023	Sophie Lawrence	Psychology	Moving Art and Awe: The Impact of Visual Art on Emotional Well-Being	Robert Bilder
2023	Jamie Lee	Psychobiology	Bloom Syndrome Patients and Mice Display Accelerated Epigenetic Aging	Vivian Chang
2023	Maria Martignago Cassol	Physiological Science	An Estrogen-Responsive and Sexually Dimorphic Neuronal Population in the Ventromedial Hypothalamus Regulates Thermogenesis	Stephanie Van Veen
2023	Jessica Ortega	Biochemistry	IL-21 Drives the Development of Autoimmune Diabetes Mellitus in Checkpoint Inhibitor Cancer Therapy	Melissa Lechner
2023	Marissa Pennino	Human Biology and Society (BS)	Sex differences in ventricular function and mortality in Sema3a deficient mice with dilated cardiomyopathy	Olujimi Ajijola
2023	Madison Pfau	Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution	The social microbiome: the relationship between sociality and gut microbe abundance and diversity in a wild mammal	Daniel Blumstein
2023	Diana Portugal Barron	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	High Throughput Drug Discovery for Protein Aggregation-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases	Zhefang Guo
2023	Justin Quan	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Toxoplasma gondii encodes an array of novel TBC-domain containing proteins including an essential regulator of the secretory pathway	Peter Bradley
2023	Sriha Srinivasan	Human Biology and Society (BS)	The Modification of Tissue Microarray Methodology to Computationally Analyze Ovarian Cancer Cell Lines	Sandra Orsulic
2023	Emily Stenzler	Psychobiology	Fail No More: How mice fail in a skilled movement task	Ahmet Arac
2023	Gurugowtham Ulaganathan	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Utilizing a High-Throughput Assay in C. elegans to Rapidly Assess Fetal Chemical Reprotoxicity	Patrick Allard
2023	Arjun Verma	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Machine Learning Based Prediction of Postoperative Pancreatic Fistulas Following Pancreaticoduodenectomy	Peyman Benharash
2023	Samantha Vi-Tang	Chemistry-Material Science	Laser Reduction of Boron and Sulfur Doped Carbon Nanodots for AC-Line Filtering Capacitors	Richard Kaner
2023	Qiu Wu	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Examining the Role of TET1-mediated DNA Demethylation in Human Germ Cell Specification	Amander Clark
2023	Annie Ye	Biology	Activation of TREK-1 Potassium Channels Protects Against Influenza A-induced Lung Injury	Andreas Schwingshackl
2023	Roy Zhao	Physics	A Semi-Empirical Model of High-Redshift Dust Attenuation of Galaxies and Its observational Effect During the Epoch of Reionization	Steven Furlanetto
2022	Alejandra Baron	Physiological Science	The regulation of body temperature through hypothalamic estrogen receptor alpha	Stephanie Correa
2022	Sean Cheah	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Super-Enhancer Landscapes Are Remodeled By Cell Cycle Arrest	Hilary Coller
2022	Rehan Chinoy	Applied Mathematics	A recurrent neural network model accounts for both the timing and working memory components of an interval discrimination task	Dean Buonomano
2022	Meera Chotai	Computational & Systems Biology	Comprehensive benchmarking of data analysis pipelines for calling imprinted genes in plants	Steven E. Jacobsen
2022	Nolan Dang	Physiological Science	Modulating Symptoms of Anxiety with Transcranial Focused Ultrasound: Decreased Psycho-physiological Responses Associated with Non-invasive Deep Brain Neuromodulation	Taylor Kuhn
2022	Zoe Day	Neuroscience	Developing a Paradigm to Uncover of the Mechanisms of Cognitive Inflexibility in a Model of Dup15q Syndrome	Peyman Golshan
2022	Yennifer Delgado	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	High-Throughput Screening of Viral Entry Inhibitors Against SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein	Keigo Machida
2022	Sarah Fatkin	Neuroscience	The Effect of Haltere Proprioceptive Input on Visual Object Tracking in Drosophila melanogaster Flight	Mark A. Frye
2022	Nicole Garrido	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	An exploration of the evolution of the novel function of CRABS CLAW, a member of the YABBY transcription factor family, in nectary development	Lachezar A. Nikolov
