
Program Description
Established at UCSC in 2011, the purpose of the Hellman Fellows Program is to substantially support the research of promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction in their research. The Hellman Fellows Program has been established at thirteen institutions, nine of which are campuses in the UC system.
The Hellman family has observed that junior faculty are often well-funded when first hired, but challenges arise in 2-3 years when start-up funding is exhausted and before first grants are obtained. This program is designed to assist promising young faculty at this point in their careers.
Eligibility
The awards are open to support assistant professors in all fields of study at UC Santa Cruz who have shown promise of distinction. Applicants must have served at least six but no more than eleven quarters at the assistant professor rank as of the start of the fellowship award period. The fellowship award period begins on July 1 of the year in which the fellowship is awarded.
Faculty who plan to come up for tenure in 2026-27 are not eligible to apply for the award. If you are not sure whether or not you will be coming up for tenure early in 2026-27, please discuss with your department chair prior to applying. Faculty awarded the Hellman fellowship who apply for tenure during the year they hold the award are expected to relinquish the award and return all funds. Please direct questions about service credit and eligibility to the Academic Personnel Office at apo@ucsc.edu.
Awards
Funding will be split roughly equally between assistant professors in the physical and life sciences and engineering, and assistant professors in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The maximum award is $50,000, although most awards are expected to be in the $10,000 to $25,000 range. Proposals should be submitted by individual faculty members.
Awards may be used for any research-related expense, such as research assistants, equipment, materials, conferences, or travel. The award may also be used to pay for up to one summer month of the Fellow’s salary and benefits. The standard award period is one year (July 1-June 30) although extensions are sometimes granted with justification as long as the candidate does not plan to initiate a tenure review during the period of the extension.
Application Process
Format
Applications should be brief, no more than 3 pages (including budget information and any references), and written with the understanding that they will be reviewed by a panel of faculty from a variety of departments across campus that will most likely not include specialists in the field of study. Applications should therefore include a description which is accessible to someone who is not an expert in the given field that also provides some details of the proposed work. Applications must include a brief budget and justification. Some best estimates of costs such as travel and lodging are acceptable, but they should be based as nearly as possible on current rates. You can work with your department to identify costs for research assistants and/or summer salary. The maximum award is $50,000, although most awards are expected to be in the $10,000 to $25,000 range. Applications should indicate all other sources of support being received. Faculty with significant multi-year early career awards (e.g. NSF Early Career award) are not eligible for this program. The fellowship award period begins on July 1 of the year in which the fellowship is awarded. Formatting note: please use a font no smaller than 11pt and reasonable margins.
Criteria
The quality of the research proposed is the most important criterion for selection. Awards are made without regard to the apparent timeliness or popularity of the field of study. Preference may be given to research not supported by major outside grants (e.g. NSF Career Award). A faculty member may only receive one award from this program.
Awards may be used for any research related-expenses. They can be used for no more than one month of summer salary, and not for any other form of faculty salary. Awards may be used for salaries for students or research assistants, or for equipment or travel.
There is no overhead charged to this award. Awards are for one year with expenditures expected during that period, although a one-year extension can be applied for. Award recipients are required to spend all funds by June 30th before submission of their tenure case to their department.
Recipients agree to attend a luncheon meeting (which may be scheduled every other year) and share their work with the Hellman Family Fund trustees.
Deadline
Please submit your application via email to vpaa@ucsc.edu. Applications for 2025 are due by 5:00 pm on Friday, February 28.
Questions?
For questions about the program or the application process, contact vpaa@ucsc.edu.
