UC San Diego Undergraduate Library Research Prize

Honorable Mention 2025 Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities Category, nominated by Adena Schachner (Department of Psychology)

Human towns are shaped by intentional design. Here we ask whether people use societal features to make social inferences, specifically focusing on how the presence of protective architectural features influences people’s intuitions about towns’ residents. U.S. adults (N = 100) were presented with two novel societies – a 'protected' town with walls, locks, and gates, and an 'unprotected' town lacking such features. We manipulated whether residents had chosen or been randomly assigned where to live. Across both conditions, people judged that unprotected society residents felt safer, happier, and were nicer; and that protected society residents dressed more similarly, stayed inside more, and had more rules. Most people preferred to live in the unprotected society. Positive attributions and preference for the unprotected society were associated with liberal (vs. conservative) political affiliation. Overall, we show that people use the physical features of built environments to make social inferences about residents’ behaviors, traits, and mental states.

Winner 2025 Special Collection & Archives Category, nominated by Adena Schachner (Department of Psychology)

At UC San Diego (UCSD), student-run cooperatives—Groundwork Books, Food Co-Op, General Store, and Che Café - function as hubs for cultural expression, activism, and community connection. Focusing on Groundwork Books, this study examines how place attachment, the emotional bond individuals form with meaningful space and community resilience, and the capacity to adapt and recover from adversity are displayed in the past fifty years since its conception as a student cooperative. Through a mixed-methods approach, this study explores the quantifiable levels of place attachment and community resilience within UCSD’s student cooperatives and specifically unearthing Groundwork Books legacy in being a functional space. Archival data and document analysis, surveys, and interviews with past and current Groundwork Books members are implemented in understanding the lived experiences of Groundwork Books history. This study provides a nuanced understanding of how place attachment and community resilience manifest in Groundwork Books, highlighting the historical and social significance of student cooperatives.

Honorable Mention 2025 Special Collections & Archives Category, nominated by Anna Joy Springer (Department of Literature)

The artist's visual directions for recreating the artwork includes textual content used in the book and images of the process and completed work.

Honorable Mention 2024 Special Collections & Archives Category, nominated by Ameeth Vijay (Department of Literature)

The United States of America in the 1960s was characterized by big changes in the socio-political scenario, owing to the rapidly changing view of technology, science, and cultural art,marking the advent of the counterculture. With the Civil Rights Movement at its climax, there was a heavy division of race and among the people who remained conservative in the rising popularity of liberalism. This gave way to new movements in art, with localized artistic styles and innovations gaining popularity through close-knit, academically, and artistically associated groups of poets, painters, philosophers, etc. Larry Eigner, being one of them, linked to the Black Mountain school of poets, focused his poetry during this time mainly on literary-historical topics with special attention to the placement of words on the page and the creation of an environment through his words and style. This paper will explore the nuances of violence and peace in Eigner’s individual poetry and artistic partnership with Ian Tyson, and how this is reflective of the alternations and coexistence of violence and peace in the world around him. This will also include broader changes in the cultural and social environment at the time and how Eigner’s poetry can be read with that under consideration.

Winner 2024 Data & GIS Category, nominated by Professor Colin Jemmott (Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute)

Although the amount of resources available on the internet seems to be growing daily, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to navigate the sea of information. While one might expect the influx of articles to make it easier to answer questions, the information accessible is often written well after the historical events have concluded, reflecting modern perspectives and interpretations. When answering historical questions, people often tend to rely on a simple Google search, which leads to websites such as Wikipedia. These sites can be problematic due to the unreliability of sources and the tendency to project 21st-century viewpoints onto historical information. These tools provide users with a surface-level summary that lacks the historical nuance and contextualization that is needed for a thorough understanding of the matter at hand. This project aims to address this gap in relevant and credible information retrieval. This project accomplishes these goals through Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), which is a combination of a search algorithm andLarge Language Models (LLMs) to answer user queries. Retrieval Augmented Generation avoids the limitations of traditional search functions, which can struggle with large amounts of data, causing inaccurate or oversimplified results. A user can ask a question about historical events, and our model will search, retrieve, and synthesize data, ultimately responding to the user’s questions using a diverse array of historical news sources.

Winner 2024 Life & Health Sciences Category, nominated by Weg M. Ongkeko (Department of Surgery)

Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC) is a cancer of the mucosal epithelium in the oral cavity, larynx, and pharynx. It is the 6th most common cancer worldwide and is typically diagnosed at later stages, resulting in lower survival rates compared to other major cancers. Current diagnostic methods include tissue biopsy, lymph node biopsy, ultrasound, immunochemistry, CT, MRI, and PET. The goal of this project is to develop a blood-based diagnostic test for HNSCC less invasive and more cost-effective than current methods. The test utilizes the microbiome and genomics to effectively diagnose patients in early stages. The blood microbiome showed many species to be differentially abundant between cancer and normal samples, with significant overlap between blood and tissue microbiomes. The microbiome shows promising potential as a diagnostic tool in blood samples for HNSCC detection, with potential expansion to include additional markers.

