UC SANTA CRUZ, Hellman Fellows, image of Rebecca Covarrubias with student team

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.

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.

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. 

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.

For questions about the program or the application process, contact vpaa@ucsc.edu.

"Hellman Fellows Website
"$125 million commitment to faculty research announced by UC and Hellman Fellows (June 23, 2020)"
"New York Times: Tribute to Warren Hellman (December 22, 2011)"
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Sophia AzebCritical Race and Ethnic StudiesAnother Country: Translational Blackness and the Afro-Arab.
Carla Hernández GaravitoAnthropologyPots and People: A Collaborative Ethnography of Ceramic Production in Huarochirí (Peru)
Tae Myung HuhElectrical and Computer EngineeringA No-Damage, Highly Adaptable Gripper for Robotic Harvesting
Audrie LinMicrobiology and Environmental ToxicologyEffects of menstrual hygiene and stigma reduction interventions on adolescent health
Jennifer MogannamCritical Race and Ethnic StudiesOf Unfinished Revolution: Resistance and Coalition as Palestinian-Lebanese Liberation Praxis
Danny RahalPsychologyDaily Stress Responses and Cannabis Use among Young Adult College Students
Martin Rizzo-MartinezFilm and Digital MediaWounded Lee: The Red Power Movement in 1970s California in the Wake of Alcatraz
Edgar ShaghoulianPhysicsEvent horizons and quantum gravity
Kira TaitPoliticsShifting Perceptions of Migrants’ Rights in South Africa
Hao YeElectrical and Computer EngineeringPhysics-Informed Generative Models for XL-MIMO Communication
Andy YehBiomolecular EngineeringPrice Incentives for Resource Conservation: Experimental Evidence from Groundwater Irrigation
2024 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Josefina BittarLanguages and Applied LinguisticsLanguage Use and Change among Paraguayan Immigrants in Spain
Vaggos ChatziafratisComputer Sciences and EngineeringTheoretical Foundations of Contrastive Machine Learning
Bradley ColquittMolecular, Cell, & Developmental BiologyTheme and Variations: The Development and Evolution of Birdsong at the Molecular Level
Mia GongLinguisticsDocumenting Linguistic Diversity: Anaphoric Variations in Transeurasian Languages
Hannah HausmanPsychologyImproving Problem-solving, Metacognition, and Mindsets Through Self-explanation
Vanessa JonssonApplied MathematicsAI driven T cell immunotherapy target discovery
Rene Espinoza KissellEducationSchool Debt Under Fiscal Surveillance
Carlos MartinezLatin American & Latino StudiesExamining Asylum Deterrence Policies & Migrant Captivity on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Matthew SchumakerMusicTraditional Instruments and New Music Technology at the Korean Experimental Music Festival
Xiao WangChemistry & BiochemistryExploring Exciton-polaritons in Two-dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides using Wavefunction-based Ab Initio Methods
Arial ZuckerEconomicsPrice Incentives for Resource Conservation: Experimental Evidence from Groundwater Irrigation
2023 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Kate RinglandComputational MediaComputationally Supported Care in Marginalized Online Communities
Yuyin ZhouComputer Science & EngineeringDistributed Machine Learning with Imperfect Supervision and an Application to Large-Scale Medical Imaging
Valerie CortezMolecular, Cell, & Developmental BiologyProbing host-virus interactions at the gut mucosal barrier
Megan BoudewynPsychologyNeural Stimulation and Attentional Control
Kathleen GutierrezHistoryTwo 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 PhamEducationThe Intellectual Work of K-12 Ethnic Studies Pedagogies in Local Public Schools
Alicia RileySociologyConsequences of the Mexican Repatriation Program for Child Mortality in the U.S.
Pamela Rodriguez-MonteroPerformance, Play & DesignLos Diablitos: The Devil’s Imaginary in Traditional Latin American Festivities
2022 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Yasmeen DaifallahPoliticsThinking Past Islam and the West: Theorizing Politics in Contemporary Arab Thought
Roberto de RoockEducationEducational Enclosures and the Digital Divide
Caitlin “Katie” KeliiaaFeminist StudiesThree 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” LiStatisticsCan CRISPR Bring Diversity Back Into Food?
Maywa MontenegroEnvironmental StudiesTowards Adaptive Verbal Autopsy Survey Design
Shaheen SikandarMolecular, Cell & Developmental BiologyElucidating long-term pregnancy induced changes that confer protection against breast cancer.
Aiming YanPhysicsUnderstanding and tailoring magnetism in atomically thin two dimensional materials
2021 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Gueyon KimEconomicsBlack-White Differences in Intergenerational Occupational Mobility
Samuel SeveranceEducationCreating Sustainable Buzz for Science Learning: Piloting an Elementary Project-Based Ecology Unit Supporting Native Bee Populations
Justin PerezLatin American & Latino StudiesLGBT Health Across the Americas Initiative
Filippo GianferrariLiteratureTraining the Reader: Dante and the Rise of Vernacular Literacy
Jacqueline KimmeyMicrobiology & Environmental ToxicologyCircadian response to Streptococcus pnuemoniae infection
Euiseok KimMolecular, Cell, & Developmental BiologyMolecular Identities and Connectivity of Feedback and Feedforward Circuits in the Mammalian Cortex
Jason SamahaPsychologyNeural Correlates of the Subjective Experience of Time
Jaimie MorseSociologyBodies of Evidence: Legibility, Medical Uncertainty, and the Knowledge Problem of ‘Rape Kits’
Juan PedrozaSociologySafety Net Access for Immigrant Families
Robbie KubalaPhilosophySocial Aesthetics
2020 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
A.M. DarkeArtOpen Source Afro Hair Library
Michael WehnerElectrical and Computer EngineeringLow cost automation for Endotracheal Intubation
Jennifer KellyFeminist StudiesThree pre-tenure projects
Tim JohnstoneChemistry & BiochemistryMedicinal Inorganic Chemistry to Treat Carbon Monoxide Poisoning and Neglected Tropical Disease
Margaret ZimmerEarth and Planetary SciencesQuantification of groundwater recharge in non-perennial rivers
Saskias CasanovaPsychologyYouth Participatory Action Research, Cultural Knowledge & Resilience for (Im)migrant High School Students
Camilla HawthorneSociologyA Black Santa Cruz Sense of Place
Katy SetoEnvironmental StudiesTurning the Tide: Shifting Access, Equity, and Vulnerability in Coastal California
2019 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Karolina KarlicArtRubberlands: a transmedia art work which visualizes the ways rubber manufacturing is socially, ecologically, and systemically formed.
Yu ZhangElectrical & Computer EngineeringModernizing Power System Planning and Operation to Improve Grid Resilience Against Hazardous Events
