Undergraduate Research

Opportunities Center

N e w s l e t t e r | S P R I N G 2026

2026 Graduating Class

UROC Researchers

UROC is proud to play a role in the development of education ownership, intellectual vibrancy, and scholarly identity in our CSUMB students. This growth allows students to not only move into the next phase of their academic careers, but also better prepare for the intellectual challenges they will encounter. We congratulate the following UROC students who will embark on a whole new academic journey around the country and globe this coming fall.

Sam Minard

UROC Scholar

Master of Science in Social Scientific Data Analysis

Lund University, Sweden

Abraham Porras-Vargas

UROC Scholar

Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior

University of Illinois

Urbana-Champain

Madalyn Sears

UROC Researcher

Master of Science in Environmental Science

CSU Monterey Bay

Ivet Machuca

Koret Scholar

Master of Social Work

CSU Monterey Bay



Jacqueline Schmidt

Koret Scholar

Master in Neuroscience

John Hopkins University



Sofia Barajas

McNair Scholar

Master of Science in Biological Sciences

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Latasha Neil

McNair Scholar

Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology

UC Riverside



Denisse Emeterio

UROC Scholar

Professional Science Master in Biotechnology

University of San Francisco

Megan Staton

Innovation Scholar

Master in Marine Biology

James Cook University, Australia

Melanie Abarca

McNair Scholar

Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Science

University of Missouri

Reina Yorba-Rico

McNair Scholar

Ph.D. in Education

University of Wisconsin Madison

Audrey Longan

UROC Scholar

Master of Science in Ecology

Colorado State University



Alondra Casas Navarro

Innovation Scholar

Master of Science in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology

Montana State University

Kiwi Cervantes

Koret Scholar

Master of Science in Kinesiology

San Francisco State University

Max Johnston-Gomez

GREAT Scholar

Master of Science in Marine Science

Moss Landing Marine Labs



Ximena Pichon Rivera

UROC Researcher

Teaching Credential Program

Fresno State University

Arshpreet Kaur

UROC Researcher

Master of Industrial / Organizational Psychology

San Francisco State University



Addison Ryne

UROC Researcher

Master of Science in Marine Science

Moss Landing Marine Labs



Joshua Meyers

UROC Researcher

Master of Science in Kinesiology

San Francisco State University

Valeria Sotelo

UROC Researcher

Master of Arts in Psychological Science

CSU San Bernardino



Maxwell Frantz

UROC Researcher

Master of Science in Environmental Science

CSU Monterey Bay



And a Round of Applause Goes to...

• Saba Shah, Koret Scholar for moving on as a Semi-Finalist for the highly competitive Fulbright U.S. Student Program. 

• Samarth Jayadev, UROC Scholar (Alum) for being awarded the highly competitive NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for graduate studies.

• Alyssa Walter, UROC Scholar (Alum) for being awarded the highly competitive NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for graduate studies.

• Addison Ryne, UROC Scholar for being awarded the highly competitive NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for graduate studies.

• Yeritzi Victoria, McNair Scholar (alum) for being awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Honorable Mention, recognition for robust developmental psychology research being conducted at UC Irvine. 

• Abraham Porras- Vargas, UROC Scholar, for being awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Honorable Mention.

• Nevan Bell, UROC Scholar (Alum) for being recognized as a CSU Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program award recipient.

• • •

2026 Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year

Dr. Steven Machek, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology was selected as this year's Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year!

Dr. Steven Machek, assistant professor in the Kinesiology department at CSUMB. He has a background in sports nutrition and skeletal muscle physiology, but has recently focused on esports. Specifically, his lab is investigating how player skill and game genre influence player performance. Dr. Machek studies amateur- to top-level players, assessing metrics like reaction time, impulsivity, and hand dexterity. He is particularly interested in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which is the fifth iteration of a game series Dr. Machek has played since he was only 10 years old. He has since then been fortunate to collaborate with major esports partners, collecting data at internationally-recognized tournament events such as Genesis and Supernova. Dr. Machek continues to investigate how real-life competition scenarios impact cardiovascular stress at these large scale tournaments and at smaller local events.

This award is intended to recognize demonstrated excellence in supporting undergraduate researchers, to encourage mentoring relationships with undergraduate students, and to convey the campus' high regard for such contributions made by the academic and research community at CSUMB and beyond. 