2025 Award Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Sophia Azeb | Critical Race and Ethnic Studies | Another Country: Translational Blackness and the Afro-Arab. |
Carla Hernández Garavito | Anthropology | Pots and People: A Collaborative Ethnography of Ceramic Production in Huarochirí (Peru) |
Tae Myung Huh | Electrical and Computer Engineering | A No-Damage, Highly Adaptable Gripper for Robotic Harvesting |
Audrie Lin | Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology | Effects of menstrual hygiene and stigma reduction interventions on adolescent health |
Jennifer Mogannam | Critical Race and Ethnic Studies | Of Unfinished Revolution: Resistance and Coalition as Palestinian-Lebanese Liberation Praxis |
Danny Rahal | Psychology | Daily Stress Responses and Cannabis Use among Young Adult College Students |
Martin Rizzo-Martinez | Film and Digital Media | Wounded Lee: The Red Power Movement in 1970s California in the Wake of Alcatraz |
Edgar Shaghoulian | Physics | Event horizons and quantum gravity |
Kira Tait | Politics | Shifting Perceptions of Migrants’ Rights in South Africa |
Hao Ye | Electrical and Computer Engineering | Physics-Informed Generative Models for XL-MIMO Communication |
Andy Yeh | Biomolecular Engineering | Price Incentives for Resource Conservation: Experimental Evidence from Groundwater Irrigation |
Past Award Recipients
2024 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Josefina Bittar | Languages and Applied Linguistics | Language Use and Change among Paraguayan Immigrants in Spain |
Vaggos Chatziafratis | Computer Sciences and Engineering | Theoretical Foundations of Contrastive Machine Learning |
Bradley Colquitt | Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology | Theme and Variations: The Development and Evolution of Birdsong at the Molecular Level |
Mia Gong | Linguistics | Documenting Linguistic Diversity: Anaphoric Variations in Transeurasian Languages |
Hannah Hausman | Psychology | Improving Problem-solving, Metacognition, and Mindsets Through Self-explanation |
Vanessa Jonsson | Applied Mathematics | AI driven T cell immunotherapy target discovery |
Rene Espinoza Kissell | Education | School Debt Under Fiscal Surveillance |
Carlos Martinez | Latin American & Latino Studies | Examining Asylum Deterrence Policies & Migrant Captivity on the U.S.-Mexico Border |
Matthew Schumaker | Music | Traditional Instruments and New Music Technology at the Korean Experimental Music Festival |
Xiao Wang | Chemistry & Biochemistry | Exploring Exciton-polaritons in Two-dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides using Wavefunction-based Ab Initio Methods |
Arial Zucker | Economics | Price Incentives for Resource Conservation: Experimental Evidence from Groundwater Irrigation |
2023 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Kate Ringland | Computational Media | Computationally Supported Care in Marginalized Online Communities |
Yuyin Zhou | Computer Science & Engineering | Distributed Machine Learning with Imperfect Supervision and an Application to Large-Scale Medical Imaging |
Valerie Cortez | Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology | Probing host-virus interactions at the gut mucosal barrier |
Megan Boudewyn | Psychology | Neural Stimulation and Attentional Control |
Kathleen Gutierrez | History | Two Projects: 1) Sovereign Vernaculars in the Philippines at the Dawn of New Imperial Botany 2) Sowing Seeds: Filipino American Stories from the Pajaro Valley. |
Josephine Pham | Education | The Intellectual Work of K-12 Ethnic Studies Pedagogies in Local Public Schools |
Alicia Riley | Sociology | Consequences of the Mexican Repatriation Program for Child Mortality in the U.S. |
Pamela Rodriguez-Montero | Performance, Play & Design | Los Diablitos: The Devil’s Imaginary in Traditional Latin American Festivities |
2022 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Yasmeen Daifallah | Politics | Thinking Past Islam and the West: Theorizing Politics in Contemporary Arab Thought |
