2025 Faculty Research
The following faculty research projects are organized by colleges, and then alphabetically by department. Students are encouraged to look at related fields, as well as within their major departments for research projects, which might be interesting to them. For example, the research project in the theater department might also be interesting to sociology or education majors.
Please note that this list is non-exhaustive, as students may work with Faculty mentors not included on this list
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BOURNS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Bioengineering
Faculty Mentor: Juhong Chen
Research: My research program will develop advanced and innovative Bioengineering and Biosensing approaches that can be used to detect emerging infectious diseases in food, environmental, and clinical samples. CRISPR Cas protein engineering
Faculty Mentor: Kevin Freedman
Research: biosensing
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/kfreed
Faculty Mentor: Elena Kokkoni
Research: Assistive Technology, Pediatric Rehabilitation, Child-Robot Interaction, Movement Biomechanics
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/elenak
Faculty Mentor: Chung-Hao Lee
Research: Cardiovascular Tissue Biomechanics
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/chunghal
Faculty Mentor: Huinan Liu
Research: Dr. Liu’s Biomaterials and Nanomedicine Lab research involves design, fabrication and evaluation of novel biomaterials for tissue regeneration, controlled drug delivery, and medical implant/device applications. Medical applications of nanomaterials and nanotechnology are actively explored through both fundamental studies and applied research. Materials studied in the lab include polymer, ceramic nanoparticles, polymer/ceramic nanocomposites and biodegradable metals. Students will be involved in developing novel materials that stimulates stem cells toward nerve regeneration, or bone/cartilage regeneration. Students will acquire lab skills and gain experience in material synthesis, characterization, electron microscopy, x-ray spectroscopy, optical emission spectrometry, fluorescence microscopy, bacterial culture, and mammalian cell culture studies. Previous outstanding undergraduate student researchers in Liu lab have co-authored scientific publications and/or presented their work at national scientific conferences.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/huinanl
Faculty Mentor: Rob McKee
Research: Engineering Pedagogy (but grad work was on kidney regeneration, post doc on blood enzymes and ex vivo organ perfusion/ventilation)
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/rmckee
Faculty Mentor: Giulia Palermo
Research: CRISPR-Cas9 mechanism, computational bioengineering, biophysics, genome editing
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/giuliap
Faculty Mentor: Joshua Morgan
Research: Research in my lab lies at the interface of tissue-scale biology and aging. In aging, the tissues of our bodies begin to degrade, losing function and resilience. While even healthy tissue suffers some loss-of-function with age, pathological declines in tissue function, resulting in severe impairment of quality of life or even death, are increasingly common in our aging population. Using a combination of molecular, genetic and tissue engineering approaches, my lab generates tissue-scale models of aging tissue. By investigating aging processes at the tissue-scale, we gain insight into how aging-associated changes in the tissue microenvironment propagate upwards in scale to loss of function in the tissue or organ. In the long term, by collaborating with clinical researchers at Riverside and other institutions, our research will guide the development of novel therapeutics to ameliorate degeneration associated with aging and increase the quality of life of geriatric patients.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/morganj1
Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Georgios Karavalakis
Research: Air quality, non-exhaust emissions from mobile sources
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/georgios
Faculty Mentor: Jiamin Zhang
Research: The research focus of my lab is engineering education. Specially I'm interested in virtue-based character education for teaching engineering ethics and teaching students expert-like problem-solving skills. Undergraduate students in my group will be mentored by me directly and will learn qualitative (e.g., conduct interviews, analyze survey results) and quantitative (e.g., statistical analysis) research skills.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qHiRKegAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
Faculty Mentor: Yujie Men
Research: Dr. Men’s research focuses on the interactions between environmental microorganisms and the contaminants of emerging concerns, including how microbes could be adapted to transform or even make use of those contaminants, such as organofluorines, and how the exposure to certain contaminants could impact microbial features, such as their resistance to antibiotics.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/yujiem
Faculty Mentor: Amanda Rupiper
Research: water reuse and water loss, water-energy efficiency
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/arupiper
Faculty Mentor: Haizhou Liu
Research: Professor Liu's research interests include water chemistry, water reuse, desalination, environmental remediation, electrochemistry and catalysis.
Faculty Mentor: Ian Wheeldon
Research: Synthetic Biology
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/wheeldon
Faculty Mentor: Roxue Yan
Research: Biosensor for disease control in California Avocado. Onsite PFAS sensors
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/ruoxuey
Computer Science and Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Amey Bhangale
Research: Algorithms
https://sites.google.com/view/amey-bhangale
Faculty Mentor: Philip Brisk
Research: FPGA programming; computer architecture; computer system design and evaluation; emerging technologies; microfluidics.
https://www.cs.ucr.edu/~philip
Faculty Mentor: Emiliano De Cristofaro
Research: privacy, disinformation
Faculty Mentor: Ahmed Eldawy
Research: Geospatial data exploration and visualization. This project involves building real data science applications that process geospatial data, i.e., location data. Examples include crime and traffic data in California, agricultural applications, and social media analysis. The specific application will depend on the availability and interest of the participant. We will use big data systems, such as Spark and AsterixDB. Students with a background in Java, SQL, HTML, and Javascript, will be able to apply their knowledge in this project.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/eldawy
Faculty Mentor: Elaheh Sadredini
Research: Computer security, secure computing, hardware accelerator
https://www.cs.ucr.edu/~elaheh/
Faculty Mentor: Mazloumi Abbas
Research: Accelerating graph algorithms by developing modern graph processing frameworks.