2022	Charles Gu	Biology	Biophysical Characterization of TREK-1 and Large-conductance K + (BK) Channels in Human Alveolar Epithelial and Endothelial Cells	Andreas Schwingshackl
2022	Abraham Horrillo	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	H4K20me3 Induced Quiescence as an Antiproliferative Therapeutic	Hilary Coller
2022	Jason Hu	Mathematics	Filamentous Architecture of the Native, In Situ 3-Methylcrotonyl-CoA Carboxylase Holoenzyme	Hong Zhou
2022	Kelly Huang	Biology	Mechanotransduction and Canonical Wnt Crosstalk in Osteogenesis on Nanoparticulate Mineralized Collagen Scaffolds	Justine Lee
2022	Kevin Jiang	Biochemistry	Mathematical Modeling of cRel and RelA Dynamics in Macrophages	Alexander Hoffmann
2022	Alyssa Kong	Biology	Is early life adversity associated with adult stress?	Daniel T. Blumstein
2022	Thomas Lai	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	Promoter demethylation of NY-ESO-1 and other immuno-modulatory genes primes Glioblastoma for immunotherapeutic targeting	Robert M. Prins
2022	Jakeline Larios	Physiological Science	Role of Bhlhb9 in adipose tissue homeostasis at protein level	Claudio Javier Villanueva
2022	Vicki Liu	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	Characterizing Pathologically Determined Malignant Transformation in IDH Mutant Glioma Patients	Albert Lai
2022	Arthur Lovekin	Mechanical Engineering	Design and Implementation of an Autonomous Weed-Spraying Robot	Mohammad K. Jawed
2022	Alice Ma	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	Estrogen Receptor Alpha Regulates Ucp1-Independent Thermogenesis Through Serca2b-Mediated Calcium Cycling in Brown Adipose Tissue	Andrea L Hevener
2022	Ethan McCarthy	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Novel Autoantibody Screening in Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy Using Phage Immunoprecipitation Sequencing and a Luciferase Immunoprecipitation System	Maureen Su
2022	Nico Pedroncelli	Bioengineering	Optimization of synthetic Notch (synNotch) Signaling Pathways for Controlled Cell Differentiation in Tissue Engineering Systems	Song Li
2022	Natalie Penn	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Gamma-Delta T Cells Engineered with a Mesothelin-Targeted CAR and Soluble IL-15 Display Greater Persistency in Recognizing and Killing Ovarian Carcinoma	Lili Yang
2022	Pedro Perez	Biology	Inferring the Evolutionary Genomic Recombination Rates of Arctic Wolves and the Domestic Dog	Kirk Lohmueller
2022	Sachin Reddi	Biology	Modeling the Energy Balance of Angiosperms	Lawren Sack
2022	Varun Sivashankar	Mathematics	Extremal Uniquely Resolvable Multisets	Hunter N. Spink
2022	Vishvak Subramanyan	Computational and Systems Biology	Single Cell Analysis of Intratumoral Heterogeneity in Pancreatic Cancer (PDAC) Based on Differential Isoform Usage	Hilary Coller
2022	Maria Taveras	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	Role of ABCD3 in Lipid Metabolism and Development of Liver Disease	Elizabeth Tarling
2022	Gwyneth Torrecampo	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	Investigating the Gene Regulatory Landscape of Cellular Quiescence	Hilary A. Coller
2022	Matthew Tran	Physiological Science	Pathological Stress Regulates Vascular Guidance Factor Expression in Cardiac Fibroblasts	Pearl Quijada
2021	Stephanie Pan	Biochemistry	Prognostic Significance of CDKN2AB Loss in IDH-Wildtype Glioblastomas	Albert Lai
2021	Erin Beverly Cole	Biochemistry	An Immunohistochemical Analysis of Morphological Differences in ACE Overexpressing Microglia Associated with Alzheimer’s Disease	Cynthia C Nast
2021	Adira Kruayatidee	Biochemistry	A Novel Medium-throughput Screening Method for Amyloidogenic Protein Oligomerization Inhibitors	Gal Bitan
2021	Brian Ta	Biochemistry	Investigating Visuospatial Processing: The Perception of Space is Encoded by Time	Katsushi Arisaka
2021	Samuel Philip Clark	Biochemistry and Neuroscience	Development of a Novel Brain-Penetrant EGFR Inhibitor for the Treatment of Glioblastoma	David Nathanson
2021	Andy Anbei Liao	Biology	Large Conductance Potassium Channels are a New Tool to Regulate LPS-induced CCL-2 Cytokine Release from Human Pulmonary Microvascular Endothelial Cells	Andreas Schwingshackl