Roberto de Roock | Education | Educational Enclosures and the Digital Divide |
Caitlin “Katie” Keliiaa | Feminist Studies | Three related projects: 1) the completion of my book manuscript, Unsettling Domesticity, 2) the groundwork for my second book, Detours: A Decolonial Guide to the Bay Area, and 3) a gathering of California Indian scholars where I may present my work. |
Zehang “Richard” Li | Statistics | Can CRISPR Bring Diversity Back Into Food? |
Maywa Montenegro | Environmental Studies | Towards Adaptive Verbal Autopsy Survey Design |
Shaheen Sikandar | Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology | Elucidating long-term pregnancy induced changes that confer protection against breast cancer. |
Aiming Yan | Physics | Understanding and tailoring magnetism in atomically thin two dimensional materials |
2021 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Gueyon Kim | Economics | Black-White Differences in Intergenerational Occupational Mobility |
Samuel Severance | Education | Creating Sustainable Buzz for Science Learning: Piloting an Elementary Project-Based Ecology Unit Supporting Native Bee Populations |
Justin Perez | Latin American & Latino Studies | LGBT Health Across the Americas Initiative |
Filippo Gianferrari | Literature | Training the Reader: Dante and the Rise of Vernacular Literacy |
Jacqueline Kimmey | Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology | Circadian response to Streptococcus pnuemoniae infection |
Euiseok Kim | Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology | Molecular Identities and Connectivity of Feedback and Feedforward Circuits in the Mammalian Cortex |
Jason Samaha | Psychology | Neural Correlates of the Subjective Experience of Time |
Jaimie Morse | Sociology | Bodies of Evidence: Legibility, Medical Uncertainty, and the Knowledge Problem of ‘Rape Kits’ |
Juan Pedroza | Sociology | Safety Net Access for Immigrant Families |
Robbie Kubala | Philosophy | Social Aesthetics |
2020 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
A.M. Darke | Art | Open Source Afro Hair Library |
Michael Wehner | Electrical and Computer Engineering | Low cost automation for Endotracheal Intubation |
Jennifer Kelly | Feminist Studies | Three pre-tenure projects |
Tim Johnstone | Chemistry & Biochemistry | Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry to Treat Carbon Monoxide Poisoning and Neglected Tropical Disease |
Margaret Zimmer | Earth and Planetary Sciences | Quantification of groundwater recharge in non-perennial rivers |
Saskias Casanova | Psychology | Youth Participatory Action Research, Cultural Knowledge & Resilience for (Im)migrant High School Students |
Camilla Hawthorne | Sociology | A Black Santa Cruz Sense of Place |
Katy Seto | Environmental Studies | Turning the Tide: Shifting Access, Equity, and Vulnerability in Coastal California |
2019 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Karolina Karlic | Art | Rubberlands: a transmedia art work which visualizes the ways rubber manufacturing is socially, ecologically, and systemically formed. |
Yu Zhang | Electrical & Computer Engineering | Modernizing Power System Planning and Operation to Improve Grid Resilience Against Hazardous Events |
Amanda Smith | Literature | Mapping the Amazon: Literary Geographies after the Rubber Boom |
Susan Carpenter | Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology | Carpenter Lab Research Proposal |
Sergey Syzranov | Physics | Conductors insensitive to disorder: insights from high dimensions |
Nidhi Mahajan | Anthropology | Contesting Visions of City and Nation: Land, and Sovereignty in Coastal Kenya |
Savannah Shange | Anthropology | Milked: Poverty, Race and the Politics of Breastfeeding |
Jerry Zee | Anthropology | Algorithmic Necrosis: Machine Learning and Suicide Watch in China and Silicon Valley |
Sara Niedzwiecki | Politics | Immigrants’ Access to Social Protection in Latin America |
Adriana Manago | Psychology | Social Media, Gender, and Sexual Identity Development in Adolescence |