https://www.cs.ucr.edu/~amazl001/
Faculty Mentor: Yinglun Zhu
Research: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Salman Asif
Research: Machine learning, computer vision, computational imaging
https://www.ece.ucr.edu/~sasif
Faculty Mentor: Ran Cheng
Research: Solving Landau-Lifshitz equations with analytical and numerically tools to understand the intricate interplay between electricity and magnetism in various topological materials. This project creates critical knowledge enabling the electrical manipulation of magnetic materials
https://terahertzspin.engr.ucr.edu/
Faculty Mentor: Elaine Haberer
Research: electrospun label-free optical biosensors; viral-templated nanomotors; bionanotechnology
https://habererlab.engr.ucr.edu/
Faculty Mentor: Konstantinos Karydis
Research: Robotics
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/karydis
Faculty Mentor: Wantong Li
Research: Algorithm/hardware co-design for AI: neuro-symbolic AI hardware, efficient tiny ML device, intelligent medical diagnostics, data reduction for autonomous systems, smart sensors.
Emerging AI hardware: memory-centric computing, in-memory computing, ML hardware security, robust and fault-tolerant integrated circuits, thermal management.
Faculty Mentor: Jianlin Liu
Research: Semiconductor materials and devices
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/jianlin
Faculty Mentor: Shaolei Ren
Research: Optimizing machine learning models on tiny devices.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/shaolei
Faculty Mentor: Hang Qiu
Research: Autonomous driving, edge ML systems
Faculty Mentor: Zhaowei Tan
Research: Possible Project 1: Enhancing Intelligence for Next-Generation 5G Base Station
Artificial Intelligence holds immense potential to enhance the intelligence of 5G networks by improving performance, boosting security, and more. This project focuses on the new 5G architecture called Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN), which introduces a novel component within the base station to support the execution of machine learning (ML) algorithms. The goal is to implement an O-RAN system and investigate how ML can optimize its operation, enabling smarter and more efficient network performance. We will be focusing on reducing latency with ML.
Possible Project 2: Design of Next-Generation 5G Base Station for IoT
This project aims to develop a new architecture for 5G base stations optimized for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which demand energy efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and scalability. The study will focus on IoT communication protocols, designing a solution that modularizes their components and strategically places them across edge and cloud environments for distributed, low-overhead deployment.
To facilitate development, all necessary starting code and hardware will be provided for both projects.
Faculty Mentor: Guoyuan Wu
Research: Development and evaluation of sustainable and intelligent transportation systems (SITS), optimization and control of transportation systems (from powertrain, vehicle dynamics, to traffic flows), traffic flow modeling and simulation, and vehicle emissions and powertrain modeling.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/guoyuan.wu
Materials Science and Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Elaine Haberer
Research: Researchers have begun to harness the extraordinary capability of biology to make a variety of devices by integrating peptides or proteins which are able to bind technologically significant materials into the structural proteins of viruses. The approach has allowed the realization of unique device geometries, as well as the opportunity for enhanced performance and functionality. Current efforts in our lab are focused on using biomolecules to synthesize new, multi-component nanoscale materials and devices to address challenges in the area of solar power generation, photocatalysis, and biosensing.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/haberer
Faculty Mentor: Lorenzo Mangolini
Research: Plasma processing of nanomaterials - students will gain experience on the design and assembly of plasma reactors for the production of nanomaterials for a broad range of applications. There include materials for lithium-ion batteries, nano-energetics, and novel catalysts for green chemical processing. Hands-on activities include maintaining vacuum equipment, assembling and testing plasma reactors, and assist graduate students in the completion of various experimental campaigns.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/lmango
Faculty Mentor: Richard Wilson
Research: Energy Processing, Nano & Micro Scale Engineering, Materials Properties & Processing
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/rwilson
Faculty Mentor: Bryan Wong
Research: We do computational simulations of energy materials including solar cells, batteries, and computational chemistry
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/brwong
Faculty Mentor: Roxue Yan
Research: Biosensing, Waste Water Treatment
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/ruoxuey
Mechanical Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Chen Li
Research: Phonon Model Optimization
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/chenli
Faculty Mentor: Jonathan Realmuto
Research: Soft Robotics, Rehab/Assistive/Wearable Robotics, Human Sensorimotor Behavior
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/jrealmut
Faculty Mentor: Jun Sheng
Research:surgical robots, medical devices, soft robots, wearable robots, mechanism design, mechatronics
Faculty Mentor: Richard Wilson
Research: Energy Processing, Nano & Micro Scale Engineering, Materials Properties & Processing
Faculty Mentor: Li Yaofa
Research: Microfluidics, Multiphase flow, experimental method, 3D printing, thermal management
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COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Anthropology
Faculty Mentor: Stephen James
Research: Linguistics, Social Sciences, Ethnographic Methods
Comparative Literature and Languages
Faculty Mentor: Carlo DaVia
Research: Classics: ancient Greek language, ancient Greek history and culture; Latin language, Roman history and culture
Faculty Mentor: Trisha Remetir
Research: literature, environmental humanities, asian american studies, contemporary literature studies, world literature studies
English
Faculty Mentor: Corinne (Cori) Knight
Research: American religious history, American history, American literature, pop culture, comics/webcomics/graphic novels, disability and accessibility in higher education, disaster preparedness/mitigation
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/cknig002
Faculty Mentor: Vorris Nunley
Research: Intersection of literature (African American, American, Science Fiction), philosophy (the nature of knowledge and knowledge production), economics, language (nature of reality and truth), culture (art, music, film), representation, and everyday knowledges. I am able to bring these modes of inquiry to a variety of topics and subject matter.