Learn more about Dr. Machek and his accomplishments on our website.

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CSU Student Research Competition 2025 Results

The California State University Student Research Competition (CSU SRC) held this past April, was hosted by San José State University. The CSUMB Delegates presented across 2 days in six different categories alongside 240 students representing all 23 campuses. 

Congratulations to Tyler Cassidy & Elijah Brunnengraeber who won the AI-Enabled Research Award for Training Machine Learning Models to Identify Abiotic Stress Factors in Problematic Central Coast Weeds Using Hyperspectral Data.

• Galilea Bustos-Ataide & Jasmine Torres, Psychology; Program Evaluation of a Trauma-Informed Pedagogy Micro-Credential for Faculty in Higher Education; Research Mentor: Dr. Christine Valdez, CSUMB, Psychology; Competition Category: Education
• Tyler Cassidy and Elijah Brunnengraeber, Marine Science and Biology; Training Machine Learning Models to Identify Abiotic Stress Factors in Problematic Central Coast Weeds Using Hyperspectral Data; Research Mentor: Dr. Arunkumar Sharma, CSUMB, Biology, Agriculture and Chemistry Department; Competition Category: Biological & Agricultural Sciences
• Michael (Max) Johnston-Gomez, Marine Science; Plenty of (Rock)Fish in the Sea: Genetic Species ID of Baja California Rockfish Larvae; Research Mentors: Dr. John Carlos Garza, UC Santa Cruz, Department of Ocean Sciences; Competition Category: Biological & Agricultural Sciences
• Jena Kottke, Kinesiology; Potential Relationship Between Jump Power and Winning Scores in Doubles Pickleball; Research Mentor: Dr. Eric Martin, CSUMB, Kinesiology; Competition Category: Health, Nutrition & Clinical Science
• Joshua Meyers, Kinesiology; Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Player Skill Influences Simple And Spatially-cued Reaction Speeds Without Impacting Impulsivity; Research Mentor: Dr. Steven Machek; CSUMB, Kinesiology; Competition Category: Health, Nutrition & Clinical Sciences
• Addison Ryne, Marine Science; Advancing Rapid Quantification of Microcystis Colonies in Freshwater Systems Using Digital Holography; Research Mentor: Dr. Aditya R. Nayak, Florida Atlantic University, Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering; Competition Category: Biological & Agricultural Sciences
• Jasmine Torres and Destiny Renero, Psychology; Examining the Impact of Psychopathology Overreporting on the Validity of the 25-Item PID-5 Brief Form Scales in an English/Spanish Bilingual Sample; Research Mentor: Dr. Danielle Burchett, CSUMB, Psychology; Competition Category: Behavioral & Social Sciences & Public Administration
• Maria Ugaz, Biology; Mapping Transposable Element Expression Across Hydra Cell Types Using Single-Cell Transcriptomics; Research Mentor: Dr. Aide Macias-Muñoz, UC Santa Cruz, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Competition Category: Biological & Agricultural Sciences

• • •

GECA Research Presentations

Buck speaks to students from Gilroy Early College Academy about the importance of research and scholarship.

On April 24, 2026, UROC hosted 59 students from Dr. TJ Owens Gilroy Early College Academy (GECA) who presented research posters across disciplines at the Tanimura and Antle Family Memorial Library. Following a similar format to the Spring Showcase, students presented their research to friends, family, university faculty, as well as a panel of judges, who evaluated their presentations using the same criteria used as the Summer Research Symposium. The top 5 research presentations were presented with Outstanding Research Poster Awards. 

Earlier in the year, UROC hosted nearly 70 GECA students who were introduced to undergraduate research, research ethics, and heard from 11 UROC students about their experiences as first-generation college students pursuing graduate studies. Additionally, UROC provided workshops in research poster development to further prepare students for their upcoming presentations. 

The student research presentations were excellent and they all appreciated the opportunity to present their year-long research at a university venue. Meg Omainsky, English teacher at GECA, shared with us the following: “Thank you very much for hosting us and providing our students with such a high-quality platform to present their work. The partnership we’ve developed with UROC this year has been instrumental in transforming our senior project into a more college-aligned research program, and we look forward to continuing this collaboration”. Meg and her team now intend to bring the 2026-27 cohort of students to visit the Summer Research Symposium in August to further deepen their understanding and appreciation of research and scholarship.

