Ashok Ajoy,
Chemistry
Microdroplet Quantum Sensing for Chemical Detection
Professor Ajoy’s research focuses on the development of quantum sensing through droplet microfluidics, creating effective chemical detection by utilizing nanodiamonds with nitrogen vacancy centers. This supports the detection of trace chemicals cost-effectively and accurately, with the potential to support environmental monitoring, diagnostics, and bioreactors. The Hellman award will go towards the continuation of testing and progressing the quantum sensing system, as well as the system’s physical assembly and computer-control integration.
William Burton,
French
The End of Sex: Science and the Social Contract in Monique Wittig and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Professor Burton's research traces the history of the idea of "the end of sex" in French philosophy and science. It shows how the 18th-century fear that sexual difference might disappear became second-wave feminists' dream of a postsexual utopia. This history provides context for today's debates about trans and non-binary identities. The Hellman award will support the final stages of Professor Burton’s work through archival research and finalizing the manuscript for publication.
Maria Laura Delle Monache,
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Learning Traffic Dynamics: a neural netword approach to coupled PDE-ODE Models
Professor Delle Monache’s research analyzes how emerging transportation technologies, such as automated vehicles, affect traffic behavior, and develops mathematical and control-theoretic methods that use these technologies to improve transportation systems. Through real world experiments and theoretical models, her research has shown that a small number of strategically controlled vehicles can influence overall traffic flow and mitigate congestion. The Hellman award will support efforts towards the integration of the theoretical models used to mathematically describe the interactions between automated vehicles and background traffic with learning methods opening the way for future advances in learning traffic dynamics.
Liz Gálvez,
Architecture
Collective Comfort: Updating Thermal Mass for a Warming Climate
Professor Gálvez’s research focuses on the interconnections of architecture, material, and environmental performance, specifically when it comes to developing passive cooling techniques for hot climates. This research aims to bridge the gap between architectural design and building science through climate-adaptive buildings that reduce the reliance on mechanical cooling systems. With the support of the Hellman award, the book “Building in the Sun” will have additional support in its completion and publishing, supporting her research efforts, and spreading awareness for resilient architectures in a warming climate.
Ricarda Hammer,
Sociology
Echoes of Empire
Professor Hammer’s research project explores how European states utilized colonial security methods in efforts to repress anti-colonial activists post-WWII. This research argues that this part of history makes the narrative of postwar European democratic renewal more difficult to understand, as the logistics of fascism and racial biases were integrated into postcolonial statecraft. The Hellman award will allow Professor Hammer to launch the project’s initial phases of mapping activist networks and identifying key figures and institutions involved in these movements in order to build long-term partnerships with archives to support broader investigations for further research efforts.
Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed,
Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures
Paths to Enlightenment: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and the Salvatory Knowledge of Islamic Philosophy
Professor Jacobsen Ben Hammed’s research focuses on the intellectual development of the eminent medieval Muslim theologian, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210). Her book project challenges the tired binary between reason and revelation, making the case instead for al-Rāzī’s integration of methodologies and concepts drawn from Greek and Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Hermeticism, and occult science even as he critiqued the legacy of classical philosophy. Ultimately, al-Rāzī draws from these various traditions to embrace knowledge as that which perfects the soul and brings about its felicity, in this world and the next. The Hellman award will support the finalization of her manuscript and access to important archival material in Tunisia.
Andrew Kim,
Anthropology
Biological memories of apartheid: Intergenerational effects of maternal prenatal stress on adult offspring glucocorticoid resistance and adult depression in Soweto, South Africa
Professor Kim’s research examines biological memories of apartheid in Soweto, South Africa, and investigates how trauma and systematic oppression cause elevated psychiatric morbidity that influences generations. He specifically focuses on determining the intergenerational effects of maternal prenatal stress on their adult offspring and examining biological outcomes such as depression and glucocorticoid resistance. His Hellman award will go toward completing biological assays and continued research in South Africa.
Danya Lagos,
Sociology
The Berkeley Supplement to the Chicago Face Database
Professor Lagos’ research focuses on the visual aspects of gender and racial discrimination, specifically, how these biases influence attitudes and perceptions towards transgender, non-binary, and non-conforming gender individuals. The goal of this project is to create a publicly available, gender-inclusive, visual dataset to better represent these groups that have been systematically excluded from traditional social science data collections. The Hellman award will provide better outreach for photo-elicitation participants and focus group participants and provide the proper materials necessary for producing high-resolution, standardized photographs.
Olivia Natan,
Business
Adoption of Indoor Air Cleaning Technology in Wildfire-Impacted Communities in The Western U.S.