https://blackstudy.ucr.edu/team/vorris-l-nunley/
Faculty Mentor: Richard Rodriguez
Research: Latinx studies; film and visual culture; queer studies; popular music
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/rickyr
Ethnic Studies
Faculty Mentor: Paul Green
Research: Educational politics, social policy, law, race, segregation, desegregation, integration, educational opportunity for poor youth and children of color. Historically Black/African and African American Catholic schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/pgreen
Faculty Mentor: Jasmin Young
Research: Dr. Young’s research interests center broadly on the intellectual history of Black women, state violence and resistance, and radical Black feminism.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/jasminy
Hispanic Studies
Faculty Mentor: Marta Hernández Salván
Research: Latin American Literature and Culture (film); Psychoanalysis; Critical and Political Theory
https://profiles.ucr.edu/marta.hernandez
Faculty Mentor: Claudia Holguin Mendoza
Research: Spanish linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Critical Literacy and bilingualism
Faculty Mentor: Maria Covadonga Lamar-Prieto
Research: Spanish in the US/ California; Bilingualism in social media
Faculty Mentor: Carlos Varon Gonzalez
Research: Spanish and Latin American Culture, political philosophy, popular culture (soccer, music)
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/cvarongo
Faculty Mentor: Alejandra Dubcovsky
Research: Early America, History of a American Indians, Spanish Borderlands
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/adubcovs
Media and Cultural Studies
Faculty Mentor: Richard Rodriguez
Research: Latinx studies; film and visual culture; queer studies; popular music
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/rickyr
Music
Faculty Mentor: Bradley Butterworth
Research: Popular music production, recording, mixing, mastering live sound, post production audio
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/bradleyb
Faculty Mentor: Xochitl Chavez
Research: Music, cultural Anthropology, transnational migration, gender, cultural performance (dance, festival, arts). Museum studies, community engaged research
Faculty Mentor: Dana Kaufman
Research:Dr. Kaufman earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. Her music has been heard throughout North America and Europe, and at venues such as New York Opera Fest, Contemporary Music Center of Milan, Hartford Opera Theater, and Opera on Tap Chicago. A composer of primarily vocal/operatic music, Kaufman has also focused on composing for trans voices and pushing for inclusivity in opera.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/danak
Political Science
Faculty Mentor: Juliann Allison
Research:(1) User self governance and stakeholder land management to improve sustainability of public lands. Two subprojects: (a) Local (rock) climbers' coalitions (LCOs) in western U.S. (b) Off highway vehicle (OHV) organizations in southern California deserts. Both subprojects might include field work, data analysis, writing.
(2) Electrification of transportation, especially semi trucks and other medium- and heavy duty vehicles responsible for air pollution in southern California. Research opportunities would include surveying truck drivers, data analysis, and possibly reporting.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/juliann
Faculty Mentor: Kim Yi Dionne
Research:Research projects include: what supports democratic resilience in Africa (with focus on courts and judicial independence; examining public opinion survey data); pandemic politics in Africa (focused on HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and COVID-19); climate politics in Southern Africa (especially catastrophic events like cyclones and disaster relief policies); and publicly engaged political science (a randomized-controlled trial funded by the National Science Foundation that involves data collection and analysis)
https://sites.google.com/ucr.edu/kyd/cv
Faculty Mentor: John Laursen
Research: Political theory, history of political ideas, famous philosophers, beautyism, heightism, weightism, philosophical skepticism, cynicism
https://profiles.ucr.edu/john.laursen
Psychology
Faculty Mentor: Ian Ballard
Research: Running a behavioral study on learning, decision-making, and memory. Helping to run quality control analysis on fMRI data.
Faculty Mentor: Jimmy Calanchini
Research: social psychology, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination
Faculty Mentor: Elizabeth Davis
Research: children's emotional functioning, psychopathology, emotion regulation, physiology
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/eldavis
Faculty Mentor: Annie Ditta
Research: Scholarship of teaching and learning, memory, creativity
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/annied
Faculty Mentor: Praveen Kenderla
Research: Children's understanding of social categorization, status hierarchies, inter-group conflicts, inter-group attitudes. Early childhood development specially development of attention, working memory, and executive functions research.
https://github.com/PraveenKenderla/Presentation_pdfs/blob/main/Praveen_Kenderla_CV_Jan_16_2024.pdf
Faculty Mentor: Rebekah Richert
Research: Children’s thinking about religion
Faculty Mentor: Tabea Springstein
Research: Emotion and emotion regulation in daily life, healthy aging, influences of cultural and socioeconomic context on emotion and emotion regulation
Faculty Mentor: Rachel Wu
Research: Intervention with minority older adults with low income to help improve their cognitive abilities.
