The Marcus Undergraduate Research Fellowship award supports research and creative activity conducted by undergraduate students in partnership with a faculty mentor. Recipients of the Marcus Fellowship will be part of a cohort of fellows engaged in programming that supports research throughout the course of the fellowship. This fellowship opportunity is aimed at undergraduates interested in working closely with a faculty member to develop, complete and present a research project. Applications for 2025–2026 will open in Spring 2025 and are due April 1, 2025.
Fellowship Overview
Deadline for submission: April 1, 2025 at 11:59 p.m.
Award amount: $4,000 ($3,000 to student, $1,000 to faculty mentor)
Timeline: Awardees are typically notified by the end of the spring semester. The Marcus Fellowship begins in the following fall and extends through spring of the following year.
Application Workshops
For more information on the Marcus Undergraduate Research Fellowship, you are invited to attend CURE’s student applications workshop on Tuesday, March 18th from 10:30-11:30am or Wednesday, March 19th from 3 – 4pm on Zoom, led by Professor Rebecca Eissler. Please email reissler@sfsu.edu for the Zoom link.
Submit an Application
Students from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences are encouraged to apply. These fellowships aim to enrich student learning rather than to reward past performance.
Requirements and Expectations
Student Eligibility
- Students must be declared undergraduate majors in the College of Liberal & Creative Arts. LCA minors can apply if their project is housed in the LCA and their mentor is an LCA faculty. Priority will be given to LCA majors.
- Student must be enrolled during both the fall and spring semesters of the awarded academic year.
- Students must not be studying abroad in 2025-26.
Faculty Eligibility
- The faculty mentor should be a tenured or tenure-track full-time faculty member in the College of Liberal & Creative Arts.
- The faculty mentor must commit to mentorship of the student fellow across a range of research or creative activities relevant to their discipline including project development and presentation of results.
- The faculty mentor must commit to meeting weekly or biweekly with the student.
Project Requirements and Expectations
Receiving Units
- Projects may be in conjunction with or independent of existing, scheduled coursework
- If independent, then the project may lead to course credits (e.g., 699 units)
- If in conjunction with a course then the project must involve significant activity beyond the course requirements
All recipients of the Marcus Fellowship are expected to participate in the following activities
- An orientation event and periodic meetings among the Marcus Fellows, faculty mentors, and program coordinator.
- An opening reception at the beginning of the Fall 25 semester.
- An outreach event to connect with potential future applicants.
- A recognition event near the end of the 2025-2026 academic year.
Deliverables
- Student recipients are expected to attend at least one conference to present their work; this may be a student research conference such as the LCA Undergraduate Research Showcase, or the student section of a professional conference.
- At the end of the spring semester, the fellows are expected to submit a report (1000 words) summarizing their year-long project, and all other materials that pertain to their work, i.e. a paper, portfolio, etc.
Proposal
Preparing a Proposal
- Interested students should approach a faculty member with a project in mind and ask whether the faculty member is willing to serve a mentor for the project. Students should provide the faculty member with this document at the first meeting.
- The student, under the guidance and supervision of the faculty mentor, will prepare the proposal for submission. Keep in mind that proposals may take several weeks to develop and complete.
Components of the Proposal
The PDF document containing the research proposal will be written in Times 12 font, single-spaced, and with one-inch margins. The document should contain the following parts labeled according to the print in bold:
- Title of the Project: The title of the project should describe the project succinctly.
- Research Question or Project Goal: (1 sentence)
- Abstract: (100-150 words)
- Personal Statement: This section includes the student’s academic interests and goals, the way in which receiving the grant would help advance those goals, and any personal information the student and faculty mentor think would be useful to convey to the review committee. Students should make sure to articulate how the Fellowship is necessary for the execution of the project (maximum 500 words).
- Project Proposal Narrative: In this section, the student introduces the project, states the research question, describes the methods that will be used, and explains the value of the project (maximum 1,000 words).
