Announcing 60 Humanities EXPLORE Fellows

We are thrilled to announce the 2024-25 cohort of Humanities EXPLORE fellows. The Humanities EXPLORE (Experiential Learning Opportunities in Research) program provides undergraduate students with hands-on opportunities to practice their humanities skills and academic expertise as paid researchers on faculty-led research projects. 

This year’s cohort will boast 60 undergraduate EXPLORE fellows partnering with 21 faculty members and projects across a range of humanities disciplines. From examining the societal impacts of AI to digitizing creative writing archives and preserving stories of Filipino migration and labor in Watsonville, these projects connect students with hands-on research opportunities and valuable professional experience. Working with faculty, students learn and gain exposure to the variety of research methods used in their fields, such as oral history, discourse analysis, archive digitization, and more. 

EXPLORE is part of Dean Jasmine Alinder’s Employing Humanities initiative, which aims to make stronger, more explicit links between what students do in their coursework and what they’ll do when they graduate. A key goal of EXPLORE is to connect undergraduate students to a support network of faculty mentors, staff, peers, and resources that will encourage their growth as researchers and help them develop career-ready skills for both academic and professional settings. Students have the opportunity to participate in various faculty research projects, including new teams and others that have been established for a long time with support from The Humanities Institute. 

Each EXPLORE fellow dedicates 10-20 hours per week to their faculty-led research project. Through the program, fellows join a cohort of undergraduate researchers who meet during the year to share their experiences, participate in workshops and other activities, and receive additional mentorship. Fellows complete tasks such as goal setting and self-assessments every quarter, develop an effective resume and cover letter to support their career aspirations and share their work at an end-of-year experiential learning showcase. The fellowship empowers students to deepen their understanding of humanities studies while equipping them with direct experience conducting research, working with faculty, and bringing their academic knowledge to examine important questions for society. 

Congratulations to all of the 2024-25 EXPLORE fellows! Stay tuned as we share profiles and research stories, program updates, and other exciting news throughout the year. Follow @ucschumanities and @ucscthi to stay connected and learn more about upcoming opportunities.

AI & Human Imagination with Zac Zimmer (Literature)
Chloe Allen, Psychology Major and Literature Minor
Marissa Omaque, Anthropology and Literature
Caroline Wilson, Art Major and East Asian Studies Minor 

Coha-Gunderson Prize for Speculative Futures Exhibition at the Santa Cruz MAH with Carla Freccero (Literature)
Valerie Sainz, History and History of Art & Visual Culture Major

Creative Writing – “What Happened Next?” with Micah Perks (Literature)
Chimera Mohammadi, Literature Major
Clare O’Brien, Literature Major

Discourse Analysis with Kim Helmer (Writing Programs)
Grace Nighswonger, Cognitive Science and Linguistics Major

Japanese-American Redress Movements with Jasmine Alinder and Alice Yang (History)
Bengi Alfaro, Education Justice and Democracy, and History Major
Jade Glentzer,  Anthropology and History Major
Monnika Mattson, Psychology major and History Minor
Skyla Tomine, Politics and Feminist Studies Major

Mapping the offering of courses in African History through the UC system: what is Africa’s place in History curricula? With Thiago Mota (History)
Beckett Atkinson, History and Philosophy Major
Adam Ross, Global and Community Health and History Major
Ethan Strom, History Major  

Multilingual Corpus of Paraguay with Josefina Bittar (Languages & Applied Linguistics)
Gigi Lea, Applied Linguistics Major
Nora Ligotti, Languages & Applied Linguistics Major and Film & Digital Media Minor

Multilingual Hispanic Speech in CA with Mark Amengual (Languages and Applied Linguistics)
Eleanor Garrison, Applied Linguistics Major
Silvia Iniguez, Spanish Studies and Environmental Studies Major
Joscelyn Osorio, Spanish Studies and Psychology Major
Cassandra Ponce Ventura, Spanish Studies and Latino and Latin America Studies Major
Dacia van Wormer, Cognitive Science Major and Linguistics Minor
Pilar Zapien, Literature Major  

Okinawa Memories Initiative with Alan Christy (History)
Aivan Bach, Anthropology and Environmental Sciences Major
Walter Barnaby, History and Politics Major
James Leyton, History Major and East Asian Studies Minor
Seiya Mendiola, Literature Major
Geneva Samuelson, History Major
Court Sugano, Global & Community Health Major and History Minor
Nixie Young, History Major and Classical Studies Minor

Santa Cruz in Color with Christine Hong (Critical Race & Ethnic Studies)
Riley Alinsug, Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Major
Lucy Liu, Linguistics Major
Rafael Revolorio, Global & Community Health and Latino & Latin American Studies Major and Science & Justice Major
Keiko Utsumi, Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Major

Selling Saqqara with Elaine Sullivan (History)
Natalie Korobkova, Anthropology and History Major
Jackson Young, History and History of Art & Visual Culture Major

Shakespeare in Santa Cruz: Performance History with Sean Keilen (Literature)
Emma Bavera, Literature Major
Ani Tonoyan, Legal Studies and Psychology Major, Literature Minor 
Stone Williams, Literature 

Shakespeare Workshop with Sean Keilen (Literature)
Emma Bavera, Literature Major

Syllable Structure in Dialects of English with Rachel Walker (Linguistics)
Mesa Diehl, Linguistics Major
Killian Kiuttu, Linguistics Major and Statistics Minor
Missy McReynolds, Linguistics Major
Ben Sommer, Sociology and Linguistics Major

TEQ: Technology. Ethics. Questions. with Jonathan Ellis (Philosophy)
Coming Winter 2025 

What Happened Next? with Micah Perks (Literature, Creative Writing)
Clare O’Brien, Literature Major
Chimera Mohammadi, Literature Major

The Garden at the End of the Plantation with M. Ty (Critical Race & Ethnic Studies)
Coming Spring 2025

The Literary Bridge: Linking Skills and Careers
Abiagael Mcnelis, Literature and Politics Major
Kriti Dokania, Literature Major

Ultrasound/Acoustic Analysis with Jaye Padgett (Linguistics)
Lorelei Howe, Linguistics Major and Math Minor
Isabella Nordstrom, Linguistics Major

Visual Constructions of the Pajaro and Salinas Valleys with Dimitris Papadopoulos (History of Consciousness)
Julie Fintamag, History Major
Crystal Hicks Marin, Critical Race & Ethnic Studies and Film & Digital Media Major

Watsonville is in the Heart with Kat Gutierrez (History)
Julie Fintamag, History Major
Janeth Perez Quirke, Education, Democracy, and Justice, and Latino & Latin American Studies Major
Jamie Florence Dy, Critical Race & Ethnic Studies Major
Dani Dayao, Critical Race & Ethnic Studies and History of Art & Visual Culture majors  

The Humanities EXPLORE Program is made possible through support from The Mellon Foundation, The Helen and Will Webster Foundation, The Humanities Institute, and the UCSC Humanities Division. The Humanities EXPLORE program is part of a group of experiential learning opportunities for humanities students. To read about Humanities EXCEL (Experiential Career Exploration and Learning Program) fellows, click here.