2018 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Anna Friz | Film & Digital Media | We Build Ruins |
Cynthia Ling Lee | Theater Arts | Lost Chinatowns: a multimedia dance-theater work exploring Santa Cruz’s historical Chinatowns |
Angela Brooks | Biomolecular Engineering | Novel therapeutic targets in lung cancer from genes with altered mRNA splicing |
Benjamin Breen | History | Indra’s Net: Technology and Magic in the Eartly Modern World, 1600-1820 |
Muriam Davis | History | Planning for Eurafrica: Development and Race in Algeria, 1958-1965 |
Yuan Ping | Chemistry & Biochemistry | Theory Design of Charged Defects for Two-dimensional Quantum Technologies |
Xi Zhang | Earth & Planetary Sciences | Deep Atmosphere of Jupiter: Insights from the Juno Spacecraft |
François Monard | Mathematics | Inverse problems, integral geometry and uncertainty quantification |
Michael Hance | Physics & the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics | Searching for New Particles and Symmetries at the Large Hadron Collider |
Vicky Oelze | Anthropology | Chimpanzee intoxication and the evolution of termite associated tool use New Particles and Symmetries at the Large Hadron Collider |
David Gordon | Politics | Accountability and Global Urban Climate Governance |
2017 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Amy Mihyang Ginther | Theater Arts | No Danger of Winning |
Dongwook Lee | Applied Mathematics & Statistics | New High-Order Schemes for Computational Fluid Dynamics using Gaussian Processes |
Christopher Vollmers | Biomolecular Engineering | Determining the Diversity of Individual Human B cells using Nanopore Sequencing |
Alma Heckman | History & Jewish Studies | Radical Roads Not Taken: Moroccan Jewish Trajectories, 1925-1975 |
Renee Fox | Literature | (Untitled); Necromantic Victorians: Reanimation and the Historical Imagination in British and Irish Literature |
Terrence Blackburn | Earth & Planetary Sciences | U-series comminution dating of fine-particle production in glaciers, rivers, faults and extraterrestrial surfaces |
James Ackman | Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology | Functional dynamics of cerebral lateralization in the developing brain |
Tsim Schneider | Anthropology | Comparative Archaeologies of Native-Lived Colonialism in CaliforniaAcknowledging the cultural strengths of first-generation students: Longitudinal explorations of familial interdependence and hard independence |
Rebecca Covarrubias | Psychology | Acknowledging the cultural strengths of first-generation students: Longitudinal explorations of familial interdependence and hard independence |
2016 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Jennifer Taylor | Film & Digital Media | Redneck Muslim |
Rajarshi Guhaniyogi | Applied Mathematics & Statistics | Hierarchical Bayesian Statistical Modeling of Massive Scale Spatially Referenced Databases |
Ju Hee Lee | Applied Mathematics & Statistics | Novel Nonparametric Bayesian Inference for Metagenomics with Two Applications |
Nick Mitchell | Feminist Studies | Documenting Labor in California Black Studies |
Mark Amengual | Language & Applied Linguistics | Living in two languages: What constitutes “Good Pronunciation” in bilingual speech? |
Samantha Matherne | Philosophy | Idealism in Exile: Cassirer and the Warburg Institute |
Alexander Ayzner | Chemistry & Biochemistry | Semiconducting Polyelectrolytes as Building Blocks for a Soft Artificial Photosystem |
Jevgenij Raskatov | Chemistry & Biochemistry | Cell Culture Studies of a Novel Chiral Variant of Alzheimer’s Amyloid Beta 1-42 Peptide |
Marilou Sison-Mangus | Ocean Sciences | Investigating the chemical cross-talk between the toxin-producing diatom and its associated bacteria |
2015 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Gerald Casel | Theater Arts | Splinters In Our Ankles – Collective Cultural Amnesia and Performed Resistance in the Tinikling, The Philippine National Dance |
Rebecca DuBois | Biomolecular Engineering | Understanding how astrovirus enters human cells |
