Dean's Undergraduate Excellence Awards

Zachary Auvil

Zachary is an environmental chemistry major from Oregon. His research focused on the Aerosol Impact Spectrometer (AIS) in the Continetti Lab. He is working to design and implement mechanical improvements to the AIS to assist future astrobiology missions studying organic compounds in Enceladus Ice. For Zachary, this award is tangible recognition of his research and a reminder of how much he has learned and grown since he began at UC San Diego. In his spare time, he enjoys tinkering and rock climbing.

Clarisa Bautistia

Clarisa is from Sacramento and is studying biochemistry. She is interested in medicine and has worked in the Mishanina lab for almost three years, assisting in projects relating to factors that affect human mitochondrial transcription. She has excelled academically through perseverance, patience and commitment. Her favorite activity is dance. She is the founder and president of Aequora Ballet Company, a classical and contemporary ballet student organization at UC San Diego.

Madeline Brown

Madeline is from Dallas, majoring in molecular and cell biology. She is interested in improving existing surgical methods to make them less invasive. She has worked at the Sailor Lab, where she developed her thesis in which she explored the possibility of utilizing a hybrid porous silicone scaffold system for ACL repair. She is currently studying in the Masuda Lab studying treatments for osteoarthritis and intervertebral disc degeneration. When she’s not in the lab, Madeline likes to hike with her dog and ski.

Dina Chehada

Dina is studying biochemistry and is from Fhaylah, Syria. Her field of interest is RNA biochemistry. She is an undergraduate research assistant in Navtej Toor’s lab, studying the impact of an intron RNA binding on the reverse transcriptase activity of the intron-encoded protein. She believes that a combination of curiosity and tenacity has driven her along the path to academic achievement. In her free time, Dina enjoys hiking and baking.

Malina Desai

Malina is a physics major from Roseville, CA. For the past two years, she has been a supplemental instructor for physics and math courses. Her research deals with building and controlling a liquid xenon detector for the discovery of the theoretical reaction neutrinoless double beta decay. Through Adam Burgasser’s group she uses machine learning methods to identify ultracool dwarf stars in binary systems. Malina is grateful to be recognized with this award.

Juan Diego Draxl Giannoni

Juan Diego is from Lima, Peru and is double majoring in physics and aerospace engineering. He is interested in space sciences and has been volunteering in Adam Burgasser's group, focusing on designing a new method to discover spectral binaries using machine learning with Python. An algorithm he helped create yielded promising results and he hopes to expand these findings by improving the algorithm. Aside from his research, he enjoys playing both acoustic and bass guitar and spends his time off traveling.

Vicente Galicia

Vicente is a chemistry major from Los Angeles, interested in physical chemistry. He works in the Xiong lab on molecular polaritons—a phenomenon that occurs when hybrid light and matter states interact to create new states. Using ultrafast laser pulses, they are investigating the effect this has on chemical reactions along with their altered optical properties. Vicente enjoys learning and loves chemistry because of how broad the field is. He is perpetually intrigued by all it has to offer in terms of research possibilities.

Jillian Hirano

Jillian is a chemistry major from Torrance, CA. Under the guidance of Brian Zid, she is working on optimizing the conditions of CRISPRi screening, a method of blocking gene transcription in DNA to identify which genes are involved in mediating mitochondrial mRNA localization. Mentoring other undergraduate students has helped her prepare for graduate school by expanding her teaching abilities. Jillian owes a lot of her academic success to the support of her friends who have been positive motivators in her life.

Delilah Jacobsen

Delilah is a physics major specializing in astrophysics. In the Cool Star Lab with Adam Burgasser, she performed reductions and analysis of archival data from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and catalogued wide dwarf binary systems using archived spectral data. At University of Arizona, Delilah conducted research in the High Frequency Long Range Communications Lab, looking at the security of autonomous vehicles. She is passionate about activism and advocates for diversity, equity and inclusion.

Cara Jensen

Cara is a San Diego native and physics major specializing in biophysics. She’s studying bacterial physiology and is focused on testing a non-trivial assumption of balanced biosynthesis in bacteria. Along with this, she is a part of a project related to DNA replication initiation with E. Coli strains, leading to her first research publication. Cara loves what she does and is excited to be in this field of study. Apart from her research, she likes to surf and dirt bike with her son.

Natalie Lam

Natalie is from Hong Kong, China and is a physics major specializing in astrophysics. She has done theoretical research with Tongyan Lin on the direct detection of dark matter, as well as observational research with Adam Burgasser on the SpeX telescope archive data reduction. Her research was with Alex Frañó where she piloted an experimental project on structural changes in hydrogels during swelling. Natalie is active in leadership in the Society of Physics Students at UC San Diego.

Xinsong Lin

Xinsong is a math-CS major from Shanghai, China. He is interested in robotics and leads the software effort at Yonder Dynamics, a student-run Mars rover team at UC San Diego. Xinsong works with Professor Bo Li on problems tangential to sampling distributions related to molecules. He has had summer internships at Dishcraft Robotics and at iRobot, where he worked with Roomba vacuums. Outside of the classroom, Xinsong enjoys rock climbing and has recently picked up biking.

Tiffany Liou

Tiffany is from Glendora, CA and is a physics major specializing in astrophysics. She is most interested in galactic evolution and dark matter. Tiffany is vice president of the Society of Physics Students at UC San Diego, and also helps tutor other students in physics as a supplemental instruction leader at the Academic Achievement Hub. Currently, she is researching with Professor Lin simulating dark matter perturbations in stellar streams. Tiffany enjoys outreach and sharing her love of physics with others.

