Meet the 2025-26 Humanities EXPLORE Fellows
Forty-four undergraduate fellows from across the division joined the Humanities EXPLORE Program cohort this fall to serve as paid research assistants working on more than 20 faculty projects. An additional 20 students are expected to join the program beginning in January. Fellows regularly meet with their faculty mentors and research teams throughout the academic year, and all fellows are invited to meet with each other and divisional staff twice each quarter for reflection and professional development.
Students from every department within the division participate in this experiential learning program on various projects. This serves as a powerful reminder that research in the humanities doesn’t rely on a single method or formula. It is as varied as the questions scholars pursue. It may include archival research, close reading, digital analysis, creative work, community engagement, or theoretical exploration. Instead of sticking to one standard approach, humanities research is fueled by curiosity, interpretation, and critical engagement with culture, language, and history. This flexibility allows researchers to explore complex human experiences from multiple perspectives and with different kinds of evidence.
The Humanities EXPLORE Program is led by the UCSC Humanities Division with strategic support from The Humanities Institute.
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies
Archiving Movement: UC Campus Activism in a Time of Genocide with Professor Jennifer Mongannam
Feminist Studies and Cognitive Science Double Major
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Major
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies and Global and Community Health Double Major
Counter-Colonial Ecologies with Professor M. Ty
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Major
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Major, Education Minor
Humanities Major/Minor
Santa Cruz in Color with Professor Christine Hong and the Center for Racial Justice
Linguistics Major
Global and Community Health and Latin American & Latino Studies Double Major
Major/Minor
Languages and Applied Linguistics
Acoustics of Bilingual Speech with Professor Mark Amengual
Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism Major
Applied Linguistics & Multilingualism and Literature Double Major, Spanish Studies Minor
Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism Major, Spanish Studies Minor
Bilingual Minds in Motion: Code-Switching, Culture, and Cognition with Professor Ariel Chan
Humanities Major/Minor
Humanities Major/Minor
Humanities Major/Minor
Multilingual Corpus of Paraguay with Professor Josefina Bittar Prieto
Applied Linguistics Major
Literature
Alien Intelligence & Human Imagination with Professor Zac Zimmer
Literature Major, Spanish Studies Minor
Literature & Psychology Double Major
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies and Cognitive Science Double Major
History
BORDER FUTURES: Undergraduates Reimagining the US-Mexico Boundary through Film, Research, and Community-Humanitarian Engagement with Professor Grace Peña Delgado
History Major
Feminist Studies and Film & Digital Media Double Major
History and Sociology Double Major
Islamic Material Culture in West Africa: Exhibition and Academic Engagement at UCSC with Dr. Thiago Mota
Philosophy and History of Art & Visual Culture Double Major
Jewish Studies and Psychology Double Major
History and Mathematics Double Major, and History of Consciousness minor
History of Consciousness minor
Japanese American Redress Projects with Professors Alice Yang and Jasmine Alinder
History of Art & Visual Culture Major, History Minor
History and Anthropology Double Major
Feminist Studies and Politics Double Major
Psychology Major and History Minor
Selling Saqqara with Dr. Elaine Sullivan
History Major, History of Art & Visual Culture Minor
History of Consciousness
The Visual Making of the Pajaro and Salinas Valleys with Professor Dimitris Papadopoulos
Art Major, East Asian Studies Minor
Humanities Major/Minor
The Humanites Institute
Oaxacan Languages of the Transnational Central Coast with Professor Pranav Anand (Linguistics)
Major/Minor
Major/Minor
Major/Minor
Okinawa Memories Initiative with Professor Alan Christy (History)
Anthropology and Environmental Science Double Major, History Minor
Philosophy Major
Literature Major
History and Environmental Science Double Major
Global and Community Health Major, History Minor
History Major
History Major
Saritaan: Filipino and Filipino American Stories – a Watsonville is in the Heart project, with Professor Kathleen Gutierrez and Dr. Meleia Simon-Reynolds (Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences)
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies and Sociology Double Major
History Major and East Asian Studies Minor
History Major
History Major
Shakespeare Workshop; Shakespeare in Santa Cruz: A Performance History, with Professor Sean Keilen (Literature)
Major/Minor
Major/Minor
Major/Minor
Linguistics
Linguistics Oral History with Professor Maziar Toosarvandani
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies major
Teguima Research and Revitalization with Professor Christian Ruvalcaba
Linguistics Major
Psychology and Cognitive Studies Double Major, Spanish Studies Minor
Undergraduate Research Fellows in Linguistics and Language Science
Humanities Major/Minor
Humanities Major/Minor
Writing Programs
Discourse Analysis: The Happiness Project with Dr. Kim Adilia Helmer
Linguistics Major, History of Consciousness Minor
Linguistics Major
Hybridization of African American and Korean Cultures in K-pop and Call-and-Response Practices, with Professor Jamila Kareem
Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Major
The Humanities EXPLORE Program is funded by The Mellon Foundation, The Helen and Will Webster Foundation, The Humanities Division, The Humanities Institute, and private donors.
Original Link: https://humanities.ucsc.edu/employing-humanities/meet-the-humanities-explore-fellows/