- Timeline: This section provides a proposed timeline for the project from beginning to end, including mentor meetings, tasks associated with the project, and completion dates for the various activities. (maximum 1 page)
- Bibliography (optional): Provide a list of sources referenced in the proposal in the format and style expected in your discipline.
- Unofficial Transcript: For SFSU coursework only.
- Course Status: Is the project independent or part of a course? (If yes, then in one paragraph identify all of the activities that are beyond the course requirements)
- Faculty Statement: This section is prepared by the faculty mentor and explains the merits of the project, the likelihood the project can be completed in the timeline provided, describes the mentoring plan (e.g., frequency of meetings), and other information the faculty member thinks reviewers might find helpful (maximum 500 words)
Criteria for Proposal Evaluation
- Overall quality and clarity of the proposal
- Realistic scope of the project and likelihood of completion
- Potential impact on student, the value of personal outcomes
- Motivation and alignment with student's personal goals and development
- Clear evidence of a student-initiated project
- Level of faculty collaboration, as described in the timeline and faculty statement
- Student preparation, evidence of the training necessary to conduct the activity
- Shows familiarity with the relevant literature or discipline-specific practices
- Attention to/awareness of contribution of proposal to their field
- Does the project fit the award: “supports research and creative activity conducted by undergraduate students in partnership with a faculty mentor.”
- Demonstration of need for the Fellowship
- How is this project outside regular academic pursuits
Marcus Research Fellowship Grant: Current and Past Winners
Examining the Role of Independence in the Game Development Industry
Sumayah Ahmed
Department Department of Comparative and World Literature
Mentor: Christopher Weinberger
Revisiting The Tenderloin Times: A Journalistic Analysis of a Community’s Voice Replaced by Modern-day News
Camila Dominguez
Department of Journalism
Mentors: Laura Moorhead & Josh Davis
At Home
Aubrey Pandori
Department of Cinema
Mentor: Rosa Park
The Influence of Female Leadership in the Iroquois Tribe on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Women’s Suffrage in the 1800s
Maria Rubio-Ruiz
Department of Women & Gender Studies
Mentor: Leslie Quintanilla
The BioShower: A Portable Hygiene Station for those with Limited Access to Clean Water
Jacob Sutton
Department of Design
Mentor: Fernando Felicio Dos Santos De Carvalho
Marked by Tradition: Exploring the Significance of Batok in Filipino Tribal Culture
Kesiah Mae Zabala
Department of History
Mentor: Laura Lisy-Wagner
Queer Innovation: Use of English Loanwords Among Young LGBT+ Dutch Speakers
Ava Austin
Department of English Language and Literature
Mentor: Teresa Pratt
Le triomphe des opprimés (The Triumph of the Oppressed): Analysis and Translation of American-Creole Narrative Identity in L’Union and La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans, Louisiana’s Oldest Civil-War Era Afro-Creole Newspapers (in French)
Laine Barriga
Department of Humanities and Comparative World Literature
Mentor: Persis Karim
The Christian Conservative Supreme Court: An Analysis of the Roberts Court’s Religious Liberty
Eleanor Boone
Department of Political Science
Mentor: Amanda Roberti
Labor Unions: Political Determinants of Unionization Trends in Journalism
Gabriela Calvillo Alvarez
Department of Political Science
Mentor: Whitney Taylor
What Can Comics Be? An investigation into the potential forms and affordances of comics
Ashley Nortman
School of Liberal Studies
Mentor: Nick Sousanis
Carrying the Pandemic: An Experimental Poem About Essential Workers and Hyperobjects
Andrew Pimentel