Daniel Liu

Daniel is a chemistry/biochemistry major from Springfield, MO. Working in the Devaraj lab, he is investigating moieties that can potentially undergo biorthogonal dimerization reactions in order to spontaneously ligate two molecules of interest together. Receiving this award represents a culmination of Daniel's past four years at UC San Diego and gives him a sense of gratification to know that he and his fellow awardees are being recognized with this honor.

Huaning Liu

Huaning is from Tianjin, China, and is majoring in applied mathematics. His field of interest is in robust statistics, statistical learning and reinforcement learning. Under the supervision of Professor Wenxin Zhou, Huaning studies quantile-based methods which include factor models in econometrics, expected shortfall in finance, and nonparametric neural networks. In his free time, Huaning enjoys playing sports such as tennis and soccer.

Manasi Movva

Manasi is from Torrance, CA and is studying biochemistry. She has been in the Debelouchina lab since 2021 under the guidance of Lannah Abasi, understanding how tau proteins affect nuclear tau localization, gene expression, and heterochromatin condensation using cellular models. Her research has been incredibly enriching for her and she has found her closest friends in the lab. Manasi believes that hard work, organizational skills and eagerness to learn are critical to academic excellence.

Gil Pasternak

Gil is majoring in applied mathematics and grew up in San Diego. He is interested in artificial intelligence and has worked with Superconductive, NVIDIA, and Gordon Food Service. Currently, Gil is a member of the Hannah Carter lab, using neural networks to quantify cancer risk. He believes that persistence and consistency are what lead to academic excellence. Gil thanks his support system built by friends and family for helping him stay motivated.

Cynthia Rong

Cynthia is a biochemistry/chemistry major from Seaside, CA. In the Zid lab, she is investigating the mRNA localization to mitochondria based on translation duration and stalling sequences. In the future, she is interested in studying mechanisms of senescence and mitochondrial diseases. When she first started researching, she was unsure of her abilities, but her peers and mentors helped her along. Now she mentors two other undergraduate students in their sub-projects. 

Yuting Shen

Yuting is a chemistry major from Ningbo, China. She began working in Gourisankar Ghosh’s lab investigating the cofactor-mediated DNA binding of NF- κB dimers in the context of inflammatory signaling. Currently, she works closely with a graduate student to develop an independent project investigating the complex interactions between NF- κB and previously identified cofactors. Aside from her research, Yuting enjoys building Legos, watching TV and San Diego’s sunshine.

Aman Shihora

Aman is majoring in pharmacological chemistry and is from Victorville, CA. He works in the Deshmukh lab and is interested in cancer signaling and transduction pathways. His research experience has primarily been investigating intrinsically disordered proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases. Determination and optimism drive Aman in his research and he hopes to pursue graduate school.

Thomas Sievert

Thomas is a physics major from Oceanside, CA. His studies focus on particle physics where he has researched quantum machine learning for high energy physics at UC San Diego and Cal Tech. He worked on a project using an algorithm to determine whether a Higgs boson was created during a high energy physics experiment. Thomas believes the most important parts of academic success are collaboration and self-compassion, knowing when to ask for help and understanding that you have to advocate for yourself.

Annika So

Annika is a biochemistry major from Hong Kong. She had a research internship at Scribe Therapeutics in the Bay Area and has studied in the Komor Lab. In Komor’s lab, she used genome editing tools to understand human genetic variation and mutations in cancer. Currently, she’s investigating what biochemical pathways are involved when gene editors change DNA. Annika values outreach and education and rock climbs in her free time.

Khoa D. Tran

Khoa is a biochemistry major from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. He has conducted research with the McHugh lab studying the long non-coding RNA (DUBR), initially identifying functional regions of the gene in regulating human colon cancer growth. Now, he is finding the binding regions of DUBR to NuRD, a chromatin remodeling complex in the cell. In his spare time, Khoa enjoys reading, as well as collecting figures and repainting them to make them more movie-accurate.

Maxwell Varley

Maxwell is from San Marcos, CA, and is studying chemistry. His field of interest is inorganic chemistry and he enjoys studying magnetism. Maxwell studies in Jeffrey Rinehart’s lab, working to characterize the effects of dipolar coupling in single-molecule magnets. As a transfer student, this award is validating for him as it acknowledges his hard work.

Fuxiang Yang

Fuxiang is a mathematics major from Liaoning, China. He is interested in commutative and noncommutative algebra and algebraic geometry. Fuxiang is currently working on his honors thesis with Professor Daniel Rogalski, studying group gradings on Artin-Schelter regular algebra using two approaches. Fuxiang believes being curious in math is what led him to academic excellence and this award motivates him to continue studying in this field.

Zhaoyi Yu

Zhaoyi is from Beijing, China majoring in statistics. She is interested in data science and is researching with Professor Wenxin Zhou. Zhaoyi is a part of a quantitative finance project and noticed that expected shortfall (ES) compared with broadly studied quantile in financial risk evaluation hasn’t been given much attention in academia. With this, they proposed a two-step procedure for these two elements to evaluate market risks comprehensively. In her free time, Zhaoyi likes to dance.

Linghao Zhang

Linghao is from China and is double-majoring in applied mathematics and cognitive science with a specialization in machine learning and neural computation. Currently, he is researching polynomial optimization with professor Jiawang Nie, which includes exploring new algorithms and methodologies for solving global optimization problems. Linghao says this experience has been challenging and rewarding, and that receiving the award is recognition of his dedication to research from the university.