2024 - 2025 Mentorship Participants

 Project Description:

Sofia Ulriksen will assist Professor Wirls with new research derived from his work on the Senate and white supremacy. This involves a 1920s incident when the United Daughters of the Confederacy proposed and nearly received congressional backing for a particularly racist memorial to be placed in Washington D.C. Sofia will conduct two types of research: 1) A bibliographic review of how scholars analyzed “white supremacy” 2) Primary research into the memorial proposal and actions taken on it; in particular, records kept by the United Daughters.

Mentee: Sofia Ulriksen is a third-year undergraduate student double majoring in Psychology and Legal Studies at UC Santa Cruz. In her free time, she assists high school and transfer students in applying to UCs through the Admissions Office. She is a part of two organizations on campus, Phi Alpha Delta and SlugMUN (UCSC’s Model United Nations Team). Through both of these organizations, she mentors younger students and assists them through University life. While she has always loved learning about the United States' political system, SlugMUN has sparked her interest in international law and its implications on our government. After graduating, she plans on pursuing a law degree to further her interest in law.

Mentor: Daniel Wirls is Professor of Politics at UC Santa Cruz and author of numerous works on the history of Congress and the Senate as well as U.S. military policy and American political thought. His most recent book is The Senate: From White Supremacy to Government Gridlock (University of Virginia Press, 2021). He is currently campus director for the UC in Washington (DC) program and served seven years as chair of Politics. Dan also serves on the board of the Council for a Livable World, the nation’s oldest anti-nuclear weapons political action committee.

 Project Description:

Mentee: Natalie DeLucchi is a third-year student in the Politics and Critical Race and Ethnic Studiesdepartments at UC Santa Cruz; she is minoring in Italian. As a prospective law student with aninterest in social policy and constitutional law, her main research interests include the domesticand international evolution of the welfare state and social policy, as well as Constitutional anti-discrimination and free speech issues. In the past, she conducted research at UC Santa Barbaraabout the tactics of right-wing extremist groups, with an emphasis on Reconstruction Era anti-Black violence and the January 6th Capitol Riots. After taking the course State and Capitalism inAmerican Political Development with Professor Bertram in her 2nd year, Natalie has beeninterested in furthering her understanding of how exclusions in social protections have shapedthe nature of labor and class in the United States. Outside of her academic pursuits, she is an avidreader and Formula 1 fan, as well as a member of the campus’ legal fraternity, Phi Alpha Delta.

Mentor: Eva Bertram is an Associate Professor in the Politics Department and Associate Director of theCenter for Economic Justice and Action at UCSC. She studies American politics, public policy,political history, and political economy; her areas of research focus include economic inequality,poverty, social policy, and labor market policy and politics. Her published works include TheWorkfare State: Public Assistance Politics from the New Deal to the New Democrats (Universityof Pennsylvania Press, 2015) and Drug War Politics: The Price of Denial (University ofCalifornia Press, 1996). She serves on the Board of Directors of the Community Action Boardfor Santa Cruz County, and the Faculty Advisory Board of the UCSC Center for Labor andCommunity. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University, and her B.A.from Swarthmore College.

 Project Description:

Professor Gifford-Gonzales and Jacqueline Nowak will collaborate on the continuation of Professor Gifford-Gonzalez’ research into the pre-colonial Native people’s relationships with land and sea birds and mammals in the Monterey Bay area. They will explore human-animal relations using two mammal species - one large, one small - across four Monterey Bay archaeological sites, using a database with over 20,000 entries.

Mentee: Jacqueline Nowak is a fourth-year undergraduate majoring in Anthropology and History, with aparticular focus on zooarchaeology. She has received a Koret grant for her research on thearchaeological evidence of cross-cultural interactions in Roman Scotland. She has been workingin Dr. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez’s lab as an intern since the winter of 2024, analyzing faunalremains from two archaeological sites at Moss Landing. Jacqueline plans to graduate in thespring, 2025 and to pursue graduate studies in archaeology and to continue developing herknowledge of zooarchaeology. 

