Astronomy and Astrophysics (AST)
AST-08: Viewing Images and Spectra of Triangulum and Andromeda (VISTA)
Primary Mentor: Max Kogan (he/they)
Number of Interns: 4
Project Description: The goal of this project is to study the resolved stellar populations of two of our nearest galactic neighbors, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33). This will be accomplished by utilizing the datasets from two instruments, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Deep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph. During the summer, we will be using the information from these datasets to investigate the velocity distribution of the stars in these galaxies, and consider methods we can take to refine our measurements to produce a more accurate distribution. This will allow us to better understand the history and evolution of these galaxies and ascertain the existence and effects of merger events in the distant and recent past.
Tasks:
- Using Python and Jupyter (among others) to interact and manipulate astronomical data files
- Using an understanding of the instruments said data was taken with to better utilize said data
- Setting up a web-based browser connected to a remote-storage drive to enable widespread access to the data and accompanying software
- Using the data to better understand the extragalactic objects in question (M31 and M33, primarily)
Biomolecular Engineering (BME)
BME-01: Ancient Centromere Spanning Haplotypes Provide Insight into Human Centromeric Satellite Evolution in Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Genomes
Primary Mentor: Hailey Loucks (she/her)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: This project is a computational biology project analyzing the evolution of centromeric DNA in modern humans. The centromere is an important structural component of the chromosome which is composed of repetitive DNA sequences. Due to the unique properties of the centromere, the sequences of DNA next to the centromere can persist unchanged for many generations, keeping a record of human evolutionary history. By studying the evolution of these sequences we can better understand human evolution and our historical relationships with archaic hominins such as Neanderthals.
Tasks: Project is entirely computational. Students will work on the Unix command line to run bioinformatics software to understand evolutionary relationships between DNA sequences, including sequence alignment, clustering, and annotation. Students will also work in python and/or R languages to run analyses and create visualizations. Mac laptops are preferred but any laptop can work.
URL: https://migalab.com/
BME-02: Gene Annotation with Comparative Annotation Toolkit
Primary Mentor: Prajna Hebbar (she/her)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: The human genome refers to all the DNA of the human species. Human DNA consists of 3.3 billion base pairs and is divided into more than 20,000 protein-coding genes onto 23 pairs of chromosomes. The human genome also includes noncoding sequences of DNA. Locating these protein-coding and noncoding genes is done through the process of gene annotation. This process actually provides a meaning to the sequence of a species’ genome assembly. There are many software to annotate genomes of different species to find the locations of various genes on them. The Comparative Annotation Toolkit (CAT) is one of them, which I am working on improving. The project aims to study gene annotations produced by CAT and those produced by other methods and compare their accuracy and performance.
Tasks: The first three weeks will be spent on learning and setting up for the actual research which will be done in the latter half of the project. Understand the basics of genomics- what is a genome, assembly, alignment, annotation, etc. Learn about gene annotation in some more depth. Read about the different tools that they will work with. Install tools and download data. Do any required troubleshooting. Run tools on genomes. Analyze and understand the results. Learn to visualize results on the UCSC Genome Browser Compare results across the different tools. Can work with Mac or Windows.
Computational Media (CPM)
CPM-01: AI-Mediated Interpersonal Interactions and Self-Formation
Primary Mentor: Eve Wang (she/her)
Number of Interns: 4
Project Description: In this project, you’ll customize an AI mediator to guide conversations with family or friends. By designing how the chatbot thinks and responds in multi-user discussions, you’ll explore how your own thought patterns influence communication.
Tasks: You’ll engage in prompt engineering to design an AI mediator that guides conversations with your family or friends. As you test your AI, you’ll write diary reports reflecting on how your design supported or hindered discussions, what changes you made to improve it, and why. Through this iterative process, you’ll contribute to research on how AI can help teenagers explore self-awareness and navigate their relationships.
URL: https://www.kateringland.com/about/#/hcistudentreadinglist
CPM-02: Exploring Fandom Community Using Social Media and Other Online Platforms to Maintain Friendship, and How LLM Might Play a Role
Primary Mentor: April Zhang (she/her)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: I’m seeking to investigate how people in a fandom might build relationship, friendship beyond fan activities. This involves in understand what are the reasons whether fans decide to be friend with each other. Would AI can be a feature to help people to be more close to each other online?
Tasks: Interns might be asked to participant in supporting tasks when we conduct interviews (collecting demographic data of participants, etc), observe, and taking notes, etc. Help with processing qualitative data.