Jennifer Derr | History | The Making of an Epidemic: Hepatitis C in Egypt |
Juned Shaikh | History | Spatializing Caste and Class |
Maziar Toosarvandani | Linguistics | How do languages vary? Aspect and its interpretation in discourse |
Eric Palkovacs | Ecology & Evolutionary Biology | An experimental test for eco-evolutionary feedbacks along a classic evolutionary pathway in threespine stickleback |
Lars Fehren-Schmitz | Anthropology | Colonial Encounters and Climate Change: Mapping the Evolution of Human Genetic Diversity in the Central Andes throughout the Pre-Columbian Period. |
Grace Gu | Economics | Firm-paid Benefits, Employment, and Monetary Policy |
Nicolas Davidenko | Psychology | How experience shapes orientation-dependent visual processing |
2014 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Marc Matera | History | Decolonization and the Development of Race Relations |
Amy Rose Deal | Linguistics | Studies in Linguistic Diversity: Pronouns and Tense |
Eric Aldrich | Economics | Filtering Methods for Volatility Estimation |
Adam Millard-Ball | Environmental Studies | Urban Sprawl: A Global Analysis |
2013 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Jennifer Horne | Film & Digital Media | Emergent Humanitarian Media, 1917-1936 |
Tesla Jeltema | Physics | Using Observations of Large-Scale Structure in the Universe to Probe Models of Dark Matter and Cosmic Rays |
Sylvanna Falcón | Latin American & Latino Studies | Expanding the Conceptualization of Human Rights by New Constituencies |
2012 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
Irene Lusztig | Film & Digital Media | Lessons for Imminent Motherhood |
Dejan Milutinovic | Applied Mathematics & Statistics | Motion Capturing System for Real-Time Control of Indoor Robots |
Ian Garrick-Bethell | Earth & Planetary Sciences | Lunar Impactors: A Low Cost Robotic Mission to Study Lunar Magnetism and Surface Water |
Rita Mehta | Ecology & Evolutionary Biology | Assessing the potential importance of the California moray in structuring kelp forest communities around Catalina Island |
Megan Moodie | Anthropology | Genomic research: benefits and drawbacks |
Shannon Gleeson | Latin American & Latino Studies | Rights in Theory, Rights in Practice: Unpacking the Individual and Institutional Elements of Enforcing Worker Rights |
Mark Massoud | Politics | Law in Conflict: Legal Activism and the Rule of Law in War-afflicted Regions |
2011 Recipients
Faculty Name | Department | Project Title |
---|---|---|
John Jota Leaños | Film & Digital Media | Frontera! Animated Histories of the Southwest Borderlands |
Yiman Wang | Film & Digital Media | Performing Critical Differences – Anna May Wong’s “Yellow Yellowface” |
Neda Atanasoski | Feminist Studies | Publication preparation for Afterimages of Empire: Race, Freedom, and the U.S. Postsocialist Imaginary; and preparation for National Identity and Islam in Bosnia |
Matthew Wagers | Linguistics | Grammatical role assignment in Chamorro language comprehension: Incorporating underrepresented languages in dynamic models of language structure |
Dorian Bell | Literature | Frontiers of Hate: Anti-Semitism and Empire in Nineteenth-Century France |
Christine Hong | Literature | Legal Fictions: Afro-Asian Human Rights Cultural Production and the Pax Americana in the Pacific Rim |
Kathleen Kay | Ecology & Evolutionary Biology | Evolutionary Genetics of Reinforcement: Speciation Mechanisms Between Costus pulverulentus and C. scaber |
Victoria Auerbuch Stone | Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology | Germ warfare: how Yersinia manipulates its host. |
Mayanthi Fernando | Anthropology | On the Muslim Question: Anxieties of the French Secular |
Aspen Gorry | Economics | Learning, Multi-worker Firms, and the Cyclicality of Worker Flows |
Eduardo Mosqueda | Education | Linguistic Segregation and Educational Achievement in California’s Public Schools |
Hector Perla Jr. | Latin American & Latino Studies | Revolutionary Deterrence: U.S. Coercion & Transnational Resistance by Sandinista Nicaragua |