First Place Winner 2023 Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Category, nominated by Mary Klann (Department of History)

Using a hypothetical case, examines the legal options available to a Hopi woman raped by her non-Indian husband in the Hopi reservation in Coconino County, Arizona. The Hopi Tribal Government has no jurisdication over this crime and recommends filing either a Civil Protection Order or a Domestic Violence Restraining Order with the state of Arizona. The paper examines the pros and cons of either choice

First Place Winner 2023 Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering Category, nominated by Weg M. Ongkeko (Department of Surgery).

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are disorders of the gastrointestinal system affecting a considerable portion of Western populations. With nearly 6.8 million individuals affected globally, the ability to accurately and efficiently diagnose the disease in patients is crucial. The gastrointestinal microbiome composition has been associated with several diseases, disorders, and cancers. Several microbial signature-based machine learning IBD predictive models have been developed but have yet to be implemented clinically due to poor external accuracy. This study analyzes the microbial compositions of 1612 stool samples from 665 patients across seven distinct shotgun metagenomic cohorts in constructing an IBD diagnostic model capable of high predictive accuracy and robustness. We created a 14-species diagnostic ML panel and validated the performance of the model on 3 independent patient cohorts. Testing the ML model against other microbiome-associated diseases, such as colorectal cancer and type 2 diabetes, suggested that the diagnostic model is specific to IBD. The model's reliance on abundance levels of only 14 biomarker species, in addition to its non-invasive nature, makes diagnosis relatively inexpensive and convenient. Furthermore, the signature is stable across different patient cohorts, sequencing pipelines, and sample preparation methods. To examine potential mechanisms by which the microbiome influences IBD, we identified 23 metabolic pathways that were consistently differentially enriched across cohorts, 2 microbes of the greatest contribution to differences in pathway abundance, and metabolites correlated to the presence of the 14 biomarker species.

Second Place Winner 2022, nominated by Sheng Xu (Department of Nanoengineering)

Perovskites could be used for solar cells, LEDs, lasers, photodetectors and much more, but there are programs that need to be solved: their lifetime, efficiency, and toxicity. Examines the feasibility of making devices by growing single crystal perovskites.

Second Place Winner 2022, nominated by Amir Zarrinpar (Department of Gastroenterology)

Polycystic ovary syndrome is the leading cause of infertility and is often ineffectively treated. The LET mouse model replicates PCOS phenotype. Exposure to healthy gut microbiome ameliorates PCOS in mice. Gut microbes that express BSH can modify bile acids. BSH-expressing ENB facilitate bile acid deconjugation in mice. Mice with BSH-expressing ENB have improved insulin response. BSH does not affect normal mouse estrous cyclicity. Mice with BSH-expressing ENG have decreased androgen levels. BSH-expressing bacteria might have potential to prevent human PCOS.

First Place Winner 2022, nominated by Stanley Lo (Department of Cell and Developmental Biology)

The goal of this study is to develop a quantitative survey informed by education field research to examine the conceptions of diversity in a larger population of faculty across the nation. The results of this survey could serve as a reflection tool for instructors that would allow them to better understand their own conceptions of diversity. In doing this, we hope to increase instructors' awareness of their biases and perceptions of diversity in order to encourage conceptual change as well as positively promote equity and inclusive classrooms.

Second Place Winner 2021, nominated by Leslie Carver (Department of Psychology)

Among disparities that the Latino Community experiences, the largest of them outlined in this presentation is the lack of access to care. Quality medical help exists, however lower socioeconomic status Latin Families experience a significant difference in the quality of care they receive versus that of their white counterparts. There were multiple factors my research outlines; however, the most prevalent is how blocked access to quality care leads to late diagnosis & treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Second Place Winner 2021, nominated by Weg M. Ongkeko (Department of Surgery)

Examines the influence of the microbiome on pancreatic adenocarcinoma, with the goal to identify and characterize the microbes contributing to PAAD progression and to elucidate why age is such a big risk factor.

First Place Winner 2021, nominated by Weg M. Ongkeko (Department of Surgery)

African American and Hispanic individuals are more likely to test positive for COVID-19. African American, Hispanic, and Asian American individuals are more likely to face hospitalization, infection, and death due to COVID-19. We found that racial and ethnic minorities face a higher risk of COVID-19 ICU admission, hospitalization, and positivity. Soscioeconomic deprevation is a moderating variable for worsened COVID-19 outcomes in racial and ethnic minorities. Public health policies should address socioeconomic and racial disparities to reduce exposure and fatality due to COVID-19 in underrepresented populations