Faculty Mentor: Tuppett Yates
Research: Risk and resilience among adversity-exposed children and adolescents; Foster youth research
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/tuppett
Faculty Mentor: John Franchak
Research: How people gather and use perceptual information to guide motor actions, observe their surroundings, and engage in social interactions.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/franchak
Faculty Mentor: Weiwei Zhang
Research: mathematical modeling of visual memory ; Relationship between visual working memory and higher cognition
Faculty Mentor: Halle Dimsdale-Zucker
Research: Effects of endogenous task switching on recall organization
Religious Studies/Gender and Sexuality Studies
Faculty Mentor: Sahin Acikgoz
Research: Gender and Sexuality Studies, Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, the Middle East, and the Global South.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/sahina
Faculty Mentor: Amanda Lucia
Research: Religion, transnationalism, globalization, cults, South Asia, Hinduism, gurus, gender, ethnicity, immigration, American West
Faculty Mentor: Matthew King
Research: Buddhism, religion and science, Inner Asian religious history, history and critique of Orientalism
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/mking
Theatre, Film, and Digital Production
Faculty Mentor: Keunpyo Park
Research: Director for screen and stage, and actor. Works include The LA Riots 1992: Reflection on Our Future and Footsteps of Korean Americans
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/rootpark
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COLLEGE OF NATURAL AND AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES
Biochemistry
Faculty Mentor: Daniel Petras
Research: Developing mass spectrometry-based techniques to study chemical interactions within microbial communities.
https://www.functional-metabolomics.com/
Botany and Plant Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Danielle Seymour
Research: The research in the Seymour Lab is focused on the genetic improvement of citrus. We are generally interested in understanding how plant genome evolution shapes the genetic basis of trait variation. In particular, we seek to leverage this knowledge to develop genetically superior varieties for citrus growers in California. We exploit modern genetic and statistical genomic tools to ensure that citrus varieties will withstand future shifts in biotic and abiotic conditions while maintaining desirable agronomic and consumer fruit quality traits.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/dseymour
Chemistry
Faculty Mentor: Ludwig Bartels
Research: Growth and Characterization of Semiconductor Materials
Faculty Mentor: Gregor Blaha
Research: Exploring transcription-translation coupling in bacteria. Crystallizing kRas modified with possible anti-cancer drugs.transcription-translation coupling.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/gregorb
Faculty Mentor: Julian Ryan
Research: bioanalytical mass spectrometry
https://sites.google.com/ucr.edu/jlab/home
Faculty Mentor: Joshua Hartman
Research: Computational chemistry, molecular crystal structure, nuclear magnetic resonance, chemistry education
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/jhart005
Faculty Mentor: Joseph Genereux
Research: Characterizing target proteins of pesticides to understand potential proteotoxicity.
Faculty Mentor: Richard Hooley
Research: Organic synthesis, supramolecular chemistry, mo4vlecular recognition, bio-mimicking molecules.
Faculty Mentor: Feng Tang
Research: Chemical proteomic approaches toward characterizing novel functions of translesion synthesis DNA polymerases, including their genome-wide
occupancy and interactomes. Next-generation sequencing methods for mapping the genome-wide distributions of DNA damage in human cells.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BR794iZ_vkIHGlKzSyromhidZ_tweJ19/view?usp=sharing
Faculty Mentor: Bryan Wong
Research: We do computer simulations of chemistry (chemical reactions, molecules, materials, solar materials, batteries, etc.)
Faculty Mentor: Yadong Yin
Research: Smart Nanomaterials; Nanoscale Assembly; Photonic crystals
https://faculty.ucr.edu/~yadongy/
Faculty Mentor: Haofei Zhang
Research: Environmental Chemistry, Multiphase Organic Aerosol Formation, Air Pollution
https://sites.google.com/ucr.edu/hzhang/home
Faculty Mentor: Jingsong Zhang
Research: chemical kinetics in combustion chemistry; chemical vapor deposition; atmospheric chemistry; environmental chemistry; laser spectroscopy
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/jszhang
Faculty Mentor: Linlin Zhao
The flow of genetic information is critically dependent on the structure and integrity of DNA. DNA is challenged by endogenous and environmental factors, which produces a plethora of DNA modifications. Certain DNA modifications play a role in genetic regulation, whereas others have mutagenic and pathogenic effects. The overarching goal of our research is to understand the chemical and molecular mechanisms by which DNA modifications are dealt with. We are particularly interested in the mitochondrial DNA maintenance. The small and multi-copy mitochondrial DNA genome play a plethora roles in energy production, biosynthesis, and cell signaling. The instability of mtDNA has been associated with a variety of mitochondrial diseases, neurodegeneration, and aging. We use chemical, biochemical, biophysical, computational, and cellular approaches to gain fundamental insights into mtDNA maintenance with a long-term goal to inform the development of novel therapeutics or disease intervention strategies.
https://zhaolab.ucr.edu/Zhaolab/Home.html
Research:
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Eric Barefoot
Research: Our group studies the physics of how wind, water, and ice move sediment on the Earth’s surface to create landscapes. We then study how that sediment accumulates to make archives of Earth’s environment through time.