2021	Annie (Ann) Finneran	Biology	Niche Modeling of Hetaerina titia Occurrence and Pigmentation	Gregory Grether
2021	Subin Cho	Biology	Racial and Ethnic Differences in Outcomes for Patients in the Early Phase of Schizophrenia	Kenneth Subotnik
2021	Jonathan James Wong	Chemistry	Efficient Z‑Selective Olefin-Acrylamide Cross-Metathesis Enabled by Sterically Demanding Cyclometalated Ruthenium Catalysts	Kendall N. Houk
2021	Angel Lin Ni	Chemistry	Cardiac Fibroblast-Extracellular Matrix Interactions in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy-Associated Cardiomyopathy	Rachelle Crosbie
2021	Mei Zhou Blundell	Computational and Systems Biology	Sleep Deprivation Drives Brain-Wide Changes in Synaptic Abundance in Drosophila melanogaster	Jeffrey Michael Donlea
2021	Nicholas Waxter Darci-Maher	Computational and Systems Biology	Cross-tissue Omics Analysis Between Adipose Tissue and Liver Identifies Novel Serum Biomarker Candidates for Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease	Paivi E. Pajukanta
2021	Jason Leung	Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution	Investigating the Genetics of the El Moro Canyon Oak: Pure Relict or Hybrid?	Victoria Sork
2021	Alexa Terrazas	Geology	Evolution of Hydroclimates in Southeast Arizona Over the Past 20,000 Years	Aradhna Tripati
2021	Grace Elizabeth Yang	Human Biology and Society	Bilophila wadsworthia contributes to environmentally-mediated cognitive impairment in mice	Elaine Hsiao
2021	Kevin (Zhengyang) Sun	Human Biology and Society, Asian Studies	Loss of Autophagy in Cancer Associated Fibroblasts Suppresses Melanoma Tumor Growth through T-Cell Response	Hilary Coller
2021	Ivan Noe Chavez	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Skin-penetrating nematodes display life stage-specific responses to bacteria	Elissa Hallem
2021	Lindsey Alexandra Fontenot	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Serum Elafin Accurately Indicates Crohn’s Disease Intestinal Strictures	Hon Wai Koon
2021	Jennifer Su	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Overactivation of Yes-Associated Protein (YAP) in the Adult Mouse Tooth Epithelium	Jimmy K. Hu
2021	Lizeth Estrada	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Differential Effects of Constitutive and Regulated Marrow Adipose Tissue on Hematopoiesis during Aging	Kenneth Dorshkind
2021	Xihui Yin	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Pathogenic macrophages exhibit inflammatory cytokine signaling and metabolic changes in spontaneous mouse model of autoimmune peripheral polyneuropathy	Maureen Su
2021	Amanda Marie Hagen	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	Differentiation and Characterization of Primordial Germ Cell Like Cells	Amander Clark
2021	Kelly Anne Kiremidjian	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	The Role of Bhlhb9 in Adipose Tissue Homeostasis and Glucose Metabolism	Claudio Javier Villanueva
2021	Harjas Singh Sabharwal	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	Analysis of Phagosome Degradation Rate in RPE Cells Throughout the Circadian Cycle	David S. Williams
2021	Misa Mihara (Misaki) Belser	Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology	Role of the Mitophagy Receptor Prohibitin on Drosophila Lifespan	David William Walker
2021	Nishma Chakraborty	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Elucidating the Impact of Novel Fumarate Hydratase (FH) Mutations on Enzymatic Activity and Renal Cell Carcinoma Tumorigenesis	Heather Christofk
2021	Michael Wen-Kai Cheng	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Epigenetic Pathway Genes Characterize Intertumoral Heterogeneity in Breast and Prostate Cancer	Hilary Coller
2021	Kenya Bonitto	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Investigating the Functional Role of H4K20me3 in Cellular Quiescence	Hilary Coller
2021	Keith Henry Mendoza Agravante	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Diversity in nectaries and other floral organs used to investigate the distribution of traits and evolution in Brassicaceae	Lachezar Atanasov Nikolov
2021	Sangeetha Ramachandran	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	The role of PARP4 and its localization on alphaviral replication	Melody Manhing Li
