Yana Slabakov

This summer, I am investigating the advantages that large predators bring to their ecosystems, as well as the costs, benefits, challenges, and feasibility of a wide array of wildlife management methods. I’m focusing my research on the Hopland Research and Extension Center in Mendocino County, where sheep ranchers are deeply invested in the impacts that coyotes have on their operations. I’m exploring historical methods and attitudes toward large carnivore management to find practical solutions that can be applied to ranching operations at Hopland today. Reframing the issue from one which […]

Jner Tzern (JJ) Oon

The projects aims at searching for stellar binary systems with extremely uneven members. The surveys the team conducts use state-of-the-art high contrast imaging devices. To the large collection of images for each target advanced analysis tools are applied to achieve the highest possible contrast to find the faint companions. JJ continues to be involved in the in the data analysis and post-processing of the data. This includes developing code to process the raw data to final, science-grade images of each target, testing the approach and optimizing it. The team is […]

Fiona Yang

I will be attending to several projects that I have been working on for one year at Prof. Dana’s lab, such as the entrepreneurship project in Uganda, taste-judgement study and facial EMG studies. More specifically, I will be running a study at Harvard’s lab for a week, which involves facial EMG (Electromyography) sessions that I have practiced weekly (among other research projects) for an entire semester. With my graduate mentor and professor, we have dedicated much time and energy to make sure the procedures are rigorously scientific and skillfully practiced. […]

Yichu Li

There are a couple of topics I am responsible for, including pollution economy, current U.S. healthcare system, China’s Belt and Road policy, etc. They are all very engaging and requires in-depth reading and research, which I learnt a lot from. I was not only analyzing the status quo, but was also responsible for proposing a hypothetical solution or version myself.

Renata M. Botello

My current research project examines how people with schizophrenia experience their social world. More specifically, it analyzes the different motivators and barriers to social interaction in people with schizophrenia and controls with the purpose of providing a deeper understanding of social functioning among people with this condition. Data on the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS) was used to assess motivation and pleasure related to family relationships, romantic relationships, and friendships, past week pleasurable social activities, and expected next week pleasurable social activities.

Neha Zahid

In low-income communities across the world, we have been observing an epidemic that is 100% preventable: tooth decay. Our in-depth analysis has repeatedly shown the correlation between poor oral health and malnutrition and our research aims to uncover the associated risk factors – junk food consumption and access, dental care access, oral health and nutrition education, mother’s education and feeding practices, family size, etc. I am interested in furthering our investigations by looking at the role of gender. What is the difference, if any, between tooth decay and malnutrition among […]

Haley Willis

The Human Rights Investigations Lab at HRC Berkeley is one of the first of its kind, working with Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps and three other partner universities to collect evidence of human rights abuses. My summer research involves continuing this process of discovering and verifying social media content, coming out of places such as Syria, to be used in human rights reports and legal cases. I work to verify social media users, identify weapons, and geolocate video and images found on the Internet that can be provided as evidence. […]

Dominque Keith-Maher

I am currently assisting Professor Herd with conducting research on the influence of mass media –also known as “the super peer”– on alcohol consumption amongst African-American adolescents. We are specifically looking at popular movies from the Teen Media Study, which was conducted in 2001and 2002. Apart from this, I am also beginning a literature review, that looks at the film structure of the coming of age story when it is targeted towards a black audience.

Roshni Patel

Phenylketonuria is an inherited metabolic disorder that affects 1 in 10000 newborns every year. Left undiagnosed and untreated, phenylketonuria can cause severe neurological impairment. My project uses machine learning methods on genotypic data to predict the phenotypic impact of genetic mutations. These predictions can supplement current methods used to screen newborns for phenylketonuria.

Maricruz Pool-Chan

The research project focuses on migrants that return to Yucatan, Mexico. Specifically, it looks at their experiences in schools and with their families once they begin living in their hometowns. Through these experiences, the research will help us understand return migration in Mexico and transnational migration in the United States.