Professor Natan’s research focuses on how households make decisions under limited information. This project seeks to document and address the barriers households face in using portable air cleans to help against indoor air pollution from, specifically, wildfires in Western United States. The goal of this research is to identify neighborhoods of high and low risk when utilizing portable air cleaners to conduct a deployment of air cleaners and sensors to gather data on air quality perceptions and health effects. Support from the Hellman Award will enable expanded deployment and monitoring efforts to better understand and improve air quality in vulnerable communities.
Angela (Angie) Perone,
Social Welfare
Reimagining Rights Mobilization: Using Artificial Intelligence to Help Older Adults Secure Healthcare in the United States
Professor Perone’s research focuses on developing theoretical and empirical research in equitable aging in three key areas: (1) long-term care and caregiving supports; (2) aging for sexual and gender minorities (SGM) / LGBTQIA+ aging; and (3) social and political drivers of health / health policy. It often incorporates an interdisciplinary methodological or theoretical approach to equitable aging from law, social work, sociology, gerontology, and health policy and is grounded in community engagement, which foregrounds community expertise and collaboration.. The Hellman award will support research efforts for data collection and analysis, and traveling to work within various communities, all of which are essential for her research.
Cailin Slattery,
Business
Tax Discrimination: Competition in the Market for Firms
Professor Slattery’s research focuses on place-based policy, in the form of tax breaks and subsidies for individual firms. This project studies the regulation of these tax breaks, and its effect on the distribution of economic activity. Specifically, the project aims to provide a comparison between the regulated European Union environment and the laissez-faire system in the United States. The Hellman award will allow for continued research to support the development of an empirical model and evaluation of counterfactual policy regimes.
Ziyang Zhang,
Chemistry
New chemical approaches to autoimmune diseases
Professor Zhang is developing new chemical approaches to treat autoimmune diseases, specifically by directly targeting the primary cause of T cell activation. The primary goal is to discover small-molecule antagonists to suppress autoimmunity by disrupting the presentation of self-antigens, specifically in ankylosing spondylitis (AS). The Hellman award will help support research to perform the chemical synthesis and T cell activation assays.
Ana Paula Arruda,
Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology
Targeting endoplasmic reticulum function to treat liver fibrosis
Professor Arruda’s research emphasizes the findings of a new treatment for liver fibrosis, a condition characterized by the excessive buildup of scar tissue in the liver. This research builds on the discovery of an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) transmembrane protein that plays a crucial role in the regulation of protein translation and secretion in liver cells. Her Hellman award will go towards investigating the role of this protein in hepatic stellate cells secretory capacity and evaluating whether targeting this system could offer a more effective approach to reducing the risks and progression of liver fibrosis.
Iain Clark,
Bioengineering
The Genetic Drivers of Mixed Phenotype Acute Leukemia Response to Therapy
Professor Clark’s research focuses on improving the survival rate for mixed phenotype acute leukemia (MPAL), a rare and understudied cancer in children. By utilizing a new multi-omics sequencing platform to gain a deeper understanding of the genetic background of these leukemias, researchers can better link specific gene mutations to their effects on cancer cells, ultimately leading to the development of more tailored and effective treatments. The Hellman award will facilitate the application of this newly developed technology and help define new ways to classify MPAL.
Meng-meng Fu,
Molecular and Cell Biology
Deciphering Cellular and Biochemical Mechanisms of Vascular Dementia
Professor Fu’s research focuses on the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and its role in cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), a major cause of dementia and stroke. A genetic cause for CSVD is mutations in the protease HTRA1, which is a protein that cuts other proteins. HTRA1 is a protease secreted by astrocytes, a type of glial cell in the brain that the Fu Lab studies. The Hellman award will help fund studies at the biochemical, cellular, and organismal level on why HTRA1 function is critical for maintaining BBB integrity.
Jenny Guadamuz,
Public Health
Medicaid Expansion for Undocumented Immigrant Adults in California: Barriers to Medicaid Enrollment and Inequities in Healthcare Use
Professor Guadamuz uses an interdisciplinary approach to identify how structural determinants impact the use of health care, especially medications among minoritized racial/ethnic populations. Her current research focuses on health inequities across immigration status in the Latinx population. Immigration status is a critical yet overlooked factor influencing inequities because noncitizens endure significant barriers to legal and social protections, including systemic exclusions from health care. With support from the Hellman Award, Dr. Guadamuz will evaluate Medi-Cal enrollment patterns and examine the structural barriers impeding access for noncitizens temporarily eligible for state-funded health coverage.