2021	Isabel Kate Jabara	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Inhibition of Triple Negative Breast Cancer Progression by Combinations of Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 Receptor Antagonists and Metformin Analogs	Nalo Hamilton
2021	Victoria Jiang	Neuroscience	Literature Review of the Circadian System in Drosophila	Orkun Akin
2021	Srbui Azarapetian	Neuroscience	hiPSC-Glial Enriched Progenitors Enhance Motor Recovery and Axonal Growth After White Matter Stroke	Stanley T. Carmichael
2021	Azmain Abrawr Hossain	Physics	Effects of Quantum Confinement and Dielectric Environment on Exciton Binding Energy in II-VI Semiconductor Nanoplatelets	Justin Ryan Caram
2021	Alma Beatriz Zuniga Munoz	Physiological Science	Developing a quantitative understanding of IFN-beta controlled anti-viral and inflammatory gene expression	Alexander Hoffmann
2021	Dean Neutel	Physiological Science	SMF1 Abundance in Plasma Membrane is Dynamically Regulated by RNase-III Mediated Degradation	Guillaume Chanfreau
2020	Trent Thomas	Astrophysics	A Nitrogen-Rich Atmosphere on Ancient Mars Indicated by Isotopic Evolution	Renyu Hu
2020	Abby Thurm	Biochemistry	Defective-Interfering RNAs as an Anti-Viral Therapy Against Yellow Fever Virus	William Gelbart
2020	Timothy Yu	Bioengineering	Towards Identifying Novel Gene Regulators of Lipid Metabolism with Machine Learning	Thomas Aguiar Vallim
2020	Sabeeca Vadakkan	Biology	Identification of Trypanosoma brucei Microtubule Inner Proteins	Kent Hill
2020	Xinyi Yan	Biology	Evaluating the Microbial Effect on the Pairwise and Community-Wide Coexistence of California Annual Species	Nathan Kraft
2020	Michael Zargari	Biology	MicroRNA10b-5p Inhibition Rescues Severe Pulmonary Hypertensive Rats	Soban Umar
2020	Alexander Soohoo	Chemical Engineering	An Enzymatic Approach to Diversification of Loline Alkaloid Insecticides	Yi Tang
2020	John Oliver Chapman	Chemistry	Macromolecule Responsive Perfluorocarbon Nanoemulsions for Controlled Drug Delivery	Ellen Sletten
2020	Jaqueline Cecilia Lopez	Chemistry	Exploring the Synthesis and Properties of Oligoanilines as Conducting Polymers	Richard Kaner
2020	Vivian Wall	Chemistry	Effect of Colloid Size on Thermally Insulating Mesoporous Silica Materials	Sarah Tolbert
2020	Ikaasa Suri	Computational and Systems Biology	The Brain As a Hologram: Understood through the Lens of Behavioral Data	Katsushi Arisaka
2020	Tara (Taraneh) Sadjapour	Electrical Engineering	On Distributed Quantization for Classification Tasks	Christina Fragouli
2020	Pauline Tze	Human Biology and Society	Role of Octopaminergic Receptor Cells in Drosophila Egg-laying Circuit	David Krantz
2020	Kimberly Graybeal	Human Biology and Society	Dexamethasone Increases Mitochondrial Respiratory Capacity and Dependence on Oxidative Phosphorylation in Human Trabecular Meshwork Cells	Jie Jay Zheng
2020	Ning Yao	Human Biology and Society	Mining Functional Data: Multivariate Lens of Cancer Gene Dependency and Drug Sensitivity	Thomas Graeber
2020	Jerry C Wang	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Gene Co-expression Network Analysis in Human Spinal Cord Highlights Mechanisms Underlying Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Susceptibility	Daniel Geschwind
2020	Anahita Sehgal	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Oxidative Stress Regulators As A Therapeutic Target For Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma	Erina Vlashi
2020	Emi Nakahara	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Exploring Roles of Flagellar Proteins in Signaling of Trypanosoma brucei	Kent Hill
2020	Emma Dawson	Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics	Transfer of Exogenous Mitochondria Rescues Metabolically Impaired Cells	Michael Teitell
2020	Jessica H Chern	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Novel Components of the Toxoplasma gondii Inner Membrane Complex	Peter Bradley
2020	Itay Solomon	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Influence of Hyaluronic Acid in Tumor Microenvironment on Glioblastoma Invasive Behavior	Stephanie Seidlits
2020	Iris Feng	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Intracellular Glucose Promotes Neonatal Heart Regeneration	Atsushi Nakano