Opportunities like this not only help increase students’ scholarly identity and intellectual curiosity, but also demonstrate that CSUMB is a perfect place to pursue their undergraduate careers.

• • •

Summer Research Fun

Every spring, students across  UROC Programs are encouraged and supported to apply to faculty-mentored summer research experiences across the country. The benefits are vast. Participating in national cohort-based research experiences can help students connect their CSUMB studies to further build on their career interests and post-graduation plans while also enhancing  written and oral communication, critical thinking, and technical skills  Exposure to sub branches within one’s discipline can broaden disciplinary perspectives and may introduce new methodologies and research approaches that augment overall research knowledge and understanding. It’s an experience that integrates research and education! 

We asked the following research students what they are most looking forward to this summer on their host campus. See their responses below!  

Cesar Ojeda, Kinesiology, McNair Scholar: I am looking forward to conducting research with the faculty at Creighton University. Research in exercise science at Creighton University covers a range of topics such as nutrition, body composition and exercise immunology. I am also excited for the opportunity to expand my knowledge and be a part of new research projects that would help me expand my skill sets.

Uma Vij, Psychology, Koret Scholar: I am really excited about my summer internship at UC Irvine in the neuroscience department! What I’m most looking forward to is that I will get hands-on experience in the field I love. I’m excited to collaborate with my peers and learn more from my research mentors at UCI. I’m super thrilled that I get to participate in neuroscience research at a larger institution so I can build on my skills and prepare for graduate school.

Andres Ramirez, Agricultural Plant and Soil Sciences, UROC Researcher: I am looking forward to living in New York for a few months conducting research at Cornell University. As well as developing skills that can be used in the future. I’m very excited to meet new people and make connections throughout summer.

Adrian Ramirez, Marine Science, McNair Scholar: There’s quite a lot I’m looking forward to as I’m preparing to attend an opportunity with Oregon State University. But it mainly chalks down to my excitement to collaborate with researchers who are actively in positions I wish to pursue, and I hope to build a friendly relationship with the GEMM lab. In addition, I’m also looking forward to continuing to work alongside marine mammals, something a younger me could never have dreamed of. This project, to me, is a lot more than an added CV line, but a showcase of how far I’ve come in my educational journey. 

Stephanie Lara-Sotelo, Statistics, McNair Scholar: This summer I will be at Pennsylvania State University working with Dr. Matthew Beckman. I am excited about getting to live on the East Coast for a few weeks while working on statistics education research. I am passionate about both statistics and education, so getting to work in the overlap of these two subjects is something I am really looking forward to. I was also informed that there are some really good ice cream shops in the area, which is arguably the best thing I am excited about (apart from my research of course).

Coral Cisneros Cahue, Marine Science, McNair Scholar: I am looking forward to conducting research at Oregon State University with one of the professors at Hatfield Marine Science Center. I am mostly excited to be collecting data in the field and analyzing it in the lab. The bonus is that Oregon is a beautiful area, and I plan to explore as much as I can in my free time.

• • •

UROC Alumni Update

Checking in on some of our alumni and their most recent accomplishments.

• • •

Celebrating Publishing

Congratulations to the following newly published UROC alumni and their research faculty!

Navid Amarlou, UROC Scholar. Community Hubs as Essential Infrastructure in Proximity-Based Urban Design: Addressing Structural Barriers to Mental Health. 2026. Journal of Urban Design for Mental Health 10(1): 1-6.

Sarah Gonzalez-Coffin, UROC Researcher alum. Social Science for climate-resilient grasslands: Strategies to support individual and systemic adaptation. 2026, iScience 29, 116265.

Lauren Kashiwabara, UROC Scholar alum. Hypoactivity following chronic exposure to tire, polylactic acid, and mixtures of micro and nanoplastics in an estuarine zooplankton species. 2026. Clean Oceans (2): 1-12.

Hannah Kim, UROC Researcher alum. Two decades on: A follow-up comparison of beetle (Coleoptera) and spider (Araneae) diversity in a mosaic of farmland, edge, and tropical forest habitats in western Costa Rica. 2026. The Pan-Pacific Entomologist 102 (1): 1-14.

