2025 Koret Scholars

Mentor: Philip Groth
Project: Phenomenal Consciousness in Complex Adaptive Systems under Panpsychism
and the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness
Majors: Philosophy, Legal Studies
College: PORTER

Mentor: Grant McGuire
Project: Nonnative Perception of Italian Consonant Length Contrast
Major: Applied Linguistics & Multilingualism, Linguistics
College: COWELL

Mentor: Yi Zhang
Project: A Multi-Agent Approach to Long-Term Stock Investment Decision-Making
Major: Computer Science, Applied Mathematics
College: COWELL

Mentor: Melissa Chen
Project: Directed Forgetting: Impact of Encoding Instructions on Memory
Performance
Major: Intensive Psychology, and Proposed Cognitive Sciences
College: MERRILL

Mentor: Sean Keilen
Project: Restoring Othello: An Exploration of Restoration Rewrites and
Audience Perceptions
Major: Literature 
College: COWELL

Mentor: Megan Molinari
Project: Ocellated Wrasse Isotocin Manipulation
Major: Marine Biology
College: PORTER

Mentor: Audrie Lin
Project: Global Health investigation of Micronutrient Status and Telomere
Health in Children from Rural Bangladesh
Major: Global Community Health 
College: COWELL

Mentor: Justin Perez
Project: Experiences of Health in Argentina
Major: Global and Community Health, Latin American and Latino Studies
College: MERRILL

Mentor: Ali Shariati
Project: Understanding the Instructive Effects of TPRX1 Splicing Variants
During the Acquisition of Totipotency in Human Cells
Major: Biomolecular Engineering
College: CARSON

Mentor: Patrick Michael Ballard
Project: Expresso
Major: Art and Design: Games & Playable Media Major
College: NINE

Mentor: Vicky Oelze
Project: The Social Integration of Immigrant Female Chimpanzees
Major: Anthropology
College: CARSON

Mentor: Sri Kurniawan
Project: Exploring the Effectiveness of Consumer Neurotechnology in
Academic Settings
Major: Neuroscience and Music minor
College: CROWN

Mentor: Rebecca DuBois
Project: Structural Analysis of RSV G Glycoprotein’s Central Conserved
Domain Bound to Broadly Neutralizing Antibody
Major: Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics
College: OAKES

Mentor: Aleksandra Skrajna
Project: Deciphering the Acidic Patch Interactions of Human H2A.Z
Variant Nucleosome
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
College: PORTER

Mentor: Chris Benner
Project: I Was One of You Before: A Case Study on UC Santa Cruz’s
Everett Program
and its Student-to-Staff Model
Major: Sociology, and Global Information and Social Enterprise Studies minor
College: CARSON

Mentor: Rebecca London
Project: From Childhood to Adulthood: The Enduring Effects of Parental Divorce
Major: Sociology and Technology Information Management
College: NINE

Mentor: Jason Eshraghian
Project: Training Time Series And Event Prediction Models Using
Future Insight: A Neurophysiological Approach
Major: Computer Science 
College: CROWN

Mentor: Rebecca DuBois
Project: Biochemical Insights into Human Astrovirus RNA Dependent RNA Polymerase
Bound to the Genome Linked Viral Protein
Major: Biomolecular Engineering
College: NINE

Mentor: Needhi Bhalla
Project: SNIP-SNP Analysis of Recombination Patterns in C. elegans: The Role of
PCH-2 and Sexual Dimorphism in Meiotic Recombination
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology; and Sociology
College: MERRILL

Kamran Hussain

Mentor: Mircea Teodorescu
Project: A Foundation Model for Cortical Organoid Electrophysiology
Major: Electrical Engineering
College: JRLEWIS

Mentor: Rebecca Dubois
Project: Structural Mapping of an Immunodominant Antigenic Site on
the Norovirus Capsid
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
College: CARSON

Mentor: Jay Reti
Project: An Experimental Archaeological Approach to the Oldowan
Technocomplex
Major: Anthropology; Earth Sciences minor
College: COWELL

Mentor: Aleksandra Skrajna
Project: Reconstitution of H3.3 Heterotypic Variant Nucleosomes
Major: Chemistry
College: OAKES

Mentor: Ryan Foley
Project: Searching for Type Ia Supernova Progenitors in the Virgo
Cluster Using the Hubble Space Telescope Images
Major: Physics
College: STEVENSON

Mentor: Deena Brailovsky
Project: Permeability of Lariat Scaffolds and their Compatibility with mRNA Display
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
College: COWELL

Mentor: David Parks
Project: LLM Control of Integrated System
Major: Computer Engineering
College: KRESGE

Mentor: Jason Eshraghian
Project: ASIC For Ternary State Space Models
Major: Electrical Engineering & Computer Engineering
College: OAKES

Mentor: Audrie Lin
Project: Associations between Micronutrient Status and Telomere
Length in Children
Major: Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
College: NINE

Mentor: Shelbi Russell
Project: Wolbachia in Vitro Mixed Infection (wWil and wMel)
Major: Bioinformatics
College: NINE

Mentor: Carina Araceli Villegas
Project: Characterization of p16 Mutants in Cancer
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
College: JRLEWIS

Mentor: Michael Patnode
Project: Degradation of Dietary Plant Glycans by Macrophages
Major: Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology
College: JRLEWIS

Mentor: Daniel Kim
Project: Investigating the Effect of the Evolutionary Ages of Transposable
Elements on their Expression in Pancreatic Cancer
Major: Bioinformatics
College: CROWN

Mentor: Jaye Padgett
Project: The California Vowel Shift and African American Women's Language
Major: Linguistics
College: KRESGE

Mentor: Ryan Foley
Project: Estimating the Hubble Constant with Virgo Cluster Type Ia Supernovae
Major: Physics (Astrophysics)
College: MERRILL

Mentor: Amanda Reiterman
Project: On the Frontier: Archaeological Evidence of Cross Cultural Interactions
in Roman Scotland
Major: History and Anthropology
College: MERRILL

Mentor: Julie Bettie
Project: Unpacking the Influence of Family and Community on the Identity
and Self-Expression of Queer Male-Presenting Latines
Major: Sociology, Spanish Studies, and Education minor
College: NINE

Mentor: Aide Macias‑Munoz
Project: Exploring Sexual Reproduction Genes in Hydra Strains
Major: Environmental Studies/Economics Combined
College: KRESGE

Naja Steward

Mentor: Chris Benner
Project: Special Economic Zones and Land Grabbing in Transitioning Governments: the Cases
of Laos and Myanmar
Major: Environmental Studies, Global Information and Social Enterprise Studies minor
College: CARSON

Mentor: Jennifer E Reardon
Project: Tribal Sovereignty and the Land: a Focused Exploration of the Prairie
Band Potawatomi Nation
Major: Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
College: KRESGE

Mentor: dani wright
Project: Fruit Fashion
Major: Art and Design: Playable Games and Media (AGPM), History
College: KRESGE

Mentor: Shaun McKinnie
Project: Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction of Vanadium-dependent
Haloperoxidases
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics minor
College: CARSON

Mentor: Cecilia Gervin
Project: Potential Costs of Long Floral Longevity in Clarkia unguiculata in
Drought
Major: Plant Sciences
College: KRESGE

Mentor: David Menendez
Project: Language Effects on Parent-child Conversations About Traits
Major: Intensive Psychology, Linguistics minor
College: JRLEWIS