2020	Jodi Goldman	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast (DSC) Perfusion MRI Response During Chemoradiation and Impact on Survival in Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma is Dependent on MGMT Promoter Methylation Status	Benjamin Ellingson
2020	Trisha Agarwal	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Investigating and Modeling the Role of Desquamation of Bronchiolar Epithelium in Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis	Brigitte Gomperts
2020	Carla Pantoja	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	High-Throughput Drug Screening Identifies a Potent Wnt Inhibitor that Promotes Airway Basal Stem Cell Homeostasis	Brigitte Gomperts
2020	Maggie Bui	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	GSK3 Inhibition Increases Macropinocytosis and Lysosomal Activity in an Axin1-Driven Hepatocellular Carcinoma Model	Edward De Robertis
2020	Lily Guo	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Autophagy in the Melanoma Microenvironment	Hilary Coller
2020	Danting Zeng	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	A Drosophila Larval Screen of Postnatal Growth Retardation Related Genes Reveals Lozenge As a Regulator of Growth In Response to Hypoxia	Julian Antonio Martinez
2020	Sarah Yue Man Hong	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Diet1 Regulates Kidney Epithelial Barrier Function Through Modulation of Meprin Metalloproteases	Karen Reue
2020	Nathan Tran	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Expression Patterns of Novel Nectary Marker Genes	Lachezar Nikolov
2020	Joseph Rich	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	A Negative Control Formin Mutant Retains Some Actin Polymerization Activity	Margot Quinlan
2020	Caroline Comenho	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Evaluating Epigenetic Mechanisms Underlying Obesity Through Chromatin Dynamics in Human Adipogenesis	Paivi E. Pajukanta
2020	Rachelle Stark	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Does Sarcospan Require Galgt2 to Ameliorate Dystrophic Pathology in the mdx Murine Model of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy?	Rachelle Crosbie
2020	Ivy Kwok	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Pseudonocardia dioxanivorans CB1190 Can Break Down Carcinogenic Groundwater Pollutant Vinyl Chloride	Shaily Mahendra
2020	Rhea Sahu	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Structure-Function Analysis of the DNAJ1 Activator Protein in a Methylation-Directed Activation Complex in Arabidopsis	Steve Jacobsen
2020	Caliope (Carla) Marin	Neuroscience	Basolateral Amygdala Involvement in Tactile Avoidance in a Fragile X Syndrome Mouse Model	Carlos Portera-Cailliau
2020	Paul Adkisson	Neuroscience	A Single Early Life Trauma Increases Motivation for Cocaine and Relapse in Adult Rats Without Altering Basal Glucocorticoid Signaling	Pamela Kennedy
2020	Nilla Sivakumar	Neuroscience	An Estrogen-Sensitive Hypothalamic Pathway for Regulation of Energy Balance	Stephanie Correa
2020	Shelley Cheng	Physics	Characterizing Reflected Light in Close-In Exoplanets	Smadar Naoz
2020	Stephanie Younan	Physiological Science	Impact of Donor Noninvasive Liver Fibrotic Score on Graft Injury in Liver Transplantation	Fady Kaldas
2020	Justin Yi	Physiological Science	No Space in the Brain: a Phase Code for Visuospatial Information	Katsushi Arisaka
2020	Dona Aboud Syriani	Psychobiology	Prevalence of RFC1-Mediated Spinocerebellar Ataxia in a North American Ataxia Cohort	Brent Fogel
2019	Matthew Ji	Biochemistry	Application of Native Glioma-derived D-2-Hydroxyglutarate Increases Global m6A Levels in Immunogenic Cells.	Albert Lai
2019	Tianxiao Yang	Biochemistry	Determining the Structural Origins of Tau Strains	David Eisenberg
2019	Maggie Chen	Biochemistry	Mechanism and Regioselectivity of an Unsymmetrical Hexadehydro-Diels-Alder (HDDA) Reaction	Kendall Houk
2019	Xen Ping Hoi	Biochemistry	High-Throughput Mass Spectrometry Screening of Kinases Regulating Lipid Homeostasis	Steven Bensinger
2019	Wesley Armstrong	Biochemistry, Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Metabolomic and Proteomic Profiling of KRas Driven Pancreatic Cancer to Rationalize Combination Therapy	Caius Radu