Melissa-Ann Lagunas, Koret Scholar alum. Pain Catastrophizing as a Predictor of Anxiety and Depression Outcomes Following Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy for Older Adults With Chronic Pain and the Role of Treatment Attendance. 2026. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 11:29-36.

Nikole Babcock, UROC Scholar alum. Black and Latine sexual minoritised individuals' experiences accessing HIV prevention services in US medical settings. 2026. Culture, Health, & Sexuality.

CSU Pre-Doctoral Sally Casanova Award:

New Recipients, New Health Pre Doc Award, & Summer Research Awardees 

Congratulations to the following 4 undergraduates and 3 graduate CSUMB students, who have been named 2026-2027 Scholars as part of the CSU PreDoctoral Program.  In coordination with individualized attention from their faculty mentor, each scholar will receive an award of $5,000 to support doctoral studies as well as professional development endeavors for the upcoming award year. 

Sally Casanova Scholars

• Rogelio Ahumada, Psychology; Dr. Renee Penalver
• Navid Amarlou, Psychology; Dr. Mrinal Sinha
• Jordan Pilcher, Marine Science; Dr. Liz Alter
• Andrea Tamayo, Psychology; Dr. Shannon Snapp

Health Professions Scholars 

• Eli Wellman, Psychology; Dr. Jennifer Lovell
• Aileen Sandoval, Social Work; Dr. Nereida Robles Vasquez
• Jennifer Aquino, Social Work; Dr. Renie Rondon-Jackson

The CSU PreDoctoral program is designed to increase the pool of potential faculty by supporting the doctoral aspirations of California State University students. The program places a special emphasis on increasing the number of CSU students who enter doctoral programs at one of the University of California institutions. The mission of the Health Professions Scholars Initiative (HPSI) is to guide California State University (CSU) students toward graduate education in the health professions by fostering mentorship, applied research, and community-focused scholarship to support the well-being of California’s communities. 

For the 2026-27 year, scholars, both undergraduate and graduate students, were selected from 279 applicants across the CSU to become a Sally Casanova Scholar or a Health Professions Scholar.  Since 1987, the California State University (CSU) California Pre-Doctoral Program has supported more than 2,700 scholars across the CSU system. 

Graduated Pre Doc Scholars Earn Top Funding for Summer Research 

Congratulations to the 2025-26 cohort of Sally Casanova Scholars- now CSUMB alum- for earning summer research stipends to conduct research after graduation at the following institutions, June-September 2026:

• Abraham Porras Vargas (Biology) will conduct research at Cornell University.
• Ava Besecker (Marine Science) will conduct research at University of Miami.
• Reina Yorba-Rico (Psychology) will conduct research at UC Santa Cruz.
• Melanie Abarca Valdez (Psychology) will conduct research at University of Missouri-Columbia. 

The 2027-28 scholarship application cycle will open in December 2026.  Interested in learning more about this scholarship? Pop into an information session this fall; sign up on MyRaft. 

To request a consultation, email predoc@csumb.edu

• • •

CSMB Commencement 2025

Enjoy some pictures from CSUMB Commencement on May 17th, 2025.

UROC Scholar Audrey Longan and McNair Scholar Nancy Espitia

Innovation Scholar Daniel Sambold and UROC Researcher Michael Torrisi

Dr. John Olson with UROC Scholar Abraham Porras Vargas

GREAT Scholar Maria Ugaz and Koret Scholar Jacqueline Schmidt

McNair Scholars Nancy Espitia and Heaven Smith

GREAT Scholars Sergio Zavala and Daniel Solano

UROC Researcher Ximena Pichon, Innovation Scholar Alondra Casas Navarro, and McNair Scholar Andrea Grande

McNair Scholar Aaron Wickware

Koret Scholars Ariyanna Piazza and Carlos Garcia

• • •

Summer Research Symposium 2026

Mark your calendars! The 13th annual CSUMB Summer Research Symposium will take place on Friday, August 7th, 8:30am - 3:30pm at the Tanimura and Antle Family Memorial Library. The Symposium will feature a research poster gallery and oral research presentations. Join us!