Koret Scholarship
The Koret Research Scholarship is a $2,000 award, disbursed through the Financial Aid Scholarship Office, funded by a generous grant from the Koret Foundation. Each year up to 50 students doing a variety of research projects and experiences are awarded.
UC Santa Cruz is committed to undergraduate education and student success. Undergraduate participation in research plays a significant role in academic achievement and retention. The Koret Scholarship is just one example of the outstanding research opportunities available to UCSC students.
2026 Koret Application Now Open
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
Mentor: Grant McGuire
Project: Nonnative Perception of Italian Consonant Length Contrast - Elliot-Elyjah Mcwhinnie
Mentor: Jaye Padgett
Project: The California Vowel Shift and African American Women’s Language - Jacqueline Nowak
Mentor: Amanda Reiterman
Project: On the Frontier: Archaeological Evidence of Cross Cultural Interactions in Roman Scotland - Saúl Ordaz
Mentor: Julie Bettie
Project: Navegando la Jotería: Unpacking the Influence of Family and Community on the Identity and Self-Expression of Queer Male-Presenting Latinés - Carmen Tallbear-Edmunds
Mentor: Jennifer E Reardon
Project: Tribal Sovereignty and the Land: a Focused Exploration of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation
Physical and Biological Science
- Bailey Borbas
Mentor: Megan Molinari
Project: Ocellated Wrasse Isotocin Manipulation - Sumukh Cadpakar
Mentor: Audrie Lin
Project: Global Health investigation of Micronutrient Status and Telomere Health in Children from Rural Bangladesh - Kelly Camacho
Mentor: Justin Perez
Project: Experiences of Health in Argentina - Nurik Gimranov
Mentor: Aleksandra Skrajna
Project: Deciphering the Acidic Patch Interactions of Human H2A.Z
Variant Nucleosome - Kealani Holland
Mentor: Needhi Bhalla
Project: SNIP-SNP Analysis of Recombination Patterns in C. elegans: The Role of PCH-2 and Sexual Dimorphism in Meiotic Recombination - Danielle Kelly
Mentor: Rebecca Dubois
Project: Structural Mapping of an Immunodominant Antigenic Site on the Norovirus Capsid - Emma Krebs
Mentor: Aleksandra Skrajna
Project: Reconstitution of H3.3 Heterotypic Variant Nucleosomes - Piramon Kumnurdmanee
Mentor: Ryan Foley
Project: Searching for Type Ia Supernova Progenitors in the Virgo Cluster Using the Hubble Space Telescope Images - Jocelyn Lee
Mentor: Deena Brailovsky
Project: Permeability of Lariat Scaffolds and their Compatibility with mRNA Display - Ryan Liu
Mentor: Audrie Lin
Project: Associations between Micronutrient Status and Telomere Length in Children - Kobe Ly
Mentor: Carina Araceli Villegas
Project: Characterization of p16 Mutants in Cancer - Samantha Ma
Mentor: Michael Patnode
Project: Degradation of Dietary Plant Glycans by Macrophages - Luca Menotti
Mentor: Ryan Foley
Project: Estimating the Hubble Constant with Virgo Cluster Type Ia Supernovae - Vanessa Pham
Mentor: Peter Weiss
Project: Building the Capacity to Measure Mercury Stable Isotopes for Understanding Mercury Dynamics in Coastal Ecosystems - Alejandro Poot
Mentor: Valerie Cortez
Project: Characterization of IDO1-Expressing Goblet Cell Subpopulations Infected by Astrovirus - Diego Rodriguez
Mentor: Seth Rubin
Project: Crystallizing CDK2 bound to Small Molecule Inhibitors - Yeison Samayoa Hernandez
Mentor: Sofie Salama
Project: KZNF 534s Role in Transposable Element Regulation in Naïve and
Primed State Pluripotency - Klaus Stephenson
Mentor: Andrew Skemer
Project: Discovering Exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope - Lukas Varga
Mentor: Shaun McKinnie
Project: Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction of Vanadium-dependent Haloperoxidases - Eva Weller
Mentor: Cecilia Gervin
Project: Potential Costs of Long Floral Longevity in Clarkia unguiculata in Drought
Social Sciences
- Jonas Amaya
Mentor: Philip Groth
Project: Phenomenal Consciousness in Complex Adaptive Systems under Panpsychism
and the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness - Solenn Augustin
Mentor: Melissa Chen
Project: Directed Forgetting: Impact of Encoding Instructions on Memory
Performance - Emma Bavera
Mentor: Sean Keilen
Project: Restoring Othello: An Exploration of Restoration Rewrites and
Audience Perceptions - Jenna DiNapoli
Mentor: Vicky Oelze
Project: The Social Integration of Immigrant Female Chimpanzees - Crystal Fan
Mentor: Sri Kurniawan
Project: Exploring the Effectiveness of Consumer Neurotechnology in Academic Settings - Lili Grigoryan
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 - Giannella Guerrero Cardenas
Mentor: Rebecca London
Project: From Childhood to Adulthood: The Enduring Effects of Parental Divorce - Kira Klonel
Mentor: Jay Reti
Project: An Experimental Archaeological Approach to the Oldowan Technocomplex - Scarlett Ortega Velez
Mentor: Aide Macias‑Munoz
Project: Exploring Sexual Reproduction Genes in Hydra Strains - Evan Quintana
Mentor: Ben Read
Project: Tracking the Presence & Effect of Disinformation in Taiwan’s 2024 Election: Using Sentiment and Network Analyses to Observe the Spread of False Narratives - Adrian Southard
Mentor: Jay Reti
Project: Educating Evolution - Naja Steward
Mentor: Chris Benner
Project: Special Economic Zones and Land Grabbing in Transitioning Governments: the Cases of Laos and Myanmar - Audrey Yu
Mentor: David Menendez
Project: Language Effects on Parent-child Conversations About Traits