2026 Koret Application Now Closed
Deadline to Apply was Friday, October 17, 2025 (11 PM PDT)
Letter of recommendation from the mentor
- Mentors must be a UC Santa Cruz faculty, or graduate student with a CruzID.
- The applicant must add the email address of their mentor in the application. The mentor will receive a link to upload their recommendation.
- The letter is to be no more than 300-400 words and should specifically address the following:
- 1. Provide a brief (100-200 word) description of the research project being performed by the student.
- 2. Assess the likelihood of success in this project by this student.
- 3. Describe your plan for mentorship of this student (type of engagement and frequency).
Research project requirements
- Research projects can be student, or mentor-originated.
- Research projects must be completed prior to the student’s graduation.
- The scholarship is intended to support you in a research project outside of a course. As such, research projects can not be assignments in regular courses.
- Projects and mentors must be affiliated with UCSC (faculty, lecturers, postdocs, researchers, etc.).
- Koret Scholars agree to present their project in the “Koret Research Slam” at the end of spring quarter.
Group projects
For group projects, each student in the group submits a separate application. In the project description question of the application, it should be made clear what specific role the applicant will be performing in the group project.
Additional details:
- You must be an undergraduate student enrolled in the winter and spring quarters at UC Santa Cruz during the 2025-2026 academic year and be in good academic standing.
- Previous Koret Scholars are not eligible to apply.
- You must have a UC Santa Cruz faculty or UC Santa Cruz graduate student who has agreed to be a mentor for your project.
- It is recommended, but not required, that Koret Scholars work with their mentor in a 2 or 5 credit Individual Studies course.
2025 Koret Scholars (by Division)
Arts
Samantha Chang Expresso: Brew connection and empathy as a barista in this cozy,
diversity-driven visual novel Mentor: Patrick Michael Ballard
Emily Tran Fruit Fashion Mentor: dani wright
Baskin Engineering
Owen Arnst Enhancing Stock Investment Using Multi-Round Retrieval-Augmented Generation Mentor: Yi Zhang
Megna Chalamala Understanding the Instructive Effects of TPRX1 Splicing Variants During the Acquisition of Totipotency in Human Cells Mentor: Ali Shariati
Delia Gagnon Structural Analysis of RSV G Glycoprotein’s Central Conserved
Domain Bound to Broadly Neutralizing Antibody Mentor: Rebecca DuBois
Skye Gunasekaran Training Time Series And Event Prediction Models Using Future Insight: A Neurophysiological Approach Mentor: Jason Eshraghian
Aurora Hofkin Biochemical Insights into Human Astrovirus RNA Dependent RNA Polymerase
Bound to the Genome Linked Viral Protein Mentor: Rebecca DuBois
Kamran Hussain A Foundation Model for Cortical Organoid Electrophysiology Mentor: Mircea Teodorescu
Jasmin Liao LLM Control of Integrated System Mentor: David Parks
Ruhai Lin ASIC For Ternary State Space Models Mentor: Jason Eshraghian
Alexandra Lum Wolbachia in Vitro Mixed Infection (wWil and wMel) Mentor: Shelbi Russell
Shivani Mandalaparthi Investigating the Effect of the Evolutionary Ages of Transposable Elements on their Expression in Pancreatic Cancer Mentor: Daniel Kim
Humanities
Katherine Arnold Nonnative Perception of Italian Consonant Length Contrast Mentor: Grant McGuire
Elliot-Elyjah Mcwhinnie The California Vowel Shift and African American Women’s Language Mentor: Jaye Padgett
Jacqueline Nowak On the Frontier: Archaeological Evidence of Cross Cultural Interactions in Roman Scotland Mentor: Amanda Reiterman
Saúl Ordaz Navegando la Jotería: Unpacking the Influence of Family and Community on the Identity and Self-Expression of Queer Male-Presenting Latinés Mentor: Julie Bettie
