2025 Deans', Chancellor's and Steck Awards
Deans' Awards are granted to 50 of the most outstanding undergraduate research theses or projects completed during the current academic year, 10 from each of the academic divisions. Chancellor's Awards are granted to the the top three Deans' Awards projects in each academic division. Both awards recognize excellence in undergraduate research as evidenced through completed projects and theses. Each Dean's Award project particepant will receive a $100 award. Each Chancellor's Award project will receive a $500 award. The Steck Award is given to the most outstanding Chancellor's Award winning project.
2025 AWARD RECIPIENTS
Each student or student team worked on a senior research or milestone project and is mentored by a UCSC faculty member, postdoc, graduate student, or researcher (noted in parentheses below). A committee in each division selects the Deans’ and Chancellor's Award recipients. Winners of the Chancellor’s Award are recognized as being one of the top 3 projects from each of the five Divisions. The winner of the Steck Family Award for outstanding research project will be denoted with an *.
Arts Division
Dean's and Chancellor Award Winners
Ando, Kai (MERRILL): The Invisible Hands of Lisbon: The Black Africans That Kept The City Alive During The Renaissance. Mentor: Consuelo Endrigo-Williams
O'Leary, Gillian (JRLEWIS): Girl Blood, An Original Play. Mentor: Michael Chemers
Tran, Emily (KRESGE): Fruit Fashion. Mentor: dani wright
Dean's Award Winners
Goodman, Titus (PORTER): The Role of Social Media Strategies in Music Promotion. Mentor: Nina Treadwell
Lagrange, Celeste (PORTER): Be Brave. Be Bold. Be a Woman in a Man's World. Mentor: Michael Chemers
Nguyen, David (CARSON): (Screenplay) Mister Whale. Mentor: Natasha V
Pettigrew, Yousif (OAKES): 2 Compositions and Performances for Guitar Ensemble. Mentor: Christopher Mallett
Reyes, Prema (PORTER): Re-membering Self: Mis/recognition in the work of Adrian Piper. Mentor: Jennifer Gonzalez
Taylor, Annalie (JRLEWIS): Stone and Body. Mentor: Sarah Sanford
Villar, Ella (PORTER): Challenging Memorialized Whiteness: Statues, Memory, and Race. Mentor: Jennifer Gonzalez
Baskin School of Engineering
Dean's and Chancellor Award Winners
Chalamala, Megna (CARSON): Understanding the Instructive Effects of TPRX1 Splicing Variants during the Acquisition of Totipotency in Human Cells. Mentor: Ali Shariati
Hofkin, Aurora (NINE): Biochemical Characterization of Human Astrovirus 1 RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase. Mentor: Rebecca Dubois
Rehman, Naomi (NINE): Incorrect-Path Prediction for Power Throttling Speculative Execution. Mentor: Heiner Litz
Dean's Award Winners
Chandrasiri, Samintha (COWELL), Nguyen, Brian (JRLEWIS), Polu, Tejas (JRLEWIS), Sud, Neo (COWELL), Wilson, Emil (NINE): Annota: Measuring The Impact of AI Feedback for QA Education. Mentor: David Lee
Gagnon, Delia (OAKES): Respiratory Syncytial Virus G Bound to a High-Affinity, Broadly Neutralizing Antibody to Inform Rational Vaccine Design. Mentor: Rebecca Dubois
Huynh, Kirsten (CROWN), Lui, Michelle (CROWN): Antibody Detection and Quantification of Group A Streptococcus. Mentor: Rebecca Dubois
Katreddi, Sriya (NINE), Pooskur, Prasiddh (JRLEWIS):“Who thought .zip was a good idea”: Analyzing Maliciousness in Newly-Released gTLDs. Mentor: Ram Sundara Raman
Petiwala, Zahra (CARSON): ReMiDi: Reconstruction of Microstructure Using a Differentiable Diffusion MRI Simulator. Mentor: Razvan Marinescu
Reyes, Clare (PORTER), Bautista, Jacob (CROWN), Benaryeh, Emmet (KRESGE), Bopparaju, Nivriti (COWELL), Duarte, Cesar (OAKES), Garcia, Joseph (PORTER), Krueger, Kendra (CROWN), Lai, Brenda (COWELL), Mahesh, Aurko (STEVENSON), Nandakumar, Vibitha (PORTER), Pillai, Monisha (CROWN), Sekula, Marshall (COWELL), Yankin, Daniel (PORTER), Yet, Zaden (MERRILL): UCSC iGEM 2024: Limnospira Inspired Foundational Technologies. Mentor: David Bernick
Vetha, Eric (CARSON): Improving Low-cost In-ground Soil Moisture Sensing System Using Backscatter Tags for Sustainable Agriculture. Mentor: Colleen Josephson
Humanities Division
Dean's and Chancellor Award Winners
Maher, Molly (PORTER): The ClubHouse. Mentor: Marc Matera
Nguyen, Sabrina (COWELL): Does Freedom Mean Free? Manumission, Marriage, and Public Perception in the Roman Empire. Mentor: Martin Devecka