Faculty Mentor: Andrey Bekker
Research: Geochemical analyses of ancient sedimentary rocks to reconstruct atmospheric and ocean composition, evolution of life, links between surface conditions and interior of the Earth
https://profiles.ucr.edu/andrey.bekker
Faculty Mentor: Heather Ford
Research: Key words: Geophysics; Seismology; Crust; Mantle; Earthquakes. The student would be able to select from a range of topics, all of which involve utilizing seismic methods. Possible projects include (but are not limited to) 1) looking for evidence of changes to near surface structure following earthquakes in California, Hawaii or Alaska, 2) generating a catalog of seismicity in Wyoming and South Dakota, 3) generating models of crustal thickness across Wyoming and South Dakota using seismic data, or 4) work with a graduate student to explore to relationship between volcanism and partial melt in the mantle beneath the western U.S. All projects require the use of MATLAB or similar software, but can be designed for students with minimal experience in coding. Students will work with both the PI as well as a graduate student, and the specific project can be easily tailored to fit the interests of the student. The only requirements are an interest in better understanding the internal structure of the Earth using seismic methods.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/heatherf
Faculty Mentor: Gareth Funning
Research: Earthquakes and faulting; Remote sensing/satellite imagery; Seismology and data mining
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/gareth
Faculty Mentor: Nigel Hughes
Research: Research on the systematics and evolution of dikelocephalid trilobites
Faculty Mentor: Wei Liu
Research: The ocean's role in climate change and climate variability
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/weiliu
Entomology
Faculty Mentor: Boris Baer
Research: There are honey bees that are better able to cope with environmental stressors, because they survive and thrive without continuous human support. We keep and study such bees that are better able to deal with hot temperatures, defend themselves against Varroa mites or kill fungal Nosema spores with high efficiency. An understanding of the molecular and genetic basis that allow these honey bees to be more healthy and more successful offers the possibilities to breed honey bee stock with increased tolerance. To achieve this we combine the genetic studies into bee health with artificial insemination, which allows us to conserve and propagate honey bees with desirable traits. You will join our team of more than 40 researchers at UCR and conduct a project to understand how honey bees are capable to deal with various environmental stressors. All our projects are done in collaboration with local beekeepers.
Faculty Mentor: Karthikeyan Chandrasegaran
Research: Exploring Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) for Aedes Mosquito Control: Investigating SIT as an innovative and environmentally friendly strategy to reduce Aedes mosquito populations and control disease transmission. Developing Non-Invasive Marking Techniques for Mosquito Releases: Designing and characterizing effective and non-invasive methods for marking mosquitoes released in Sterile Insect Technique programs for improved field monitoring and evaluation.Impact of Insecticide Resistance on Mosquito Behavior and Biology: Examining how insecticide resistance influences key traits such as mosquito behavior, lifespan, and reproductive capacity to better understand its implications for mosquito control programs.
https://kcmosquitolab.weebly.com/
Faculty Mentor: Alec Gerry
Research: Diversity of blood feeding flies (biting midges) in the western United States
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/alecg
Faculty Mentor: Allison Hansen
Research: Evolutionary genomics of insect-microbe interactions
https://allisonhansenlab.weebly.com/
Faculty Mentor: Jedeliza Ferrater
Research: Sterile Insect Technique
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jedeliza-ferrater/
Faculty Mentor: Quinn McFrederick
Research: Symbiosis, bee biology, microbiology
https://melittology.ucr.edu/people/quinn-mcfrederick
Faculty Mentor: Kerry Mauck
Research: Biochemical mechanisms mediating plant pathogen transmission in complex ecological settings and their implications
https://entomology.ucr.edu/people/kerry-mauck
Environmental Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Wei-Chun Chou
Research: Machine learning in Toxicology and Environmental Health
Faculty Mentor: Peter Homyak
Research: Effects of wildfires on soil nutrient cycling and greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/phomyak
Faculty Mentor: Ying-Hsuan Lin
Research: Formation and evolution of atmospheric organic aerosols. Environmental and health impacts of disposable e-cigarette waste. Chemical fate, transport and health effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
https://sites.google.com/ucr.edu/yinghsuanlin
Faculty Mentor: Sarah Petters
Research:Air quality sensors, atmospheric nanophysical chemistry, aerosols
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/spetters
Faculty Mentor: Elia Scudiero
Research: Remote Sensing, GIS, Agriculture, Precision Agriculture, Agronomy, Ag Tech
https://sites.google.com/site/scudieroe/
Faculty Mentor: Francesca Hopkins
Research:methane emissions from agriculture and urban areas, communicating climate change impacts in California's deserts
https://francescahopkins.ucr.edu/
Faculty Mentor: Tamara Harms
Research: Ecosystem ecology, catchment science, hydrology, fire, permafrost, nitrogen cycle, carbon cycle, environmental sensors, streams
Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology (EEOB)
Faculty Mentor: Kurt Anderson
Research: Freshwater ecology, conservation, population and community ecology, mathematical and computer modeling.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/kurta
Faculty Mentor: Theodore Garland
Research: Behavior and anatomy of selectively bred High Runner lines of mice.
https://sites.google.com/ucr.edu/garlandlab/home
Faculty Mentor: Joel Sachs
Research: 1. Understanding how plants select beneficial bacterial symbionts from the soil.