Mentor: Diane Gifford-Gonzalez is an emerita Distinguished Professor in Anthropology presently onrecall so that she can offer undergraduates hands-on learning opportunities for lab tutorialcredit in her ongoing research. She is a zooarchaeologist, who studies remains of animals fromarchaeological sites to learn more about human-animal interactions. She’s researchingpre-colonial Native people’s relationships with land and sea birds and mammals in the MontereyBay area. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science andelected member of the National Academy of Sciences.

 Project Description:

As part of the Merrill College Undergraduate Research Mentorship Program, Alex Gomez and Professor Springer will collaborate on Prof. Springer’s ongoing exploration of Native American voting rights and vote suppression. Alex’s strong research and analytical writing skills will be utilized to compose literature reviews of relevant scholarly work and gather data from the recent 2024 elections. Throughout the mentorship, Alex will learn more about the process of doing original scholarly research as we work together to add knowledge about Native American experiences to our understanding of politics.

Mentee: Alex Gomez is a fourth-year Politics major at UC Santa Cruz with a focus on American political development and electoral politics. Interested in how political institutions shape elections and voter behavior, Alex has explored topics such as voter turnout and the role of state-level politics in national elections. Under the mentorship of Dr. Melanie Springer, Alex is furthering his research in these areas while also engaging in class discussions and internship surrounding political change. Alex plans to continue to be engaged in politics post graduation and seeks to expose the barriers present within our electoral system.

Mentor: Dr. Melanie Springer is an Associate Professor of Politics at UC Santa Cruz. She earned degrees in Political Science and History as an undergraduate at UC San Diego in 2000 and received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2006. She joined the Politics faculty at UCSC in Fall, 2013. She specializes in American Politics. Her book How the States Shaped the Nation: American Electoral Institutions and Voter Turnout, 1920-2000 was published in 2014 with the University of Chicago Press (Chicago Studies in American Politics). Her research continues to be published by various other scholarly presses. She is excited to be Alex’s faculty mentor!

 Project Description:

Professor Delgado and Liam Foster will collaborate on the manuscript for "Two Sisters, One Land," a pioneering historical biography of the US-Mexico border narrated through the lives of two fictitious sisters and their real historical ancestors. Liam will investigate the treatment of migrants, focusing on human rights abuses, detention conditions, and family separations. He will profile key human rights organizations and activists, blending their stories with fictional elements to create an engaging and relatable narrative. This project seeks to transform the prevailing nativist narrative surrounding the border into one that emphasizes human rights and humanitarianism from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. The Merrill College Provost Fellowship will support this mentorship, enabling the production of a timely and impactful study that bridges historical insights with modern policy analysis.

Mentee: Liam Foster is an undergraduate history student at UC Santa Cruz, passionately dedicated to human rights and humanitarian issues. His academic focus centers on the US-Mexico border, exploring immigration control policies and their global ramifications as part of US foreign policy. Liam aims to dissect the design and implementation of the Trump-era Border Wall, analyzing its architectural elements to reveal the dehumanizing aspects of US border policies. His coursework, including classes on nationalism, Chicano/a history, and border debates, has thoroughly prepared him for this research. Fluent in Spanish and proficient in conducting primary-source research, Liam exhibits strong interpretative skills, independent thinking, and a steadfast commitment to academic excellence, making him an exemplary candidate for the fellowship.

Mentor: Professor Grace Peña Delgado is a renowned historian specializing in global borders and US foreign policy. She has extensive expertise in US-Mexico border politics and history and focuses on migration, border control, and human rights. Professor Delgado has published extensively on the US-Mexico border, examining how immigration policies shape both national and international landscapes. Her mentorship will provide Liam with invaluable guidance in integrating historical narratives with contemporary policy analysis, ensuring a comprehensive approach to their research on immigrant rights.