Villar, Ella (PORTER): Beyond Occupation: Palestinian Solidarity Art and Futurity. Mentor: Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar
Dean's Award Winners
Amaya, Jonas (PORTER): Phenomenal Consciousness in Complex Adaptive Systems under Panpsychism and the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness. Mentor: Philip Groth
Ceron, Emmy (NINE): Bad Bunny: Music with a Purpose. Mentor: Madhavi Murty
Eiger, Vairagya (KRESGE): Adorned in Exile: Algerian Jewish Jewelry as Memory, Identity, and Resistance. Mentor: Alma Heckman
Larsen, Sophia (KRESGE): Calling God to the Podium: How the Ironies in the Book of Job Structure Modern Theistic and Absurdist Understandings of Faith, Justice, and Judaism. Mentor: Bruce Thompson
Robinson, Michael (MERRILL): From Bacchus and Midas Through Nationalism to Eroticism and Pop Art: How the Barberini Faun Has Been Shaped by Shifting Cultural Norms. Mentor: Elaine Sullivan
Sainz, Valerie (STEVENSON): Kateri Tekakwitha: Praise from the Pulpit, Power in the Pines (1626-1680). Mentor: Gregory O'Malley
Zimmerle, Mary (KRESGE): The English Mummy. Mentor: Elaine Sullivan
Physical & Biological Sciences Division
Dean's and Chancellor Award Winners
Gonzalez, Noe (CROWN): A Monte Carlo Study of Higgs Bosons Produced via Vector Boson Fusion in the Boosted Regime @ \sqrt{s} = 13.6 TeV. Mentor: Jason Nielsen
Subbotina Stephenson, Klaus (KRESGE): The Effects of Binary Reference Sources on JWST NIRCam Coronagraphy. Mentor: Andrew Skemer
Varga, Lukas (CARSON): Ancestral sequence reconstruction of vanadium dependent haloperoxidases. Mentor: Shaun McKinnie
Dean's Award Winners
Cecil, Annice (PORTER): Driving Forces of Diel Vertical Migration in Zooplankton from Alaskan Seagrass Beds. Mentor: Pete Raimondi
Garg, Stuti (NINE), Kollipara, Ishan (JRLEWIS), Murphy, Liam (PORTER), Svensson, Maya Diaz (CROWN), Weber, Alison (CARSON): A New Census of the Universe's Entropy. Mentor: Stefano Profumo
Kelly, Danielle (CARSON): Structural mapping of an immunodominant antigenic site on the Norovirus Protruding Domain Capsid. Mentor: Rebecca Dubois
Lindemuth, Emma (CROWN): Reconstruction of Lake Baikal Vegetation to 500 Ka using n-alkanes. Mentor: Pratigya Polissar
Moosman, Owen (STEVENSON): Mitigating assembly and switch errors in phased genomes of polar fishes reveals haplotype diversity in copy number of antifreeze protein genes. Mentor: Joanna Kelley
Nielsen, Lindsey (COWELL), Nielsen, Lindsey (STEVENSON), Seida, Ellie (CARSON), Shenasa, Amina (CROWN): Using acoustic indices to evaluate the soundscapes of kelp forest and urchin barren ecosystems in Sitka Sound, Alaska. Mentor: Pete Raimondi
Van Dorn, Sydnee (PORTER), Stoaks, Grey (CROWN), Gott, Gabriel (CARSON): Influences on Community Composition of Intertidal Seagrass in the Sitka Sound. Mentor: Pete Raimondi
Social Sciences Division
Dean's and Chancellor Award Winners
Bentley, John (KRESGE): The Dark Side of Development: The Acceleration of Genocide in Emerging Economies. Mentor: Kent Eaton
Fuster Tarrago, Blanca (CARSON): Reducing Provincial Disparities in Infant Mortality: A Difference-in-Differences Assessment of Plan Nacer’s Effectiveness. Mentor: Eleonora Pasotti
Venerable, Elyse (STEVENSON): Investigating the origins of the Oyo Empire war ponies in 17th-century Nigeria using strontium isotope analysis. Mentor: Vicky Oelze
Dean's Award Winners
Dollman, Matthew (PORTER):Cuba’s Welfare Regime: Authoritarian, Universal, and Strained. Mentor: Sara Niedzwiecki
DeLucchi, Natalie (MERRILL), Carroll, Daelaigh (MERRILL): Fascist Social Policy: The Expansion of Social Insurance under Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Mentor: Sara Niedzwiecki
Mathura, Christopher (STEVENSON): One Guyana?: Evaluating Potential Symptoms of the Resource Curse and the Promises of Sustainable Development. Mentor: Flora Lu
Spry, Sophia (JRLEWIS): AI Driven Welfare Reform: Predictive Risk Models in New Zealand, Chile, and the US. Mentor: Sara Niedzwiecki
Tien, Chelsey (NINE): Caregiver's use of praise during a collaborative problem-solving task involving causal reasoning. Mentor: Su-hua Wang
Yu, Audrey (JRLEWIS): Language Effects on Parent-child Conversations About Human Traits. Mentor: David Menendez
Zalunardo, Vivian (STEVENSON):Addressing “Glazed Separateness”: Invisibility, Domesticity, and Resistance of Black Women in the Works of Toni Morrison. Mentor: Dean Mathiowetz