2. Investigating the mechanisms of superior bacterial inoculants to improve crop sustainability.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/joels
Faculty Mentor: Natalie Holt
Research: We have multiple research projects happening in the lab on topics including the effect of early life exercise on the musculoskeletal system, and the role of muscle elasticity in locomotor performance across thermal gradients. The most likely project for a student to work on would be the effect of selection for long distance running on the evolution of long tendons in mice. This would be a morphology project dissecting mice.
https://theholtlab.weebly.com/
Faculty Mentor: Kate Ostevik
Research: We study diversification in flowering plants (i.e., how and why species arise, change, and go extinct) using field collections, greenhouse experiments, and population genomics analyses. This summer possible projects include studying drought adaptation in sunflower, crossing barries in flowers called Clarkia, and whether hybridization led to the formation of a new species in a group of plants called Penstemon.
Faculty Mentor: Marko Spasojevic
Research: Forests play key roles in biodiversity maintenance and climate regulation. Globally, forests support over half of all described species and provide many valuable ecosystem functions and services such as timber, clear air, clean water, and carbon storage. However, forests worldwide are being threatened by habitat loss, drought, and changing fire regimes, which have all resulted in losses to biodiversity and alterations to key ecosystem functions and services. Understanding and predicting how forests will respond to ongoing and pervasive changes to the environment is critical for biodiversity conservation and for the management and maintenance of ecosystem services. To address this, the Spasojevic Ecology lab at UC-Riverside has established a 4ha Forest Dynamics Plot (FDP) adjacent to the James Reserve. Briefly, within the FDP every free-standing woody stem (live or dead) greater than 1cm in diameter has been identified to species, mapped, measured, and tagged for long term monitoring. In establishing this plot, we have observed that many of the Conifers are dead or dying and that there are few Conifers recruiting into this forest. On the other hand, very few Oaks have died and there are many Oaks recruiting into the forest. These patterns suggest a potential shift in the composition of the forest from a mixed Oak-Conifer Forest to a more Oak dominated system. This change in the composition of the forest can have important ramifications for carbon storage, as Oaks are slower growing than Pines, as well as implications for the rest of the plants and animals that depend on these species. We are seeking an student that is interested in plant ecology and climate change who is seeking to gain field experience (spending most of their research time in the field, we do no lab work).
https://mspaso.wixsite.com/traitecology
Mathematics
Faculty Mentor: Heyrim Cho
Research: Modeling multi-scale biological systems, and characterizing effects of the underlying uncertainty for comprehensive mathematical modeling
https://icqmb.ucr.edu/heyrim-cho
Faculty Mentor: Patricio Gallardo
Research: We work at the crossroads of geometry, combinatorics, and algebra. For example, we relate configurations of geometric shapes (such as lines, points, and circles) with algebraic objects (such as polynomials) and combinatoric objects (such as polygons and directed graphs).
https://sites.google.com/site/patriciogallardomath/
Faculty Mentor: Jia Gou
Research: Computational biology, multi-scale modeling, dynamical systems
Faculty Mentor: Pallav Goyal
Research: geometric representation theory
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/pallavg
Faculty Mentor: Matthew Harper
Research: (1) Mathematics of quantum computing, (2) Knot theory, (3) Representation theory and linear algebra
sites.google.com/view/matthewharper-math/home
Faculty Mentor: Russell Rockne
Research: Translating mathematics, physics and evolution-based research to clinical care.
https://icqmb.ucr.edu/russell-rockne
Faculty Mentor: Qixuan Wang
Research: Mathematical biology, multi-scale modeling, growth and regeneration, applied dynamical system, cell fate decisions. Computational modeling on skin biophysics
https://sites.google.com/ucr.edu/qixuanwang/home
Microbiology & Plant Pathology
Faculty Mentor: Ahmed El-Moghazy
Research: Development of antimicrobial materials for food safety and plant diseases applications
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/aelmogha
Faculty Mentor: Alex Putman
Research:Our lab studies pathogens of vegetable and some fruit crops. One disease we are working on is Fusarium wilt of lettuce, caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum. This pathogen lives in the soil, infects the roots, and clogs the water-conducting tissue of the plant. Fusarium wilt can be mitigated using cultivars (different types) of lettuce with some immunity to the pathogen. However, we recently found outbreaks of Fusarium wilt on this immune type of lettuce, suggesting that a new strain of the pathogen has emerged. The main objective of our current research is to characterize this new strain, determine where it has spread, and if other types of lettuce are effective against it. This work involves diagnosing diseased plants and culturing the fungus from infected plants onto artificial media. Then we infect different lettuce cultivars in the greenhouse to confirm pathogenicity, and perform molecular identification using PCR and qPCR. The desired impact of this work is to provide knowledge to farmers on which strain of Fusarium wilt is present in their fields so they can choose an appropriate immune cultivar of lettuce that suppresses disease. The overall goal of our lab is to improve the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of crop production in California.