Amanda SmithLiteratureMapping the Amazon: Literary Geographies after the Rubber Boom
Susan CarpenterMolecular, Cell & Developmental BiologyCarpenter Lab Research Proposal
Sergey SyzranovPhysicsConductors insensitive to disorder: insights from high dimensions
Nidhi MahajanAnthropologyContesting Visions of City and Nation: Land, and Sovereignty in Coastal Kenya
Savannah ShangeAnthropologyMilked: Poverty, Race and the Politics of Breastfeeding
Jerry ZeeAnthropologyAlgorithmic Necrosis: Machine Learning and Suicide Watch in China and Silicon Valley
Sara NiedzwieckiPoliticsImmigrants’ Access to Social Protection in Latin America
Adriana ManagoPsychologySocial Media, Gender, and Sexual Identity Development in Adolescence
2018 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Anna FrizFilm & Digital MediaWe Build Ruins
Cynthia Ling LeeTheater ArtsLost Chinatowns: a multimedia dance-theater work exploring Santa Cruz’s historical Chinatowns
Angela BrooksBiomolecular EngineeringNovel therapeutic targets in lung cancer from genes with altered mRNA splicing
Benjamin BreenHistoryIndra’s Net: Technology and Magic in the Eartly Modern World, 1600-1820
Muriam DavisHistoryPlanning for Eurafrica: Development and Race in Algeria, 1958-1965
Yuan PingChemistry & BiochemistryTheory Design of Charged Defects for Two-dimensional Quantum Technologies
Xi ZhangEarth & Planetary SciencesDeep Atmosphere of Jupiter: Insights from the Juno Spacecraft
François MonardMathematicsInverse problems, integral geometry and uncertainty quantification
Michael HancePhysics & the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle PhysicsSearching for New Particles and Symmetries at the Large Hadron Collider
Vicky OelzeAnthropologyChimpanzee intoxication and the evolution of termite associated tool use New Particles and Symmetries at the Large Hadron Collider
David GordonPoliticsAccountability and Global Urban Climate Governance
2017 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Amy Mihyang GintherTheater ArtsNo Danger of Winning
Dongwook LeeApplied Mathematics & StatisticsNew High-Order Schemes for Computational Fluid Dynamics using Gaussian Processes
Christopher VollmersBiomolecular EngineeringDetermining the Diversity of Individual Human B cells using Nanopore Sequencing
Alma HeckmanHistory & Jewish StudiesRadical Roads Not Taken: Moroccan Jewish Trajectories, 1925-1975
Renee FoxLiterature(Untitled); Necromantic Victorians: Reanimation and the Historical Imagination in British and Irish Literature
Terrence BlackburnEarth & Planetary SciencesU-series comminution dating of fine-particle production in glaciers, rivers, faults and
extraterrestrial surfaces
James AckmanMolecular, Cell & Developmental BiologyFunctional dynamics of cerebral lateralization in the developing brain
Tsim SchneiderAnthropologyComparative Archaeologies of Native-Lived Colonialism in CaliforniaAcknowledging the cultural strengths of first-generation students: Longitudinal explorations of familial interdependence and hard independence
Rebecca CovarrubiasPsychologyAcknowledging the cultural strengths of first-generation students: Longitudinal explorations of familial interdependence and hard independence
2016 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Jennifer TaylorFilm & Digital MediaRedneck Muslim
Rajarshi GuhaniyogiApplied Mathematics & StatisticsHierarchical Bayesian Statistical Modeling of Massive Scale Spatially Referenced Databases
Ju Hee LeeApplied Mathematics & StatisticsNovel Nonparametric Bayesian Inference for Metagenomics with Two Applications
Nick MitchellFeminist StudiesDocumenting Labor in California Black Studies
Mark AmengualLanguage & Applied LinguisticsLiving in two languages: What constitutes “Good Pronunciation” in bilingual speech?
Samantha MathernePhilosophyIdealism in Exile: Cassirer and the Warburg Institute
Alexander AyznerChemistry & BiochemistrySemiconducting Polyelectrolytes as Building Blocks for a Soft Artificial Photosystem
Jevgenij RaskatovChemistry & BiochemistryCell Culture Studies of a Novel Chiral Variant of Alzheimer’s Amyloid Beta 1-42 Peptide
Marilou Sison-MangusOcean SciencesInvestigating the chemical cross-talk between the toxin-producing diatom and its associated bacteria
2015 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Gerald CaselTheater ArtsSplinters In Our Ankles – Collective Cultural Amnesia and Performed Resistance in the Tinikling, The Philippine National Dance
Rebecca DuBoisBiomolecular EngineeringUnderstanding how astrovirus enters human cells
Jennifer DerrHistoryThe Making of an Epidemic: Hepatitis C in Egypt
Juned ShaikhHistorySpatializing Caste and Class
Maziar ToosarvandaniLinguisticsHow do languages vary? Aspect and its interpretation in discourse
Eric PalkovacsEcology & Evolutionary BiologyAn experimental test for eco-evolutionary feedbacks along a classic evolutionary pathway in threespine stickleback
Lars Fehren-SchmitzAnthropologyColonial Encounters and Climate Change: Mapping the Evolution of Human Genetic Diversity in the Central Andes throughout the Pre-Columbian Period.
Grace GuEconomicsFirm-paid Benefits, Employment, and Monetary Policy
Nicolas DavidenkoPsychologyHow experience shapes orientation-dependent visual processing
2014 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Marc MateraHistoryDecolonization and the Development of Race Relations
Amy Rose DealLinguisticsStudies in Linguistic Diversity: Pronouns and Tense
Eric AldrichEconomicsFiltering Methods for Volatility Estimation
Adam Millard-BallEnvironmental StudiesUrban Sprawl: A Global Analysis
2013 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Jennifer HorneFilm & Digital MediaEmergent Humanitarian Media, 1917-1936
Tesla JeltemaPhysicsUsing Observations of Large-Scale Structure in the Universe to Probe Models of Dark Matter and Cosmic Rays
Sylvanna FalcónLatin American & Latino StudiesExpanding the Conceptualization of Human Rights by New Constituencies
2012 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title
Irene LusztigFilm & Digital MediaLessons for Imminent Motherhood
Dejan MilutinovicApplied Mathematics & StatisticsMotion Capturing System for Real-Time Control of Indoor Robots
Ian Garrick-BethellEarth & Planetary SciencesLunar Impactors: A Low Cost Robotic Mission to Study Lunar Magnetism and Surface Water
Rita MehtaEcology & Evolutionary BiologyAssessing the potential importance of the California moray in structuring kelp forest communities around Catalina Island
Megan MoodieAnthropologyGenomic research: benefits and drawbacks
Shannon GleesonLatin American & Latino StudiesRights in Theory, Rights in Practice: Unpacking the Individual and Institutional Elements of Enforcing Worker Rights
Mark MassoudPoliticsLaw in Conflict: Legal Activism and the Rule of Law in War-afflicted Regions
2011 Recipients
Faculty NameDepartmentProject Title

