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 most excellent submissions out of the Dean's Award winners in each academic division. Both awards recognize excellence in undergraduate research and creativity as evidenced through completed projects and theses. Each Dean's Award project will receive a $100 award. Each Chancellor's Award project will receive a $500 award. Chancellor's Award projects are then considered for the Steck Award. The names of the all winners will be announced at college commencement ceremonies. Past winners of the Dean's, Chancellor's and Steck Awards are posted here. 

2019 Award Guidelines: Click Here

2019 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’ Award recipients. Winners of the Chancellor’s Awards (noted in bold and by an * asterisk below) are selected from most outstanding of the Deans’ Award projects. 

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Division of the Arts

*Alexandra Hiatt, Fabrications, Articulations, Activations: Creating Vā Through Intentional Juxtapositions & Decolonizing the ‘Dusky Maiden’ (Stacy Kamehiro)

*Joyce Lin and *Fen Swanson, dinosaurily (Marcelo Viana Neto)

Jelica Hipolito, Sabrina Ilumin, Maybelle Alvarez, Angie Molina, Anak, how are you? (My child, how are you?) (Susanna Ruiz)

Ava Kristy, Refining Tastes (Jordan Reznick)

Nicholette Lindsay, John Hughes, Teenagers, and the Corporate American Dream (Shelley Stamp)

Samwell Gervacio, Our World in Wilson's Hands (Marion Cadora and Jordan Reznick)

Leah Fuentes, Sam Gouldthorpe, Leslie Carrillo-Lorenzo, Ariel Baruch, Cameron Mccrea, Megan Neelley, Sister of Mine (Larry Andrews)

Rachel Abrahams, The Duality of the Face in Cinema: From Ubiquity to Obscurity (Jenny Horne)

Daniel Fisher, The Myth of Leisure: Bean Bag Chairs and Corporate Tech Campuses (Albert Narath)

Zoe Elliott, Worlds: An Exploration of the Self (Enrique Leal)

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Jack Baskin School of Engineering

*Alexander Flora, *Nebyu Yonas, *Brian Hien Nguyen, Design Framework for the Electrical Characterization of Alcohol Sensors (John Selberg and Marco Rolandi)

*Landen Gozashti, Introner Elements Persist in Algal and Protist Species (Russell Corbett-Detig)

*Jessica Scherer, *Mykhaylo Dudkin, *Laura Valine, *Danette Moreno, *Gina Cuneo, *Claire Bispo, *Justin Lau, *Harman Singh, *Manuel Varela, *Emily Mount, *Vanessa Ventura, *Ryan Modlin, *Nicholas Hammond, *Morgan Tardy, *Larry Hinojos, *Megan Eleanor Macpherson, Portable Progesterone Production in Yeast (David Bernick and Mckenna Hicks)

Mason Hargrave, Spencer Thompson, Computational Models of Polymer Synthesis Driven by Dehydration/Rehydration Cycles: Repurination in Simulated Hydrothermal Fields (David Deamer)

Lilian Yao, Dissecting the Impact of Signaling Strength on T Cell Function Using Chimeric Antigen Receptors (Nikolaos Sgourakis)

Brandon Lynch, Lens Characterization for Multifocus Microscopy Applications (Sara Abrahamsson)

Amr Makhamreh, Significance of NRROS in CNS Homeostasis (Bin Chen)

Paola Angulo, Understanding the Role of ZNF765 and/or L1PA Retroelements in Defining Embryonic Stem Cell Phenotypes (Sofie Salama)

Ocean Hurd, Virtual Reality Video Games for Eye Disability (Lazy-Eye) (Sri Kurniawan)

Jared Roberts, Randall Abel, Alexander Koran, Joshua Spangler, Liam Corcoran, Waterlab 3 (Brent Haddad and Tela Favaloro)

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Division of Humanities

*Brianda Caldera, Anglicisms: Use and Perceptions in the Tijuana-San Diego Border (Ivy Sichel) 

*Natalie Gonzales, Imagining the Future Human through Design Fiction & Speculative Fiction (Felicity Schaeffer-Grabiel)

*Fatima Mohammadi, My Body Can't Salute A War Machine: Bodily Resistance in Leslie M. Silko's Ceremony (Christine Hong)

