The 2024 Application Cycle is now closed! Applications are under review and successful applicants will be notified in early March. If you have any questions about the review process, contact Jay Stachowicz at jjstachowicz@ucdavis.edu
Overview of the EVE Scholars Program
The UC Davis College of Biological Sciences and Department of Evolution and Ecology announces summer undergraduate research fellowships supported by the Kendra M Chan fellowship, the Nieland Family Fund, The Osborne Chair fund, and other donors.
These awards provide a stipend to allow undergraduate students to conduct full time independent research under the direction of a faculty member in the Department of Evolution and Ecology (EVE) or at the Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML). Fellowship recipients will receive approximately $6500 for a 10-week internship. Students selected to work on projects at BML will have housing costs at BML covered in addition to the stipend.
Application Process
Applicant eligibility:
- Applicants can be in any major at UC Davis
- Applicants must still be enrolled at UC Davis in Fall 2024
(not graduating Summer 2024 or prior) - Applicants must enroll in a 1-2 unit course in Fall 2024 to develop data analysis and presentation skills, culminating in the production of a poster presentation of the research results to the EVE community
- Applicants must complete the online application form here
The application form consists of :
- basic contact information
- list of prior relevant coursework
- ranked list of applicant’s top 4 preferred faculty mentors (participating faculty are listed below)
- names and email addresses for two references
- responses to three short prompts (up to 300 words each) describing the applicant’s 1) research experience, 2) academic and career goals, and 3) their potential contributions to the EVE Scholars community.
Application Deadline: Applications must be completed at the online application form here by Monday February 5th at 5:00 pm PST
Selection Criteria
The selection of Award recipients will be based on
- academic merit
- research potential
- potential contributions to community
- alignment of interests with faculty mentors
We expect to make approximately 10 awards for summer 2024 cycle.
Questions?
If you have questions, review our FAQ page or contact Jay Stachowicz at jjstachowicz@ucdavis.edu
Participating Faculty
Faculty who have agreed to mentor students through this program are listed below, with a description of potential student projects. Applicants will be asked to identify their top 4 preferred faculty members from this list.
Rachael Bay Davis Campus, Lab Website
Our lab works on evolutionary responses of organisms to human-induced environmental changes, mostly in marine systems. Projects combine field or laboratory experiments, molecular lab work, and computational analyses to understand how organisms acclimate and adapt to rapid changes in their environment.
Anya Brown Bodega Marine Lab, Lab Website
Students will be involved with field and lab work relating to ecology and microbial ecology of ecosystems around Bodega Bay, particularly seagrass wasting disease. Projects can include isolating and growing the pathogen responsible for the disease and seagrass plants in different conditions, field surveys around Bodega Bay and Tomales Bay, DNA extractions and next generation library preparation. All projects will be based at the Bodega Marine Lab.
Graham Coop Davis Campus, Lab Website
The lab works on understanding patterns of population history, local adaptation, and speciation from genomic data using a range of computational and statistical approaches. We work on a range of different systems, and possible projects could range from working on Neanderthal genomics to speciation.
Elizabeth Crone Davis Campus, Lab Website
Our lab group studies population dynamics of butterflies and native bees. Questions are centered around understanding the contribution of resources used throughout their life cycles to population viability, how spatial environmental variation affects population dynamics, and population viability in changing environments. Our research involves overnight travel to field sites in the coast and mountains and long days of outdoor work.
Jonathan Eisen Davis Campus, Lab Website
Projects will involve studies of the community of microorganisms that live in and on seagrasses – the seagrass “microbiome”. Students will develop projects that may include lab experiments, microbial culturing, DNA sequencing, and bioinformatics to enhance our understanding of the effect of microbes on the ecology of macroscopic organisms.
Jennifer Gremer Davis Campus, Lab Website
We study how plants respond to variable and changing environments, the physiology and morphology associated with those responses, and the consequences for trait evolution and population persistence in the face of climate change. Current projects integrate genomics, ecology, and remote sensing to understand and predict population persistence of native California wildflowers in response to climate change. Students can expect to be involved in field experiments and data collection, lab measurements and analyses, and/or statistical analyses or development of eco-evo models.
John Largier Bodega Marine Lab, Lab Website
The coastal oceanography group works on transport by water motion in estuaries and coastal waters, addressing issues including larval dispersal, water quality (specifically hypoxia), coastal flooding (marshes), kelp forest habitats, and beaches in estuaries and bays. Students would be based at Bodega Marine Laboratory.
Artyom Kopp Davis Campus, Lab Website
Our lab works on developmental and evolutionary genetics using Drosophila as an experimental model. Potential projects may focus on the evolution of sexual dimorphism and sex-specific structures, the origin of new genes and regulatory elements, and the evolution of cells and molecular pathways involved in male-female communication.
Kate Laskowski Davis Campus, Lab Website
We use clonal mollies to disentangle genetic, maternal and environmental influences on the development of behavior to understand how and why individuals exhibit unique behavioral patterns. Our work is lab-based and combines manipulative experiments with high-resolution behavioral tracking and molecular methods (e.g. RNA extraction, immunohistochemistry, microscopy).
Christina Pasparakis Bodega Marine Lab, Lab Website
Our lab investigates the molecular and physiological mechanisms that allow organisms to cope with environmental stressors, including both anthropogenic and natural stressors. Projects will involve exposing the early life stages of local fish and invertebrate species to sublethal doses of toxins combined with environmentally relevant stressors, raising them in ambient conditions, and testing effects on physiology at later life stages. Our lab is also a part of a community-based research program titled the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP; https://www.ccfrp.org/), investigating the effectiveness of local marine protected areas (MPAs). Student projects may also stem from research conducted on these fishing trips.
Gail Patricelli Davis Campus, Lab Website
Projects focus on (1) the impact of urbanization and warming temperatures on songbird behavior and reproductive success, involving fieldwork in the Davis-Sacramento area (2) Using microphone arrays to examine singing and mate choice behavior in songbirds; involving analysis of audio recordings in the lab.
Jeff Ross-Ibarra Davis Campus, Lab Website
A student in my lab would use computational tools to study the genetic aspects of local adaptation or genome evolution in domesticated maize or its wild relatives.
Eric Sanford Bodega Marine Lab, Lab Website
The ecology and evolution of species’ range shifts in the sea: Understanding the northward expansion of coastal marine invertebrates and/or the spread of invasive species during an era of rapid ocean change. Projects might focus on predatory drilling snails, territorial owl limpets, or invasive sea anemones. Student will be based at Bodega Marine Laboratory.
Jay Stachowicz Bodega Marine Lab, Lab Website
Students will undertake lab and field work based at the Bodega Marine Laboratory to investigate marine evolutionary and community ecology in seagrass ecosystems. Projects could include adaptation of seagrasses to climate change, community ecology of invertebrates and fish in seagrass habitats, or plant-microbe-disease interactions. All projects will have both field and lab components.
Peter Wainwright Davis Campus, Lab Website
Functional morphology of feeding in fishes. We will combine high-speed video recordings of fishes feeding in the laboratory with anatomical and phylogenetic studies to address a question about how fish feeding mechanisms work and evolve.
EVE Scholars Program 