Faculty Mentor: Fatemeh Khodadadi
Research: Molecular interaction of fungal and bacterial diseases of nut and fruit trees.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fatemeh-khodadadi-836a3253
Faculty Mentor: Caroline Roper
Research: Plant pathology, functional genomics of bacterial plant pathogens
https://roperlaboratory.weebly.com/
Faculty Mentor: Setu Bazie Tagele
Research: Soil and plant microbiome
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BrX6dNUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
Molecular, Cell, and Systems Biology
Faculty Mentor: Margarita Curras-Collazo
Research: Persistent organic pollutants in the indoor and outdoor environment contaminate breast milk and produce adverse effects on offspring’s cognitive ability, social behaviors and metabolic health that persist into adulthood. Using an in vivo mouse model we aim to characterize the reprogrammed phenotypes, at the molecular, neurochemical, circuit and behavioral level, produced by early developmental exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) that are relevant to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and diabetes. Other studies are focused on gut-brain interactions that underlie chronic fatigue and cognitive impairments in a mouse model of Gulf War Illness (GWI). Using gut sensory deafferentation and probiotic therapy with our UCR collaborators we aim to clarify the pathophysiology/etiology underlying GWI.
https://mcurlab.ucr.edu/research
Faculty Mentor: Viji Santhakumar
Research: Novel directions examining the role of neuro-immune interactions and neurogenesis in development of neurocognitive dysfunction after brain injury.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/vijayas
Faculty Mentor: Weifeng Gu
Research: Investigating the interactome of PIR-2
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/weifeng
Nematology
Faculty Mentor:Jiue-in Yang
Research: Nematode-microbe interaction; biological control of plant parasitic nematode; Artificial Intelligence nematode identification system development
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/jiueiny
Physics and Astronomy
Faculty Mentor: Miguel Arratia
Research: Experimental nuclear physics. We build prototype detectors at UCR and we tested them in accelerator facilities in National Laboratories.
Faculty Mentor: Ran Cheng
Research: An early access to the broad field of condensed matter physics by solving toy models related to quantum, topological, and magnetic materials.
Exploring how electrons and magnetism interact in real materials, and the way their interplay leading to non-trivial physical phenomena.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/rancheng
Faculty Mentor: Andrew Joe
Research: Exfoliation and assembly of 2D material heterostructures, python coding to control instrumentation
Faculty Mentor: Allen Mills
Research: Antimatter
https://positron.ucr.edu/projects
Faculty Mentor: Flip Tanedo
Research: Dark matter
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/flipt
Faculty Mentor: Bryan Wong
Research: computational simulations of materials
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/brwong
Faculty Mentor: Steve Choi
Research: Developing hardware and software for the next generation cosmological observatories to study the formation and evolution of our universe.
https://experimentalcosmology.ucr.edu/
Faculty Mentor: Shawn Westerdale
Research: Dark matter detection and neutrino physics
Faculty Mentor: Hai-Bo Yu
Research: Astrophysical Probes of Particle Dark Matter, Self-Interacting Dark Matter
Statistics
Faculty Mentor: Weixin Yao
Research: Mixture models, model-based clustering and classification, modal regression, nonparametric and semiparametric modeling
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SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Faculty Mentor: Hai Che
Research: marketing strategy/management
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/chehai
Faculty Mentor: Corey Joab
Research: Development Economics, Applied Microeconomics, Economics Pedagogy
https://profiles.ucr.edu/joab.corey
Faculty Mentor: Mohsen ElHafsi
Research: Operations and supply chain management, manufacturing and service operations, and production and inventory systems
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/melhafsi
Faculty Mentor: Thomas Kramer
Research: My research interests are in the area of consumer behavior / consumer psychology, and focus on how irrational beliefs, such as superstitious, magic, or karmic beliefs impact consumer decision-making. However, I'm willing to serve as a mentor for any research topic in the area of consumer behavior that has implications for marketing strategy or public policy.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/tkramer
Faculty Mentor: Ye Li
Research: My research interests are in judgment and decision making and behavioral economics, with a particular interest in the role of time in decision making
https://sites.google.com/ucr.edu/bedlab/home?authuser=0
Faculty Mentor: Marlo Raveendran
Research: Formula 1 data project using machine learning https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/marlor
Faculty Mentor: Raj Singh
Research: Employee benefits and labor relations
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/rajsi
Faculty Mentor: Elaine Wong
Research: Organizational behavior with a focus on the impact of leadership, groups and teams' on firm outcomes including social responsibility and financial performance.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/ewong
Finance
Faculty Mentor: Mengmeng Dong
Research: Empirical asset pricing, international finance, behavioral finance and empirical corporate finance.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/mdong
Faculty Mentor: Alireza Talebi
Research: Financial strategy
https://profiles.ucr.edu/ali.talebi1
Information Systems
Faculty Mentor: Sanjoy Moulik
Research: Evolution of IS Teams in the age of AI
https://profiles.ucr.edu/sanjoy.moulik
Faculty Mentor: Rich Yueh
Research: Artificial intelligence related to education, business, or entertainment and the arts
https://business.ucr.edu/inspire-lab
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SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Faculty Mentor: Joi Spencer
Research: Education, mathematics education, African American students, success in STEM, education and equity
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/jois
Faculty Mentor: Katherine Stavropoulos