Regina Grayson, Hello, My Name is "Foster Kid (Neel Ahuja)

Michele Cole, I Remain an Irishman...and a Jew: Conflicting Identities of Ireland's Jewish Politicians (Bruce Thompson)

Cynthia Gonzalez, Anger and Forgiveness in "The Tempest" and "Cymbeline" (Sean Keilen)

Anney Traymany, Monster and Memory: Godzilla and the Unearthing of Grief in the Wake of Nuclear Disaster
 (Christine Hong)

Avery Weinman, Reverberations from the "Earthquake": Collective Memory and Why Mizrahi Israelis Vote for the Israeli Right (Alma Heckman and Bruce Thompson)

Jessica Chuidian-Ingersoll, Right to a Roof: The Fight for Rent Control and Tenant Protections in California 1978-1995 (David Brundage)

Nyereath Nhial, South Sudanese Refugees and Youth: Complex Narratives of Gender, War, and Diaspora
(Neel Ahuja)

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Division of Physical & Biological Sciences

*Tin Wong, Evolution of Helium Star - White Dwarf Binaries Leading up to Thermonuclear Supernovae
(Enrico Jorge Ramirez-Ruiz and Josiah W. Schwab)

*Elizabeth Langdon-Lassagne, Ion Microprobe Depth Profile Analysis of Micron-Scale Metamorphic Rims on Detrital Zircons from the Pelona-Orocopia-Rand Schist (Jeremy Hourigan)

*Joshua Dillen, Structure and Binding Kinetics of Monoclonal Antibody 1G1 Support the Inclusion of the Respiratory Syncytial Virus G Protein in Vaccine Development (Rebecca Dubois)

Raziq Noorali, An Analysis into the AGN Fraction in Dark Energy Survey Galaxy Clusters ( Tesla Profumo)

Sophia Haji, Effects of simulated solar arrays on seed dynamics in California desert plant species  ( Ingrid Parker)

Pinky Lee, Elucidating the Role of ROBO1 in NOTCH Activation Within the Mammary Gland ( Lindsay Hinck and  Oscar Cazares)

Lourdes Gomez, Enrichment of Damaged DNA by Target Replacement of Deaminated Cytosines ( Beth Shapiro)

Andrea Antoni, The Evolution of Binaries in a Gaseous Medium: Three-Dimensional Simulations of Binary Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton Accretion ( Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz)

Martin Lopez, The Origin of LIGO Sources: Understanding The Formation Channels of Stellar Mass Binary Black Holes ( Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz and  Jamie Law-Smith)

Monica Garcia, Tidal Disruptions of Main-sequence Stars of Varying Mass and Age: Inferences from the Composition of the Fallback Material ( Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz)

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Division of Social Sciences

*Alejandra Zeiger, Beyond the Duality of Sumak Kawsay: Living Well amongst the Waorani (Flora E. Lu and Heather Bullock)

*Shannon Nichols, Failure of International Mediation in Ethnic Conflict: the Oslo Accords and the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Kent Eaton)

*Laurel Levin, Raising (Pitch)forks for Climate Justice: Leveraging a Just Transition in Dismantling Big Meat (Andrea Steiner and Mary Beth Pudup)

Tina Milz, Propagating Discourse: Community Gardener Motivations in the California Central Coast (Stacy Philpott and Hillary Angelo)

Manfred Sy, Black on White Love: How Racial/Ethnic Identities Influence Partner-Decisions and Relationships (Hiroshi Fukurai)

Edward Kim, Emotional Granularity, Coping, and Adjustment in First-Generation College Students (Margarita Azmitia and Rebecca Covarrubias)

Yeun Byun, People Who Garden: A Closer Look at Urban Community Gardeners in the California Central Coast Region (Stacy Philpott)

Carmelle Bareket-Shavit, The Role of Cognitive Biases in Identifying and Disciplining Plagiarism (Talia Waltzer and Audun Dahl)

Karen Lazo, Violence vs. Violence: Why the Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto Administrations Exacerbated Violence in Michoacán (Kent Eaton)

Sara Kelley, Worse than Death: An Analysis of Excess Death and the Necropolitics of Dying in Public Space (Andrea Steiner)