Undergraduate Research at the University of California

Shaping California's Future: UC Undergraduate Research

For the past three years, the University of California Office of Research has held an undergraduate research contest, in which faculty deans from eight campuses select their top undergraduate researchers across a diverse range of disciplines including the arts, the humanities and the sciences.

Students selected have been honored alongside their faculty advisors at UC Day in Sacramento. The research posters displayed outside of the Governor's Office in the Capitol were the work of those students from campuses across the state selected as the year's winners.

UC undergraduate students selected to show their research posters at UC Day are:

Berkeley

Viengkham Malathong, "Towards the Synthesis of a Biomimetic Bone Substitute"

Sterling Nesbitt, "Investigations into the Moenkopi Formation's Vertebrate Fauna"

Leila Takayama, "Context-Aware Computing for Emergency Response"

Davis

Yung Ching (William) Chung, "Cross-Cultural Study of Nighttime Fears and Simple Phobias from an Evolutionary Perspective: Sexual Dinichism in Antipredatory Behavior"

Julie Mai Tran, "Analysis of HLA Class I Genes in Hepatitis C Clearance"

Irvine

Emily Beth Slusser, "Early Childhood Gender Differences In Various Dimensions of Social Behaviors"

Michael Williams, "A MEMS Based Telemetry System for Longitudinal Muscle Contractions in the Human Esophagus"

Los Angeles

Tauheedah Baker-Jones, "Black, White, or Gray: A Historiography of the Duality of Afro-American Religion"

Miguel Jimenez, "A Study of the Oxidation of DNA: Oxidation of 8-0xo-Guanosine by Singlet Oxygen"

Riverside

Lynell Gutierrez, "Patterned Neural Networks for Detection of Brain Functions"

Star Lee, "NMDA Receptors Mediate Feeding Elicited by NPY in the Lateral and Perifornical Hypothalamus"

San Diego

Ernesto Martinez, "Migrant Farm Workers Struggle for Survival: Alcohol Use and Abuse in Mecca, California"

Michael Moewe, "Control of Etch Parameters in Optical Nanostructures Using CAIBE"

Melanie Zauscher, "Age Determination of Bowhead Whales Through Aspartic Acid Racemization"

Santa Barbara

Roxana Hernandez, "Is There a Link Between Eutrophication and Pseudo-nitzschia Multiseries Blooms?"

Roger Thompson, "Xenophobia, Anti-Unionism, and Anticommunism: The Red 'Scare' in Los Angeles, California, 1919-1920"

Santa Cruz

Max Bell Alper, "En/Abling Technologies in Dis/Abling Structures"

Winnie Chan, "Identification of Cytoplasmic Tail Sequences that Regulate Class I MHC Recruitment into the Immunological Synapse and T-Cell Activation"

Supporting UC undergraduate research helps the state by:

• Preparing students for careers in science and technology, the cornerstones of California's new economy;
• Providing opportunities for students to study firsthand the complex social issues facing California;
• Inspiring a new generation of qualified students to engage in the kind of high level graduate work that ensures continued innovation in California's leading industries;
• Preparing better-informed and prepared teachers who are committed to solving real-life problems in California's classrooms.

Learn more about the students who were selected for UC Day 2002.

Check out photographs of last year's posters.