Carmen Tallbear-Edmunds Tribal Sovereignty and the Land: a Focused Exploration of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Mentor: Jennifer E Reardon
Physical and Biological Science
Bailey Borbas Ocellated Wrasse Isotocin Manipulation Mentor: Megan Molinari
Sumukh Cadpakar Global Health investigation of Micronutrient Status and Telomere Health in Children from Rural Bangladesh Mentor: Audrie Lin
Kelly Camacho Experiences of Health in Argentina Mentor: Justin Perez
Nurik Gimranov Deciphering the Acidic Patch Interactions of Human H2A.Z Variant Nucleosome Mentor: Aleksandra Skrajna
Kealani Holland SNIP-SNP Analysis of Recombination Patterns in C. elegans: The Role of PCH-2 and Sexual Dimorphism in Meiotic Recombination Mentor: Needhi Bhalla
Danielle Kelly Structural Mapping of an Immunodominant Antigenic Site on the Norovirus Capsid Mentor: Rebecca Dubois
Emma Krebs Reconstitution of H3.3 Heterotypic Variant Nucleosomes Mentor: Aleksandra Skrajna
Piramon Kumnurdmanee Searching for Type Ia Supernova Progenitors in the Virgo Cluster Using the Hubble Space Telescope Images Mentor: Ryan Foley
Jocelyn Lee Permeability of Lariat Scaffolds and their Compatibility with mRNA Display Mentor: Deena Brailovsky
Ryan Liu Associations between Micronutrient Status and Telomere Length in Children Mentor: Audrie Lin
Kobe Ly Characterization of p16 Mutants in Cancer Mentor: Carina Araceli Villegas
Samantha Ma Degradation of Dietary Plant Glycans by Macrophages Mentor: Michael Patnode
Luca Menotti Estimating the Hubble Constant with Virgo Cluster Type Ia Supernovae Mentor: Ryan Foley
Vanessa Pham Building the Capacity to Measure Mercury Stable Isotopes for Understanding Mercury Dynamics in Coastal Ecosystems Mentor: Peter Weiss
Alejandro Poot Characterization of IDO1-Expressing Goblet Cell Subpopulations Infected by Astrovirus Mentor: Valerie Cortez
Diego Rodriguez Crystallizing CDK2 bound to Small Molecule Inhibitors Mentor: Seth Rubin
Yeison Samayoa Hernandez KZNF 534s Role in Transposable Element Regulation in Naïve and Primed State Pluripotency Mentor: Sofie Salama
Klaus Stephenson Discovering Exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope Mentor: Andrew Skemer
Lukas Varga Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction of Vanadium-dependent Haloperoxidases Mentor: Shaun McKinnie
Eva Weller Potential Costs of Long Floral Longevity in Clarkia unguiculata in Drought Mentor: Cecilia Gervin
Social Sciences
Jonas Amaya Phenomenal Consciousness in Complex Adaptive Systems under Panpsychism and the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness Mentor: Philip Groth
Solenn Augustin Directed Forgetting: Impact of Encoding Instructions on Memory Performance Mentor: Melissa Chen
Emma Bavera Restoring Othello: An Exploration of Restoration Rewrites and Audience Perceptions Mentor: Sean Keilen
Jenna DiNapoli The Social Integration of Immigrant Female Chimpanzees Mentor: Vicky Oelze
Crystal Fan Exploring the Effectiveness of Consumer Neurotechnology in Academic Settings Mentor: Sri Kurniawan
Lili Grigoryan I Was One of You Before: A Case Study on UC Santa Cruz’s Everett Program and its Student-to-Staff Model Mentor: Chris Benner
Giannella Guerrero Cardenas From Childhood to Adulthood: The Enduring Effects of Parental Divorce Mentor: Rebecca London
Kira Klonel An Experimental Archaeological Approach to the Oldowan Technocomplex Mentor: Jay Reti
Scarlett Ortega Velez Exploring Sexual Reproduction Genes in Hydra Strains Mentor: Aide Macias‑Munoz
Evan Quintana Tracking the Presence & Effect of Disinformation in Taiwan’s 2024 Election Mentor: Ben Read
Adrian Southard Educating Evolution Mentor: Jay Reti
Naja Steward Special Economic Zones and Land Grabbing in Transitioning Governments: the Cases of Laos and Myanmar Mentor: Chris Benner
Audrey Yu Language Effects on Parent-child Conversations About Traits Mentor: David Menendez