John Jota Leaños

Film & Digital Media
Frontera! Animated Histories of the Southwest Borderlands
Yiman WangFilm & Digital MediaPerforming Critical Differences – Anna May Wong’s “Yellow Yellowface”
Neda AtanasoskiFeminist StudiesPublication preparation for Afterimages of Empire: Race, Freedom, and the U.S. Postsocialist Imaginary; and preparation for National Identity and Islam in Bosnia
Matthew WagersLinguisticsGrammatical role assignment in Chamorro language comprehension: Incorporating underrepresented languages in dynamic models of language structure
Dorian BellLiteratureFrontiers of Hate: Anti-Semitism and Empire in Nineteenth-Century France
Christine HongLiteratureLegal Fictions: Afro-Asian Human Rights Cultural Production and the Pax Americana in the Pacific Rim
Kathleen KayEcology & Evolutionary BiologyEvolutionary Genetics of Reinforcement: Speciation Mechanisms Between Costus pulverulentus and C. scaber
Victoria Auerbuch StoneMicrobiology and Environmental ToxicologyGerm warfare: how Yersinia manipulates its host.
Mayanthi FernandoAnthropologyOn the Muslim Question: Anxieties of the French Secular
Aspen GorryEconomicsLearning, Multi-worker Firms, and the Cyclicality of Worker Flows
Eduardo MosquedaEducationLinguistic Segregation and Educational Achievement in California’s Public Schools
Hector Perla Jr.Latin American & Latino StudiesRevolutionary Deterrence: U.S. Coercion & Transnational Resistance by Sandinista Nicaragua
Last modified: Jul 24, 2025