Economics (ECO)
ECO-01: The Impact of the Ban on Willful Defiance Suspension on Teacher’s Transfer
Primary Mentor: Seono Yun (he/him)
Number of Interns: 4
Project Description: In 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill banning “willful defiance” suspensions (WDS) in all K-12 public schools. Using datasets from the California Department of Education (CDE), I am analyzing the impact of this policy on student and teacher behavior. Preliminary findings suggest that students are staying longer at school and showing increased willingness to study. However, teachers report losing control of their classrooms and experiencing higher levels of stress. I plan to support these hypotheses with data analysis.
Tasks: Connecting Social Events to Analysis Learning Basic Statistics Managing Datasets Computer Programming (Excel & Python)
URL: https://economics.ucsc.edu/
ECO-02: What Factors Contribute to the High Rate of Medical Claim Denials in the Affordable Care Act Marketplace?
Primary Mentor: Hyunjin Yun (he/him)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: When hospitals or doctors ask insurance companies to pay for a patient’s medical visit, they submit a claim to insurance companies. However, about 20% of these claims get denied. If too many claims are denied, patients may have a bad experience and decide to switch to a different insurance plan. But if denying claims can make customers leave, why do private insurance companies still do it? In this research, we want to understand what causes claim denials to learn more about how health insurance works.
Tasks:
SIP interns are expected to:
1. Conduct a literature review – Identify relevant research papers to understand covered topics and key insights.
2. Find datasets – Locate and gather relevant data
3. Analyze data – Compute summary statistics (e.g., mean, standard deviation) and, if possible, perform regression analysis.
4. Generate figures and tables – Create visual and tabular representations of results.
Earth & Planetary Sciences (EPS)
EPS-01: Exploring Evolutionary Change in Response to Climate Change 51 MYA
Primary Mentor: Jay Fearon (they/them)
Number of Interns: 5
Project Description: It is accepted as scientific consensus that sudden changes in earth’s climate can and have caused mass extinctions and rapid ecological changes. In recent years, our estimations of past climate change have become more accurate and precise. This project bridges paleoclimate and paleoecology by studying ostracod evolution before, during, and after the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), an abrupt early Cenozoic warming event 51 million years ago. Ostracods are tiny crustaceans about the size of a grain of sand. Our goal is to see what evolutionary trade-offs ostracods made to survive high water temperatures and ocean acidification in their rapidly changing world.
Tasks: Interns will extract ostracod fossils from sediment samples using a light microscope, and measure them for length, width and weight. These metrics will provide a case study of how ecological populations react to climate change, as well as how ostracod body shape evolved over the short term to deal with stressful conditions. Interns will learn how to read a scientific paper and gain skills in data manipulation, data wrangling, statistics, and commonly used methods in invertebrate paleontology. Previous experience with light microscopes is preferred but not required.
URL: https://jfearon.sites.ucsc.edu/
EPS-02: Reconstructing 50 million years of Marine Mammal Behavior with Trace Metal Stable Isotopes
Primary Mentor: Tessa Holzmann (she/her)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: My project explores how seals and whales survived in changing oceans 50 million years ago to today by studying the isotope chemistry of their teeth and bones. Every animal’s behavior leaves chemical “fingerprints” in their skeletons, and I use these isotopic fingerprints to investigate what ancient and modern animals ate and where they lived. I necropsy and collect modern marine mammal skeletons from local strandings to see marine mammals adapted to changes in their environment over time. This helps us understand how they might respond to challenges today, like climate change and habitat loss.
Tasks: Basic chemical laboratory work: pipetting, mixing chemicals, working in the fume hood, weighing Paleontological sampling: drilling teeth/bones, pretreating fossil material for isotope analysis Mass spectrometer data collection & analysis Statistical Analysis Necropsy/Autopsy of local stranded whales and seals to collect bones and teeth (optional but fun) Collection of fossils and rocks from field areas in Northern California.
URL: https://sites.google.com/view/tessaholzmann/bio?authuser=0
Latin American & Latino Studies (LAL)
LAL-01: Oral, Digital and Material Histories of Colombian Surfing
Primary Mentor: Brianne Cotter (she/her)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: This project analyzes the patterns, images, tropes, references, political currents, economic trends, surfers, and sponsors that characterize the popularization of surfing and surf history in Colombia. This research draws from surf media (e.g., Instagram reels, tourism websites, recorded interviews, surf and travel magazines, YouTube surfing compilations, etc.) to understand the political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological factors that led to surf’s expansion across the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of Colombia. Studying the surf cultures and industries of Colombia reveals the power dynamics shaping tourism, mass media, consumption, leisure, and beach access across the Americas.
Tasks: Interns will perform digital media research and transcription. We will work with a range of sources, including YouTube videos (e.g., surfing compilations, travel vlogs, tourist reviews), tourism sites (e.g., Booking.com, Airbnb, Hostelworld.com), online surf magazine articles (e.g., Surfer Magazine, Surfer’s Journal, Surfline) and other media. Interns will summarize sources, cite relevant material, and analyze material for relevant subthemes of interest (e.g., tourism, infrastructure, geography, industry, conservation, race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and nationalism). We will pay special attention to the Instagram page of @elpalosurfinterviews, a vlogger who hosts weekly interviews with Colombian surfers. Interns may transcribe limited sections of these recorded interviews, analyzing the content for relevant themes, references, and people.