Research: Neuroscience and autism spectrum disorder, clinical diagnosis and autism spectrum disorder. My lab uses electrophysiology to measure brain activity in children with and without autism spectrum disorder. We focus on the reward system. I am also the assistant director of the SEARCH Center, which provides free screening and diagnosis for children in the Inland Empire.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/katherst
Faculty Mentor: Jose Del Real Viramontes
Research: Latinx students in higher education, Latinx students in community college, Latinx transfer students
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/jdelreal
Faculty Mentor: Miguel Zavala
Research: Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Studies, Leadership for Racial and Economic Justice, High School Student Experiences with Ethnic Studies Learning
https://www.tcpress.com/miguel-zavala
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SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Biomedical Sciences
Faculty Mentor: Monica Carson
Research: neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/monicac
Faculty Mentor: Martin I. Garcia-Castro
Research: Neural crest cells (NCCs) arise early in development, migrate extensively, and give rise to an impressive array of diverse derivatives, including melanocytes, peripheral neurons and glia, heart-valve cells, and craniofacial muscle, adipose cells, odontoblasts, bone and cartilage. Thus, NCCs provide an excellent platform for studying induction, specification, multipotency, fate restriction, and cell migration. Our laboratory focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern the formation and differentiation potential of NCCs. We aim to uncover and characterize the time, tissues and molecular pathways regulating NCC formation, and to assess the effects of the early environment on NCC differentiation potential. To deliver an effective translational approach to human health issues we have embraced human NC studies. Importantly, we have developed a surrogate model of human NC based on human embryonic stem cells, infused by our understanding of early NC biology in model organisms.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/scottp
Faculty Mentor: Masoumeh Ghaffari MD
Research: Breast cancer/AI in Medical Education
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/ghaff
Faculty Mentor: Adam Godzik
Research: bioinformatics, data analysis, cancer, immunological diseases, infectious diseases
Faculty Mentor: Scott Pegan
Research: antiviral and anti-nerve agent therapy development. Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fevers virus, coronavirus, Infectious Disease ; Therapeutics Development
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/scottp
Faculty Mentor: Joy Xiang
Research: RNA virus protein characterization and RNA targeting therapeutic design
sites.google.com/ucr.edu/joyxianglab
Faculty Mentor: Natalie Zlebnik
Research: decision-making, substance use disorder, behavioral studies in mice, dopamine, cannabis
https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/nataliez
Internal Medicine
Faculty Mentor: Femina Patel
Research: Any internal medicine related topics. I am currently working on case reports which I presented to conferences like ACC, ACG, ACP, SGIM.
https://profiles.ucr.edu/femina.patel
Social Med Population & Public Health
Faculty Mentor: Ann Cheney
Research: childhood asthma; early childhood obesity risk https://profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/profile/acheney
Surgery
Faculty Mentor: Nicholas Sheets
Research: Trauma/Surgery, Injury Prevention
nicholas.sheets@ucr.edu
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SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
Faculty Mentor: Mehdi Nemati
Research: Environmental Economics, Water resources economics
Promoting sustainable and cost-effective strategies for addressing water-related issues, such as water scarcity/drought. His policy-oriented research program focuses on economic issues associated with urban/municipal water use and water conservation programs, including alternative pricing structures (e.g., budget-based tiered rates and drought pricing), and rebate programs (e.g., turfgrass removal); direct and indirect potable water reuse; design of enforcement and monitoring strategies; incentives for the adoption of conservation practices and technologies. Climate change and drinking water utilities adaptation in California. The project will survey various adaptation strategies that are taken by major drinking water utilities in California and provide an analysis of various investments over time.
Email Template to Potential Faculty Mentors
Possible Subject Line: Mentorship Inquiry for ______ (put the specific name, e.g. Mentoring Summer Research Internship, UC LEADS, etc)
Hello Dr. ____,
My name is _____ and I am a student from [Insert Home Campus] studying ______. I am applying for a fully-funded internship program where I will be paired with a faculty member who will mentor me during an 8-week research experience at UC Riverside! I am writing to ask whether you would consider mentoring me during this program. The program is called ______ [Insert Program Name Here] and it is housed in the office of Academic Preparation, Recruitment and Outreach within UCR's Graduate Division. If you aren't familiar with the program, it is designed to prepare undergraduate students for graduate school by providing a stipend for undergraduates to conduct research at UCR. The research findings will also be presented at a symposium in mid-August. You can read more about the program here: https://apro.ucr.edu/academic-preparation
I would love to work with you over the summer, specifically because of your research on _____ [insert relevant research topics]. [Write something about your interest in this research and maybe something about what motivates you!]
If you would like to meet with me and discuss the possibility of your mentoring me this upcoming summer, I can set up a zoom meeting or phone call. Please let me know when you are available, ideally in the next week or two. Once again, I would be fully funded during this program, so I would only be asking for your time and guidance on my summer research project!
Please let me know if you have any concerns or require any further information from me and/or from the program coordinators. If you have any questions about the program, you can email apro@ucr.edu.
Sincerely,
__________
(include your name, phone number, email)