Willie Joe Marquez

Current Bio: After graduation, Willie worked in customer support, marketing, operations and sales functions within various private-sector Ecommerce companies. While working, Willie completed part-time programs to earn his Masters in Public Administration at USC and a Masters in Business Administration at UCLA. He currently works as a Senior Account Manager at Zinus, a global Ecommerce Mattress Manufacturer. Haas Scolars Project: Adolescence is a pivotal period for developing friendships and identity. For chronically ill adolescents, however, this developmental period may be disrupted due to the lifestyle limitations associated with carefully managing […]

Nathaniel Klein

Nathaniel’s project will produce an experimental video and art show exploring the U.S./Mexico border as it is situated temporally, spatially and psychically. By living in Tijuana and crossing the border daily for six weeks; interviewing activists, architects and academics; and providing volunteer humanitarian aid to migrants, Nathaniel will investigate how the histories of the U.S./Mexico border are embodied by the people who pass through it, and by various sites along its path. Focusing his research on three primary border locations — the San Ysidro border checkpoint, the Friendship Park monument […]

Robert R. King

Many breakthroughs have been made regarding the mental and physical challenges war veterans face. However, veterans face many other challenges when it comes to reintegrating back into civilian society. Robert will explore one aspect that helps create the social context that veterans must navigate upon their return. There is considerable evidence that news coverage can shape public opinion regarding many issues, one of which is the perception of soldiers and war veterans. Through a detailed content analysis of front-page newspaper stories about the wars, Robert will explore empirical truth of […]

Michal Karmi

The rising economic and environmental cost of fossil fuels will greatly affect our reliance on them for global food transportation in the near future. Michal will design crop plans for plant-based food systems in Israel and Ireland — regions with radically different climates — to determine the feasibility of maintaining a locally grown, healthy plant-based diet. This summer, she will conduct research in Israel and Ireland, collecting technical evidence of soil and climate conditions to determine what can be grown in each area, gathering historical data on plant foods grown […]

Brittany Johnson

Current Bio: Brittany is now working with SURF, supporting undergraduate research. Haas Scholars Project: Brittany’s project will first explore the possibilities and limitations of fictional testimony to enact a process of trauma recovery. She will plumb the formal and imagerial depths of Charlotte Brontë’s novels Jane Eyre and Villette against a background of theoretical work engaged with trauma. She will narrow her critical eye upon the ways in which these two novels articulate their respective heroines psychological encounters with inaccessible stores of traumatic memory through narrative acts of viewing. Brittany […]

Geraldine Gomez

An estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate from the nations high schools each year, and only 5-10% of those continue on to a two/four-year college or university (Passel, 2003 & Passel and Cohn, 2009). Their obstacles, beyond lack of federal financial aid, contribute to psychological stress and limited opportunities in higher education. Geraldine will augment the scarce research on AB540 students agency and resiliency by interviewing undocumented Latina/o UC Berkeley students and alumni, undocumented youth who either work or dropped out of college, faculty, administrators, and members of student organizations. She […]

Marco A. Flores

Though growing rapidly, the literature on the displacement of immigrants within the U.S. rarely addresses queer undocumented immigrants. By engaging with theories of affect, Marco’s project will explore the experiences of displacement queer undocumented immigrants encounter in their search for home. Through qualitative interviews, Marco will bring together two seemingly unrelated identities — “queer” and “immigrant” — exploring the complications of experience and sentiment driven by the dwelling that takes place in search of home; an engagement of the body in relation to a fragmented self. Ultimately, by illuminating forms […]

James Gabriel Eckhouse

The entertainment business dominates many people’s lives. Theorists of different stripes have been eager to understand the role it plays in modern society. However, these inquiries rarely treat entertainment as an industry. No one has thoroughly pursued the question: what kind of value is produced by the entertainment industry? Emphasizing the creation of value this project views Hollywood’s film and television industry through the lens of a Marxian Political-Economist. James’s focus will be understanding how the people who produce entertainment might create a particular type of value that is different […]

Niku T’arhechu T’arhesi

The vintage anthropological enterprise typically derived from the researchers gaze on a non-Western society, in turn, producing the simultaneous exoticism and denigration of the so-called primitive. An anthropological production of knowledge relied on the holistic gathering of dataa process many times resulting in the researcher’s, the museum’s, or the universitys claim to ownership of material and immaterial cultural heritage. Contemporary anthropologists seek to exorcise the vintage specter by engaging in collaborative repatriation projects with indigenous communities. One such collaborative repatriation project developed when the Warao indigenous inhabitants of Mariusa, Venezuela […]

Katya Cherukumilli

Since the early 20th century, global surface temperatures have risen 1.4F, with the majority of the warming occurring in the past three decades due to anthropogenic activities. Significant changes in sea level, ecosystems, and ice cover are predicted to occur as a result of increasing temperatures. Katya aims to understand ecological responses to simulated and natural climate change in a subalpine meadow at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. She will maintain a database for the longest-running climate manipulation experiment in the world and gather additional information about the species abundance […]