Adrian Caceres

As a SURF fellow, my research explores the impact of societal and academic stigmas faced by formerly incarcerated or system-impacted (FI/SI) students who have participated in the Berkeley Underground Scholars Pipeline (BUSP) in contrast to those (FI/SI) students who made it to Berkeley on their own. Specifically, I examine whether participation in BUSP programs, such as cross-enrollment and others, helped these individuals feel less stigmatized compared to their peers who navigated their way to Berkeley without BUS support. This study aims to highlight the importance of structured support programs in […]

Lark Chang-Yeh

This research project will study the formation of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) ballroom communities and drag troupes in the San Francisco Bay Area and how these groups navigate issues of race, class, and cultural appropriation within a predominantly Black cultural framework and history. Ballroom is a historically LGBTQ Black and Latine cultural practice in which individuals compete in events known as “balls” in various realness categories. These performances are a site of self-actualization, liberation, and reclamation of gender from hegemonic culture. My primary research question is: How have AAPI […]

Keon Abedi

This project will investigate how the frequency of a mutation changes over time when in the presence of correlated environmental noise. This is an open question in the biophysics of evolutionary dynamics, which seeks a quantitative framework for Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The core idea of evolution is that a mutation’s frequency tends to increase over generations when it offers an advantage to its hosts. For example, in an environment with antibiotics, mutations conferring antibiotic resistance are strongly favored and can quickly become prevalent across a bacterial population; we […]

Ekansh Agrawal

X-linked Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (X-SCID) is a genetic disease that predominantly affects XY individuals. It is caused by mutations affecting the IL2RG gene on the X-chromosome and occurs in roughly 1/50,000 to 1/100,000 births. The genetic disease itself affects the expression of the common gamma chain found in a variety of immune cell receptors such as Interleukin-2 Receptor (IL-2) and interleukin-7 Receptor (IL-7). This can result in low numbers of T-cells, Natural Killer Cells, and low B-cells causing patients to be increasingly susceptible to diseases. Without treatment, undiagnosed children typically […]

Alejandra S. Aguilar Arce

The Spanish speaking population has been growing rapidly in the U.S in the past decades, particularly the Mexican dialect. For this reason, understanding the dynamics of dialect contact and bidialectalism between Spanish dialects is important. I aim to conduct research to investigate the extent of influence that the Mexican dialect of Spanish has had on other Spanish speakers and their native dialects within the California Bay Area. Despite extensive research on dialect contact in cities like New York City and Los Angeles, there has not been enough conducted in the […]

Ayah Aldajani

Children are notorious for being the sneakiest eavesdroppers, much to caregivers’ dismay. But could this mischief, actually be beneficial for their language development? According to research, overheard speech plays a significant role in children’s learning of words and facts, yet there is a gap in the literature when it comes to understanding which attentional cues indicate learning from overhearing. This raises the question: When children are surrounded by speech that is not directed to them, how do they decide what to attend to, and how can this support their learning […]