2024 Koret Scholars

Kerney An

Mentor: Shelbi Russell
Project: Exploring Recombination in Mixed Wolbachia Infections
Major: Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics
College: Crown

Matteo Anicetti

Mentor: Melanie Kirkpatrick
Project: Development of a Primary, Air-Liquid Interface, Murine Small Intestinal
Culture System via an Enteroid Model
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
College: Oakes

Madhu Ayyer

Mentor: Addis Getahun
Project: Towards the synthesis of a monomeric, unperturbed bismuthine oxide
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
College: Crown

Sam Bartosik-Velez

Mentor: Emily Nazario
Project: Comparing Thermoregulatory Strategies Between Atlantic Bottlenose
Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and Beluga Whales (Delphinapterus leucas)
Major: Marine Biology
College: Merrill

Natalie Cellucci

Mentor: Michael Patnode
Project: Modeling gut microbe interactions through surface adhesion
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
College: Kresge

Emily Cheng

Mentor: Melissa Jurica
Project: The Effect of Intron RNA Sequence on Spliceosome Assembly
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
College: JRLewis

Quinn Davis

Mentor:Kristina Chew
Project: The Influence of Hesiodic Cosmology and Hierarchy on John Milton's 
Paradise Lost
Major: Classical Studies
College: Kresge

Connor Dickinson

Mentor: Ryan Foley
Project: Constraints on the Progenitor Star of the Type Ic Supernova 2023cj
Major: Physics (Astrophysics)
College: Carson

Kathryn Echandia-Monroe

Mentor: Olena Vaske
Project: Comparative RNA sequencing analysis reveals KRAS A146P presence
in rare form of Gliosarcoma
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology; and Cognitive Science
College: Nine

Julie Fintamag

Mentor: Kat Gutierrez
Project: Watsonville is in the Heart; Mapping A Recuperative History of Filipino
Farmworkers
Major: History
College: Nine

Aditi Gangadharan

Mentor: Andrew Skemer
Project: Optics Testing for SCALES
Major: Applied Physics
College: Nine

Shreyanshi Garg

Mentor: Puragra GuhaThakurta
Project: A Comparison of the PypeIt and spec2d Data Reduction Pipelines for Keck
DEIMOS Spectra
Major: Physics (Astrophysics)
College: Nine

Skye Gunasekaran

Mentor: Jason Eshraghian
Project: A Neuromorphic System for Continual Seizure Prediction
Major: Computer Science
College: Crown

Clara Han

Mentor: Ali Shariati
Project: Epigenome Engineering of Embryonic Stem Cells to Construct Embryo-like
Models
Major: Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics
College: Nine

Maria Hele

Mentor: Jenny Kelly
Project: Native Plants of the Santa Cruz Area: Illustrations of Decolonization
Major: Critical Race & Ethnic Studies and Feminist Studies
College: Nine

Elise Huang

Mentors: Yvonne Vasquez and Anouk van den Bout
Project: Optimization of clinical tumor RNA sequencing assay for synovial sarcoma
Major: Human Biology
College: Carson

Andrew Kato

Mentor: Haoze Li
Project: Structural and scopal asymmetries in the syntax of relative measurements
Major: Linguistics
College: Cowell

Mansi Khare

Mentor: Anouk van den Bout
Project: Developing an RNA-based fusion gene detection assay
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
College: JRLewis

Heather Knight

Mentor: Marco Rolandi
Project: A Bioelectronic Approach to Modeling Epilepsy with Cortical Organoids
Major: Neuroscience 
College: Cowell

Quynh Le

Mentors: Seth Rubin, Gerd Mueller
Project: The Binding of DREAM Complex Upon the Inactivation of 
CHR (Cell-cycle Homology Region)
Major: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
College: Cowell

Albert Lee

Mentor: Tyler Sorensen
Project: Towards Safe GPU Acceleration in Web Browsers
Major: Computer Engineering
College: JRLewis

Emily Lee

Mentor: Marco Rolandi
Project: Depression Biomarker Sensor with Bioprotonics
Major: Electrical Engineering
College: Carson

Gabriel Lefebre

Mentor: Shaun McKinnie
Project: Investigation of biosynthetic potential in Actinobacterial gene clusters
using Cas12a Direct Cloning
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
College: Merrill

James Leyton

Mentor: Alan Christy
Project: Ryukyu Kingdom Video Project
Major: History
College: Crown

Elias Logari

Mentor: Needhi Bhalla
Project: Determing the Role of PCH-2 in Meiotic Recombination Distribution
Using SNIP-SNP Analysis
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
College: Nine

Oliver Lokhandwala

Mentor: Leilani Gilpin
Project: Explainable AI Autograder
Major: Computer Science
College: Nine

Fénix López

Mentor: Tesla Jeltema
Project: Understanding Dark Matter Content and Supermassive Blackhole Activity
in a Galaxy Cluster Using X-ray Data
Major: Physics (Astrophysics)
College: JRLewis

Emily Mader

Mentor: Zoujian Zhang
Project: Uniform forward-modeling analysis of L and T benchmark brown dwarfs
Major: Physics (Astrophysics)
College: Carson

Yash Malegaonkar

Mentor: Sai Siddartha Maram
Project: Shloka
Major: Computer Science: Game Design
College: JRLewis

Lucas Ognibene

Mentor: Peter Weiss-Penzias
Project: Heavy Metals in the Eastern Sierras by Elemental Analysis of Trout Fin
Clippings
Major: Environmental Science
College: Carson

Kristina Oh

Mentor: Meredith Stevers
Project: Illuminating U2snRNA Mutations: A Fluorescent Splicing Reporter System
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
College: Stevenson

Kristopher Orduna

Mentor: Kent Eaton
Project: Bulletproof Education: Analyzing the Paradox of School Shootings in
Gun-Controlled Mexico
Major: Politics and Legal Studies
College: JRLewis

Krystle Pale

Mentor: Amy Argenal
Project: Exploring the Challenges Faced by Student Parents in Higher Education
Major: Sociology
College: Oakes

Javier Perez Soto

Mentor: Rebecca Jensen Clem
Project: Development of deformable mirror-based pupil chopping for exoplanet
imaging and adaptive optics
Major: Applied Physics
College: Merrill

Serena Ramirez

Mentor: Heather Bullock
Project: The Impact of Habitat for Humanity Housing on Psychological Well-Being
and Family Dynamics
Major: Psychology; Critical Race & Ethnic Studies
College: Porter

Colette Reed

Mentor: Zac Zimmer
Project: Examining Queerness and Politics in Southern California Punk History
Major: Art
College: Porter

Sean Ricarte

Mentor: Tesla Jeltema
Project: Refining Cosmological Constraints: Testing a Cluster Selection Algorithm
Major: Physics; and Mathematics Theory and Computation
College: Kresge

Daniel Riegels

Mentor: Ajay Shenoy
Project: Measuring and Estimating Retail Productivity
Major: Economics
College: Nine