2019	Kevin Neumann	Biology	Differences in personality shape queen-worker interactions in a polydomous ant species	Noa Pinter-Wollman
2019	Kiera Monuki	Biology	The Effects of Depth on eDNA Signatures in Kelp Forest Ecosystems: Informing Community Science Projects to Survey California Marine Protected Areas	Paul Barber
2019	Grace Lee	Biology	Perioperative Surgical Microenvironment of Mesothelioma Patients: Analysis of Chest Tube Drainage Cytokine Levels	Robert Cameron
2019	Dominic Andre Robolino	Biology	Biodegradation and Carbon Substrate Utilization of 1,4-Dioxane and Cis-1,2-dichloroethene by Pseudonocardia dioxanivorans CB1190	Shaily Mahendra
2019	Samantha Lee	Biology	Premature Ossification and Fusion in Hydrocephalic Cntnap4 Conditional Knockout mice	Xinli Zhang
2019	Tiffany Quynh Lu	Biophysics	Tight Junctions Regulate Morphogenesis of Actin-Based Microridges	Alvaro Sagasti
2019	Jonathan Lee	Chemical Engineering	High-Throughput Screening of Protein-Protein Interactions Using Next-Generation Sequencing	Sriram Kosuri
2019	Selena Hernandez	Chemistry	Bioorthogonal Complexation for Selective and Efficient Labeling of Biomolecules in Living Systems	Ellen Sletten
2019	Catherine Dang Wu	Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution	Correlates of Innovation Success in a Facultatively Social Mammal	Daniel Blumstein
2019	Kelsey Ouyang	HBS	Distinguishing Type II From Type I Cutibacterium Acnes: an Efficient Method of Studying Healthy- Versus Acne- Associated C. Acnes Interactions	Jenny Kim
2019	Hannah Bullock	Human Biology and Society	Development of Vectors for T Cell-Specific Expression of Chimeric Antigen Receptors	Scott Kitchen
2019	Annie Cathay Qing	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Effects of CCR5 Inhibition Therapies on Thymic Egress in HIV Infection	Christina Uittenbogaart
2019	Daniel Isaac Sands	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Zika Virus Envelope Protein Interacts with HSP70	Samuel French
2019	Matthew Yap	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Generating Gene-Modified Dendritic Cells to Enhance the Effectiveness of CAR-Mediated Anti-HIV Therapy	Scott Kitchen
2019	Ashley Yuen	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Mapping of Neurotransmitter Receptors in Neurons of the Drosophila Optic Lobe by Conditional Epitope Tagging and Cell Labeling	Stephen Zipursky
2019	Zena Marie Delos Reyes Del Mundo	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Macrophage Activation and TLR Signaling Leads to Mitochondria Shutdown	Steven Bensinger
2019	Andrew Michael Ly	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	Establishing a Mechanism of Type-I IFN Receptor Antagonism by Kaposi’s Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus Protein ORF54	Ting-Ting Wu
2019	Chloe Maybrun	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Biogenesis and Function of Transient Oronasal Plugs in C. elegans	Alison Frand
2019	Philip Zhou	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Tryptophan Promotes Cardiac Maturation Through an Unidentified Mechanism in the Kynurenine Pathway	Atsushi Nakano
2019	Holly Huang	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Tucatinib, a Potent and Highly Selective Small Molecule Inhibitor of HER2	Dennis Slamon
2019	Emily Guinn	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	The Role of Autophagy in Wound Healing	Hilary Coller
2019	Ayse Elif Kesaf	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Investigating the Role of Autophagy in Melanoma-Associated Microenvironment	Hilary Coller
2019	Xianyu Hao	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Role of Autophagy and Epithelial Growth Factor Receptor Signaling on Growth Regulation of Drosophila Melanogaster Larvae Under Environmental Stress	Julian Martinez
2019	Hyelim Chun	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Role of TGFbeta Type I Receptor ALK5 in Cartilage Development	Karen Lyons
2019	Noah Joseph Lopez	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Identifying Necessary Domain of ALK5 for Inhibiting BMP Signaling in Chondrocytes	Karen Lyons
2019	Divya Prajapati	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Functional and molecular evaluation of screened candidate compounds to prevent pancreatic cancer cell extravasation	Luisa Iruela-Arispe
