Fraser Byers
Fraser Byers (’25, Geography) was born in North Carolina and grew up in Western Canada. He is part of UC Berkeley’s dual degree program with Sciences Po in Paris, where he completed a degree in Politics and Government specializing in the Middle East. Fraser’s studies at Berkeley have been concerned with Earth Systems Science, particularly focusing on water. In addition, he is an undergraduate researcher at the Human Rights Center and a reporting intern for Circle of Blue. This Critical Language Scholarship will support studying Hindi in Jaipur, India in […]
Tiffany Mar
Tiffany Mar (’25, Society and Environment/Data Science) is actively involved in the eco-community through her role in Berkeley’s campus fund for sustainability initiatives, and as a Chair in the Zero Waste Coalition. She is excited to lead a grant-funded project on sustainable menstrual products as well as develop her senior honors thesis in the fall. In the future, she hopes to pursue a PhD and eventually develop technologies that can protect both people and the environment. In her free time, Tiffany enjoys creative writing, reading sci-fi, and weight-lifting. Read full […]
Genie Sullivan
Genie Sullivan (’25, Sociology) is interested in studying how the class structure influences the reorganization of economic, cultural, and political institutions based on implementing new digital technologies. They plan to pursue a PhD in Sociology to teach at a public university or community college. Outside of research, Genie is very active in the Poor People’s Campaign and the Wood Street Commons, which seek to end poverty and homelessness by organizing the most impacted people. They will use the Donald A. Strauss Foundation Scholarship to collaboratively work with other organizers to […]
Eli Glickman
Eli Glickman (’25, Political Science and Public Policy) is interested in the intersection between national security and emerging technologies. Eager to expand opportunities for students to engage with national security and foreign policy issues, Eli co-founded and leads the Alexander Hamilton Society at Berkeley and established the General James Doolittle Strategic Studies Fellowship to create a forum for the ROTC and civilian communities to study strategy jointly on campus. He was a 2023 Hertog War Studies Scholar at the Institute for the Study of War, an intern for U.S. Senator […]
Cooper Jacobus
Cooper Jacobus (’25, Astrophysics and Logic) is passionate about Computational Physics and fascinated with Cosmology and Machine Intelligence. He currently works toward solving problems in Cosmology using Machine Learning methods at UC Berkeley’s Department of Astronomy and Berkeley Lab’s Computational Cosmology Center. His research uses supercomputers to simulate the birth and history of the Cosmos to learn about the nature of gravity and dark matter. He hopes his work will inspire a new generation of scientists and shed light on the grandest mysteries of the universe. Outside of research, Cooper greatly enjoys […]
Alana Yang
Alana Yang (’25, MCB and Data Science) is interested in translational immunology and computational biology. She is an undergraduate researcher in the Doudna Lab, where her research involves developing an assay to streamline diagnosis for novel mutations causing ART-SCID. She is also using computational tools to analyze T cell diversity as an early predictor of whether patients with SCID need a second bone marrow transplant. After graduation, Alana plans on pursuing a PhD in molecular biology.
Ava Ratcliff
Ava Ratcliff (’26, Greek & Latin/Comparative Literature) looks forward to deepening her understanding of Russian this summer in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Ava began studying Russian, alongside Ancient Greek and Latin, as a freshman at Berkeley. She plans to use the skills she develops this summer to read nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian literature in its original language. Ava is driven by a passion for reading and sharing literature with others and is currently the librarian for Bowles Hall Residential College. Before Berkeley, she served with AmeriCorps City Year as a fifth-grade teaching […]
David Villani
David Villani (‘24, History /Arabic) will continue his Arabic education this summer in Amman, Jordan. He began his Arabic studies in Morocco two years ago, and has since received the Foreign Language Area Scholarship to study in Oman, where he was a recipient of the 2023 Summer Arabic Language and Media (SALAM) scholarship. He is interested in the French presence in West Africa, with a particular focus on the personal relationships created through the practice of empire. For the past year, he’s been studying the ties between French communism and […]
Sara Ahlich
Sara Ahlich (’24, Conservation and Resource Studies) was born and raised in the Bay Area, where she attended Diablo Valley College before transferring to UC Berkeley. Her studies have been focused on natural history and ecosystem management, and she hopes to use her Portuguese and Russian abilities to work in international conservation efforts. In addition to a SPUR position at Berkeley, she works for the East Bay Regional Park District and interns for the EPA. She has previously studied Russian with CLS during the inaugural year of CLS Spark and […]
Valerian Weinzweig
Valerian Weinzweig (’25, Conservation Resource Studies) is concentrating on Agroecology with a minor in Mathematics. She dreams of being able to collaborate with scientists and practitioners across a wide range of cultures, places, and languages in order to tackle tomorrow’s agricultural challenges as a team. Valerian has previously studied Spanish and Russian, and is now overjoyed to participate in the CLS Urdu program. In particular, he looks forward to understanding the literary traditions of the Urdu language, and finally being able to belt their favorite Atif Aslam songs.