Student Research

Undergraduate Research at Berkeley

Research opportunities at Berkeley for ambitious undergrads are diverse and plentiful. Some students shoot projectiles at silicone torsos, some photograph Egyptian artifacts, others seek cures for metabolic diseases.

By Nancy Chapman

A model of the silicone projectile that Professor Dennis Lieu’s research team is testing.

Spring 2006 | College of Engineering’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program
Mechanical engineering senior Kimberly Lau and bioengineering senior Karen Yang spend hours each week firing silicone projectiles from an air pressure gun into a simulated human torso. The gel-filled torso is embedded with sensors that measure the local pressure produced inside the simulated tissue as a result of the projectile impact.

“We’re still fine-tuning the pressure sensors,” said Yang. “We’re trying to determine the best method for getting the measurements we need.”

Yang and Lau belong to a research team headed by Dennis Lieu, professor of mechanical engineering. The team works with the Oakland Police in testing less-lethal munitions such as rubber bullets, wooden bullets, and bean-bag rounds used in police and military applications.

“We’re assessing the injury potential of these munitions,” Lieu said. “In the field, these projectiles cause a large number of injuries, even death.”

Professor Lieu’s team tests silicone projectiles using a 37mm grenade launcher.

Lieu and his student team are developing a new kind of projectile that they hope will reduce the number of injuries from the devices. “The new projectiles are made of very soft silicone that flattens on impact with human-like tissue,” Lieu said. “This prevents penetration and injury of the tissue.”

Part of the College of Engineering’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities program, Lieu’s project aims to involve undergraduates more deeply in the research life of the university and to enhance students’ future employment and educational opportunities.

Forty-seven projects offering stipends of $250 each are underway this spring, said program coordinator Bren Ahearn. The projects run the gamut—from the human brain’s computation of time-to-collision in automobile crashes, to online auctions and e-business that have revolutionized the ways we exchange goods.

Ahearn said, “Students at any level of undergraduate training can enroll. The positions open a lot of doors for students who want to become more marketable or who want to work closely with the faculty.”

Lau, who graduates this May, says her research will help her find a job after graduation. “I’m not just doing work with non-lethal projectiles,” she said. “Now I have experience working with teams as well as individually.”

University Research Apprentice Program
But mechanical design and bioengineering aren’t for everyone. A much broader mix of unpaid apprentice positions is offered through Berkeley’s Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP), which sponsors projects ranging from the arts and humanities to the life sciences, public policy, and women’s studies.

Funerary stela of the Hereditary Prince Iti aha and his wife, Hetepet, Naga ed Der, First Intermediate Period.

A student with an anthropological bent might want to apply for an apprenticeship with the Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Working with Professor Cathleen Keller of Near Eastern Studies, students make digital images of Egyptian objects, then convert them into data files for the museum’s online catalog, web site, and storage. The images are also converted into hard copy for the museum’s photo archive.

“We recently began documenting the pottery and stone vessel collections,” said Keller.

Hilary Campbell, a junior majoring in nutritional sciences, became a project apprentice last year after falling in love with the project description. “It was amazing to work with actual 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifacts,” she said. “I was initially very afraid of messing something up, but eventually I became comfortable with what I was doing.”

Professor Keller says that she would be lost without her URAP apprentices, and not only because of the work they do. “This is an outstanding program,” she said. “It’s also an excellent opportunity to meet and work with undergraduates outside my own specialty.”

Hundreds of students take advantage of research opportunities each year. URAP director Terry Strathman says, “In 2004-05 we had almost 900 individuals in the program; this year we should get close to the 1,000 mark.”

Strathman thinks that the real strengths of the program are the interactions between faculty and students and the experience that students gain doing real research.

“At the end of their URAP experience they have research skills, more confidence in their own abilities, a deeper understanding of an academic field—and a faculty member who knows them well and can write that all-important letter of recommendation,” she said.

QB3 Undergraduate Biotech Internships Program
A new internship program was launched last summer at Berkeley by the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3). A partnership between three UC campuses and private industry, QB3 fosters multidisciplinary and collaborative research on health-related issues.

Through the QB3 Undergraduate Biotech Internships Program, QB3 works with local biotech companies to recruit undergraduate applicants for research-and-development summer internships at the companies.

“QB3 is training the next generation of scientists,” said program manager Ally Finkel. “Biology now requires a multidisciplinary approach. We’re recruiting our interns for protein chemistry, structural and molecular biology, chemistry, bioinformatics, and more.”

Jennifer Liu, a senior chemical biology major, was among the first wave of QB3 interns. Last summer she worked at Plexxikon, a Berkeley company involved in drug discovery.

“They make chemicals and test them on enzyme targets to find cures for metabolic diseases, diabetes, and many other diseases and oncology projects,” said Liu. “It opened my eyes to the biotech industry. In industry no one has time to tell you what to do; you do everything yourself, make your own mistakes, and learn from them. You become a better scientist.”

These off-campus summer projects enrich not only students’ employment and educational opportunities but also their pocketbooks. Finkel said that QB3 interns get paid a competitive wage of $13-$21 an hour. The benefits sometimes extend beyond the summer; Plexxikon invited Liu to stay on when the summer internship ended.

“Our students have had incredible hands-on, full-time experiences in local biotech companies,” said Finkel.  “The experience helps undergraduates define their career goals and decide if they want to work in academia or industry.”

For more information about research opportunities for undergraduates, try these sites: Summary of all undergraduate research opportunities at Berkeley: http://research.berkeley.edu/ Engineering Undergraduate Research Opportunities (URO) program: www.coe.berkeley.edu/current_students/uro/ University Research Apprentice Program (URAP): http://research.berkeley.edu/urap/ QB3 Undergraduate Biotech Internships: www.qb3.org/intern.htm