2019	Benjamin LZ Shou	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Benchmarking and Analysis of Transcriptome-Based Deconvolution for Cell Types and Proportions	Matteo Pellegrini
2019	Irena Roy	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Impact of pH on Early Cell Fate Determination	Michael Teitell
2019	Rochelle Ellison	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Glioma Tumors Induce Expression of GPIHBP1, a Lipoprotein Lipase Transporter, in Brain Capillary Endothelial Cells	Stephen Young
2019	Nathan Stutzman	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	Characterizing the Role of the Polyadenylation Factor Pbp1 and Pre-mRNA Splicing in S. Cerevisiae	Tracy Johnson
2019	Gunvant Chaudhari	Neuroscience	Pupil dynamics show hyperarousal in a mouse model of Fragile X Syndrome during a visual discrimination task	Carlos Portera-Cailliau
2019	Jone Bacinskaite	Neuroscience	Investigating the Role of MicroSaccades in Binocular Rivalry Using a Novel Virtual Reality Based System	Katsushi Arisaka
2019	Rachel Colbath	Neuroscience	Restricting Tdc2 Expression to Identify Subsets Involved In Odor-Induced Visual Valence Reversal	Mark Frye
2019	Ashley Dong	Psychobiology	Race and Ethnicity More Influential than Socioeconomic Status for Determining Exclusive Breastfeeding Success	Kara Calkins
2019	Kyra Edwards	Statistics	Cerebrospinal Fluid Metabolite Levels as Predictors of Age and Sex	Roel Ophoff

Faculty Mentor Award Winners

The Faculty Mentor Award honors the considerable dedication of UCLA faculty who consistently and enthusiastically serve as effective mentors to undergraduate students involved in research or creative inquiry. Faculty are nominated by undergraduate students they supported in their research or creative practice and professional development.

Faculty	Department	Year
Jesus Araujo	Cardiology, Toxicology	2025
Idan Blank	Psychology, Linguistics	2025
Jessica Cattelino	Anthropology	2025
Ugo Edu	African American Studies	2025
Sam Emaminejad	Electrical Engineering	2025
Alicia Izquierdo	Psychology, Brain Research Institute	2025
Alvine Kamaha	Physics & Astronomy	2025
Harley Kornblum	Psychiatry, Pharmacology, & Pediatrics, DGSOM, Brain Research Institute	2025
Tamar Kremer-Sadlik	Anthropology	2025
Diana Márquez-Gárban	Medicine, Hematology-Oncology	2025
Jared McBride	History	2025
William McCarthy	Health Policy & Management	2025
Salma Mousa	Political Science	2025
Matthew Nava	Chemistry & Biochemistry	2025
Diana Rigueur	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	2025
Jesse Rissman	Psychology, Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience	2025
Danielle Schmitt	Chemistry & Biochemistry	2025
Andrew Wikenheiser	Psychology, Brain Research Institute	2025
Patricia Arroyo Calderon	Spanish and Portuguese	2024
Daria Bahtina	Linguistics	2024
Genevieve Carpio	Chicana/o and Central American Studies	2024
Gregory Chung	Education	2024
Brent Fogel	Neurology, Human Genetics	2024
Patricia Greenfield	Psychology	2024
Puneet Gupta	Electrical Engineering	2024
Ju Hui (Judy) Han	Gender Studies	2024
Larry Hoffman	Head & Neck Surgery	2024
Jennifer Ayla Jay	Civil and Environmental Engineering	2024
Kelly Kistner	Undergraduate Research Center	2024
Yuzhang Li	Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	2024
Edythe D. London	Dept. of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences and Dept. of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology	2024
Marissa K. Lopez	English	2024
Allan MacKenzie-Graham	Neurology	2024
Natalie Masuoka	Political Science	2024
Smadar Naoz	Physics and Astronomy	2024
Peter Nonacs	Ecology & Evolutionary Biology	2024
Sharmila Venugopal	Neurology	2024
Keriann M. Backus, PhD	Chemistry and Biochemistry	2023
Peyman Benharash, MD	Surgery	2023
Adam Bradley, PhD	English	2023
Jun Chen, PhD	Bioengineering	2023
Patricia Cheng, PhD	Psychology	2023
Joseph G. Crompton, MD, PhD	Surgical Oncology	2023
Zhefeng Guo, PhD	Neurology	2023
Andrea Hevener, PhD	Medicine	2023
Alexander Hoffmann, PhD	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	2023
Bemmy Maharramli, PhD	Center for Community Learning	2023
Rafail Ostrovsky, PhD	Computer Science, Mathematics	2023
Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, PhD	Education	2023
Catherine M. Sandhofer, PhD	Psychology	2023
Alice Soragni, PhD	Orthopaedic Surgery	2023
Erina Vlashi, PhD	Radiation Oncology	2023
Xinshu Xiao, PhD	Integrative Biology and Physiology	2023
Amada Armenta, PhD	Urban Planning	2022
Evelyn Blumenberg, PhD	Urban Planning	2022
Louis-Serge Bouchard, PhD	Chemistry and Biochemistry	2022
Peter Bradley, PhD	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	2022
Catherine Cahill, PhD	Psychiatry	2022
David Clewett, PhD	Psychology	2022
Paula Diaconescu, PhD	Chemistry and Biochemistry	2022
Yogita Goyal, PhD	English	2022
Akishige Hokugo, DDS & PhD	Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery	2022
Karen Hunter Quartz, PhD	Education and Information Studies	2022
Colin Kremer, PhD	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	2022
Albert Lai, MD	Neurology	2022
Amanda Montoya, PhD	Psychology	2022
Suzanne Paulson, PhD	Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences	2022
Maureen Su, MD	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	2022
Carla Suhr, PhD	Spanish and Portuguese	2022
Xian-Jie Yang, PhD	Ophthalmology	2022
Erin Debenport, PhD	Anthropology	2021
David Williams, PhD	Neurobiology, Ophthalmology	2021
Willy Hugo, PhD	Medicine- Dermatology	2021
Efrén Pérez, PhD	Political Science	2021
Ladan Shams, PhD	Psychology- Behavioral Neuroscience, Psychology- Cognitive	2021
Hon Wai Koon, PhD	Medicine- Digestive Diseases	2021
Cesar Favila, PhD	Musicology	2021
Daniel Blumstein, PhD	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	2021
David Gere, PhD	World Arts and Cultures	2021
A. Janet Tomiyama, PhD	Psychology- Health	2021
Pavak Shah, PhD	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	2021
Paul Barber, PhD	Ecology and Evolutionary Biology	2021
David Hayes-Bautista, PhD	Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, Medicine- General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research	2021
Beth Lazazzera, PhD	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	2021
Rahul Roy, PhD	Physics and Astronomy	2021
Daniel Snelson, PhD	English	2021
Jochen Stutz, PhD	Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences	2021
Grace Kyungwon Hong, PhD	Asian American Studies, Gender Studies	2020
William M. Gelbart , PhD	Chemistry and Biochemistry	2020
Alexander Spokoyny, PhD	Chemistry and Biochemistry	2020
Andrea Goldman, PhD	History	2020
Stephanie Correa, PhD	Integrative Biology and Physiology	2020
Elissa Hallem, PhD	Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics	2020
Carlos Portera-Cailliau, MD-PhD	Neurology	2020
James Desveaux, PhD	Political Science	2020
Kenneth Subotnik, PhD	Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences	2020
Scott Wilke, MD-PhD	Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences	2020
Jaana Juvonen, PhD	Psychology	2020
Matthew Lieberman, PhD	Psychology	2020
William Parent, Ed.D	Public Policy	2020
Monica L. Smith, PhD	Anthropology	2019
Victor Bascara, PhD	Asian American Studies	2019
Shaily Mahendra, PhD	Civil and Environmental Engineering	2019
Steven Peterson, PhD	Communication	2019
Carola Suarez-Orozco, PhD	Education	2019
Muriel McClendon, PhD	History	2019
Julian A. Martinez-Agosto, MD-PhD	Human Genetics	2019
Stephanie A. White, PhD	Integrative Biology and Physiology	2019
Thomas Graeber, PhD	Medical and Molecular Pharmacology	2019
Matteo Pellegrini, PhD	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	2019
Benjamin Woo, MD	Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences	2019
X. William Yang, MD-PhD	Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences	2019
Erica Cartmill, PhD	Anthropology	2018
Anastassia Alexandrova, PhD	Chemistry and Biochemistry	2018
Margot Quinlan, PhD	Chemistry and Biochemistry	2018
David Meyers, PhD	History	2018
Mary Corey, PhD	History	2018
Hilary Coller, PhD	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	2018
Karen Lyons, PhD	Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	2018
Gal Bitan, PhD	Neurology	2018
Wesley C. Campbell, PhD	Physics and Astronomy	2018
Patricia Z. Tan, PhD	Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences	2018
Tiffany N. Brannon, PhD	Psychology	2018