David Hausman,
Law
Deportation Data Project: Analyzing Emerging Trends in Immigration Enforcement
Professor Hausman’s project aims to provide a current quantitative analysis of government immigration enforcement data. This project draws on the first centralized repository of specialized U.S. government immigration enforcement data and is expected to yield a publication of the effects of being released from an immigrant detention center and the chance of deportation, as well as a publication focusing on the first year of immigrant enforcement shifts under the new administration. The Hellman award will allow for continued analysis of emerging trends in enforcement and longer-term research.
Keanan Joyner,
Psychology
Reward Processing and Addiction: The Importance of Including Black Individuals
Professor Joyner’s research focuses on developing new equitable clinical neuroscience methods to better understand the psychobiological mechanisms of addiction and mental health, specifically, addressing the systematic exclusion of Black individuals within this area of investigation. This work focuses on utilizing electroencephalography to measure reward processing as a risk factor for addiction to cannabis and alcohol. The Hellman award will be used to support continued research and participant incentives and recruitment for the study.
Akash Kumar,
Italian Studies
Boundary Conditions
Professor Kumar is a scholar of medieval Italian literature, with particular focus on the history of science and philosophy, Mediterranean studies, and digital humanities. His first book, Love's Knowledge: Science and Lyric from Giacomo da Lentini to Dante (forthcoming, University of Toronto Press), explores the confluence of scientific thought and the early lyric tradition that creates a vernacular intellectual identity vital to the writing of Dante’s Commedia. The Hellman award will help to support research for his second book which takes up the game of chess and considers its representations across medieval and Renaissance Italy through a variety of objects, analyzing the global history of the game as it moves from India to Persia to the Islamic world and into western European circulation.
Chen Lian,
Economics
Macroeconomic Implications of Sophisticated Borrowing Constraints
Professor Lian’s research specializes in the macroeconomic implications of firms’ borrowing constraints.This study examines “sophisticated” borrowing constraints used in the debt contracts of U.S. nonfinancial firms. Unlike classic macro-finance models with rigid credit limits, these contracts use covenants that tie borrowing capacity to a firm’s operating earnings. When a firm violates a covenant, creditors gain control rights and can reduce agency problems—raising earnings even as borrowing and investment fall. The Hellman funds will support building a quantitative model incorporating these features. At the macro level, the model generates weaker financial amplification, helping explain why U.S. nonfinancial firms tend to be relatively resilient during recessions.
James Nuñez,
Molecular and Cell Biology
Defining the mutational landscape of MeCP2 using CRISPR
Professor James Nuñez specializes in CRISPR technologies, quantitative cellular analysis of epigenetic pathways, and genomics. His lab has worked on a unique investigation using MeCP2-dCas9 or CRISPRtune to better understand the function of the MeCP2 protein and the mutations that cause Rett syndrome. The Hellman award will be used in the pioneering analysis of MeCP2 that will gather a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms within Rett syndrome, as well as the connections to the MeCP2 mutations.
Alp Sipahigil,
Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EE)
Surface piezoelectric decoherence in superconducting qubits
Professor Sipahigil, an Assistant Professor in EECS and Physics, is focusing on quantum decoherence in superconducting quantum computers, specifically focusing on piezoelectric transduction, a phenomenon in which there is unwanted coupling to solid vibrations. This occurs at the interfaces of non-piezoelectric materials like silicon. He aims to influence this effect by fabricating transmon qubits with unique capacitors. The Hellman award will support additional research and publication as well as the nanofabrication of the devices at the NanoLab.
Guanyu Su,
Nuclear Engineering
Multi-dimensional Thermal Characterization for Advanced Nuclear Materials
Professor Su’s research is focused on developing advanced diagnostics to enable innovative design of fission and fusion energy systems. His project is working to create an e-LIT system (enhanced Lock-In IR Thermography) to help address the measurement challenges of anisotropic thermal properties that emerge in the exploration and characterization of new materials. The Hellman award will support the establishment of the foundational infrastructure necessary to continue this research project and the development of the e-LIT system.
Weiqiang Zhu,
Earth & Planetary Science
Unveiling Hidden Earthquakes in California: Deep Learning for Enhanced Seismic Monitoring
Professor Zhu’s research focuses on the use of deep learning algorithms to help address the prolonged concern of incomplete earthquake catalogs in California. Dr. Zhu’s goal is to analyze California’s complete seismic archive and to reveal hidden, smaller earthquakes that provide important information about fault structures and triggering mechanisms. The Hellman proposal seeks to scale this innovative approach to analyze California's complete seismic archive, an unprecedented effort that would fundamentally transform our understanding of earthquake processes in one of the world's most extensively monitored seismic regions.