URL: https://lals.ucsc.edu/graduate/grad-directory.php?uid=brcotter
LAL-02: Queer Latinidades: Cuban American Migrations, Musics, and Drag Performances
Primary Mentor: Jen N Gottlieb (they/them)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: Queer Latinidades: Cuban American Migrations, Musics, and Drag Performances
Tasks: Tasks include gathering data online from a variety of sources such as Cuban American news sources, Cuban blogs, CubaCuir data base, as well as social media accounts of nightclubs which have Latine drag nights or regular Latine drag performers, and the social media accounts of Latine drag performers and performances. Essentially students will be given different categories to find data online, which include use of Youtube, Instagram, TikTok (pending availability), news webpages, and other online archives like that of University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage collection.
URL: https://lals.ucsc.edu/graduate/grad-directory.php?uid=jngottli
LAL-03: COLLECTING AND DISPLAYING. THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF ARCHIVING LATIN/X AMERICAN FASHION
Primary mentor: Edward Salazar Celis (he/him)
Number of interns: 3
Project description: Fashioning the body is an activity that all humans engage in. We dress ourselves every day, often expressing our feelings, beliefs, and cultural identities through what we wear. My project investigates Latinx and Latin American dress and fashion in museums, as well as in artistic and design practices across the Americas. I aim to map how the clothing of diverse groups is represented in these contexts. The study of Latinx and Latin American fashion remains limited, so I am excited to contribute to this growing field while exploring its rich histories and visual narratives. Through this project, I hope students will help create a visual archive of fashion to support my research by exploring online resources from museums, galleries, and archives. This initiative offers an opportunity to delve into the captivating world of Latinx and Latin American dress, fashion, and bodily adornment as powerful forms of cultural expression.
Tasks: Interns will explore online museums, galleries, and archives to find images and information related to Latinx and Latin American dress, fashion, and artworks that engage with fashion. They will also complement this research by gathering information from media outlets, newspapers, and other digital sources to identify relevant content about Latinx dress in these contexts. Interns will assist in organizing, classifying, and describing these materials according to the research guidelines provided by the mentor.
URL: https://lals.ucsc.edu/graduate/grad-directory.php?uid=edfsalaz
Literature (LIT)
LIT-01: Literary Legacies and Alternate Afterlives in Bungo Stray Dogs
Primary Mentor: Zoë Sprott (they/them)
Number of Interns: 4
Project Description: This summer, dive into Kafka Asagiri’s rich world of Bungo Stray Dogs, a manga and anime series that features characters based on significant literary figures. The goal of this project is to analyze the network of literary legacies and alternate afterlives in the text and to consider the ethics of adapting real people into fictional characters. Working closely with their mentor, interns will have the opportunity to research the real authors alongside their fictionalized characters and to explore particular aspects of Bungo Stray Dogs, such as gender, genre, fashion, textuality, and (in)humanity.
Tasks: For the first three weeks of the program, the interns will watch the series alongside their mentor and hold discussions while watching. During independent working time, interns will compile reflection notebooks, effectively conducting close reading, outlining the research process, and developing their own research interests. As the program progresses, interns will develop their own research interests related to the series, and work closely with their mentor to develop a research plan that will entail close reading, historicization and contextualization, and a robust theoretical framework. No language fluency outside of English is required, but Japanese language learners are especially encouraged to apply.
URL: https://campusdirectory.ucsc.edu/cd_detail?uid=zsprott
LIT-02: Science Fiction and Robots: Rethinking Our Relationships to Technology through Iron Man, Oppenheimer, and Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries
Primary Mentor: Caitlin-Anne Flaws (she/her)
Number of Interns: 3-5
Project Description: This summer, watch Oppenheimer, Iron Man, and read Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries book series to evaluate and address the history and current roles technology has within our everyday lives. The goal of this project is for interns to focus on and complicate the following questions: Who is technology for? How does it relate to my life? What might enable technological innovation? What is the future of technology? What is a robot? This project will introduce interns to cross-disciplinary materials taken from literature, history, sociology, film studies, and philosophy, and introduce them to the principles of design justice and inclusive design.
Tasks: For the first two weeks of the program, interns will watch Oppenheimer and Iron Man alongside their mentor and hold discussions while watching. The remaining weeks will be spent reading the first 5 books in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries. During independent working time, interns will compile reflection entries in a notebook, conducting close reading, outlining the research process, and developing their own research interests related to technology. As the program progresses, interns will develop their own research interests related to the films and books and work closely with their mentor to develop a research plan that will entail close reading, historicization and contextualization, and a robust theoretical framework. No language fluency outside of English is required.
Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology (MCD)
MCD-01: Validation of Transcriptional Expression in a THP1 Modified Cell Line
Primary Mentor: Jillian Ward (she/her)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: According to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 4 children with leukemia have acute myeloid leukemia (AML) which occurs when myeloid cells like monocytes over-proliferate. Although long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) make up the largest portion of the human transcriptome, most of their functional roles remain unknown. At the Carpenter lab, we focus on investigating the role of lncRNAs in monocyte and macrophage biology. We
have successfully identified a novel growth suppressor lncRNA, linc02642, in the acute monocytic leukemia cell line, THP1. Knocking down linc02642
using CRISPR interference (CRISPRi), leads to changes in biological pathways involved in cell development, metabolism, and proliferation. The aim of this project is to validate transcriptional expression changes of these genes. Students will learn how to use the UCSC Genome Browser to design
primers, extract RNA from THP1 cells to do qPCR, followed by primer validation by running gels and sending out products for sequencing.
Tasks: Throughout the summer SIP interns will learn how to use the UCSC Genome Browser to design a primer for a specific gene. They will then extract transcriptional RNA from THP1 cells and then create complementary DNA for their gene of focus. The complementary DNA and designed primers will be used to run qPCRs to amplify their gene of interest. With the gene amplified SIP interns will run a gel electrophoresis experiment to visualize their amplified gene. Finally, after running the gel SIP interns will preform a gel extraction and send the extraction out for sequencing to validate that the designed primers are amplifying the correct gene.
URL: https://sites.google.com/a/ucsc.edu/carpenter-lab/home?authuser=0
Physics (PHY)
PHY-01: Liquid Exfoliation of Two-Dimensional Materials
Primary Mentor: Carlos Gonzalez (he/him)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: A new computing architecture has been studied recently to go beyond Moore’s Law known as neuromorphic computing. One device type that can realize neuromorphic computing is memristor, which mimics the human brain by integrating memory and processing. We will use 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) as the semiconductor in these devices. A “top-down” method called liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) will be implemented to fabricate atomically thin TMDs. This technique involves immersing the crystal in a solvent that separates the layers. Compared to the Nobel prize-winning scotch-tape method, LPE has a higher exfoliation yield of atomically thin flakes. Interns will implement this technique to achieve large, atomically thin flakes for use in memristor devices.
Tasks: In this project, interns will be performing hands-on research in the lab to acquire 2D TMD flakes. The purpose is to use these flakes for new devices. The exfoliation technique is new to the lab, so the interns will combine literature research and experimental trial-and-error to achieve a high yield of large, atomically thin flakes. They will work with graduate and undergraduate students to characterize the quality of these flakes with an optical microscope and atomic force microscopy (AFM).
Psychology (PSY)
PSY-01: The Speed of Change: Collective Future Thinking & Its Role in Political Activism
Primary Mentor: Joshua Rotondo (he/him)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: With this study, we hope to understand how one’s imagination of their country’s future relates to their political opinions and behaviors, as well as how their anxiety about their country’s future relates to these same opinions/behaviors. We hypothesize that people who are more anxious about their country’s future will have a harder time imagining their country’s future; similarly we also hypothesize that people who have more ambitious ideas for their country’s future will also have a similar relationship.
Tasks:
1. Reviewing research papers related to the project so we can write a background for the study.
2. Using computer software to analyze and visualize the data collected for the study.
3. Help write the research paper reporting on the study’s data.
PSY-02: Counterfactual Thinking in Collective Memory: How Imagined Past Influences Collective Future
Primary Mentor: Emine Seyma Caglar Kurtulmus (she/her)
Number of Interns: 3
Project Description: When we think about ourselves, we often imagine alternative realities for past events, asking ourselves, “What if I had done this instead?” or “Would the outcome have been different if I had acted differently?” These kinds of thinking are called counterfactual thinking. But what about counterfactual thoughts generated about collective memories? How do these imagined past events affect collective future thinking? This study primarily aims to explore how imagined past events (events that didn’t happen but could have) influence collective future thinking. Specifically, we will investigate how these imagined past events affect agency, temporal distance (subjective distance), level of construal (type of events), and the emotional valence of collective future thoughts.
Tasks:
1. Literature Review‚ Interns will review and summarize existing research on counterfactual thinking and collective temporal thought. Discussions on key articles will provide a deeper understanding of the topic.
2. Data Coding‚ Interns will analyze qualitative data by coding counterfactual content, focusing on agency and emotional valence.
3. Statistical Analysis, Interns will gain experience using Excel and statistical software to analyze coded data, providing insight into data processing and interpretation.