Department of Creative Writing
Mentor: Andrew Joron
Vietnamese Rock & Soul
Tam Vu
Department of Journalism
Mentor: Josh Davis
Developing Postmodern Feminism via Transliteration of Kawakami Mieko’s "Breast and Eggs": The Transculturation of Anglophone and Japanese Feminist Rhetoric
Breanna Barton-Shaw
Department of Comparative & World Literatures
Mentor: Chris Weinberger
Blackbook Stories: Visual Scripts and Community Narratives within San Francisco Graffiti Subcultures
José Hernandez
School of Design
Mentor: Ellen Christensen
Learning to Read Petrarch: A Diary Study on Language Learning in Diverse Learning Environments
Gabriella Melton
Department of English Language and Literature
Mentor: Maricel Santos
Democratic Queer Theory: Extending LGBTQ+ Civil & Social Rights Globally
Ki Singh
Department of Political Science
Mentor: Amanda Roberti
Examining Direct-To-Consumer Advertising and Health Culture Through the Lens of Presidio Archaeology
RJ Stevens
Department of Anthropology
Mentor: Meredith Reifschneider
Remixing Philosophy: A series of videos applying ancient ideas to modern times
Alexander Vahied
School of Cinema, Department of Philosophy
Mentor: Kimbrough Moore
Gerrymandering and Voter Disenfranchisement - How District Lines are Used to Suppress the Vote and How We Might Fix It
Gillian Welcher
Department of Political Science
Mentor: Rebecca Eissler
The Latin American Landscape: Identity and Ancestry in the works of Regina José Galindo, Ana Mendieta, Delilah Montoya and Aline Motta
Quitéria Conte
School of Art
Mentor: Professor Santhi Kavuri-Bauer
Brimful World: An Avaricious Humanity is Destroying a Helpless Planet
Alexis Doukakis
School of Cinema
Mentor: Assistant Professor Rosa Park
Through the Wire: Negotiating Identity through History, Cinema, and the Japanese American Incarceration Experience
Kevin Kodama
School of Cinema
Mentor: Assistant Professor Mayuran Tiruchelvam
The Metamorphosis of The Gender Non-Conforming
Carlos Osoria
Department of Comparative & World Literature
Mentor: Assistant Professor Leslie Quintanilla
Latinx Waves in K-pop
Giselle Peralta
Department of Anthropology
Mentor: Associate Professor Dawn-Elissa Fischer
Inside-Out: Literature’s Bearing on the Political Identity of Taiwan And How We Are to Understand It
Samantha Reinard
Department of Comparative & World Literature
Mentor: Associate Professor Chris Weinberger
A Price on Pride: Understanding the Commoditization of the Queer Identity in San Francisco
Maximilian DeNembo
School of Design
Mentor: Hsiao-Yun Chu
Defining Rurality: An Exploration of the Rural-Urban Connection in Different Parts of the United States
Fiona DeWitt
Political Science Department
Mentor: Rebecca Eissler
Explorations of Gesticulation-Based Upper Limb Appliances
Levi Gilbert
School of Design
Mentor: Silvan Linn
Everyday HEROs: Public Health Research during COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place
Gurjot Gill
Anthropology Department
Mentor: Peter Biella
Objectivity and Epistemic Commitment: Polanyi’s Critique of Reductionism
Aydin Jang
Philosophy Department
Mentor: Arezoo Islami
Korean American Cinema (1990s – Present): Confronting History and Myths in the Diaspora
B. Kim
School of Cinema
Mentor: Scott Boswell
Attainability of Official CSU Intended Outcomes: A Student Experience-Based Study
Ysenia Martinez
School of Design
Mentor: Tara Lockhart
Decline of the Latino Media in the San Francisco Bay Area
Adriana Morga Oregel
Journalism Department
Mentor: Laura Moorhead
The Semiotics of Power: Linguistic Structures of Neoliberal Hegemony
Mikey Pagan
School of Humanities and Liberal Studies
Mentor: Teresa Pratt
Battles, Bridges and Books: The Pursuit of Higher Education After Military Service
Janelle Scarritt
Mentor: Martha Lincoln
Development of a Hybrid Motorcycle Conversion Kit to Reduce Pollution in Low-Income Urban Areas
Anucha (Poh) Maga
Mentor: Silvan Linn
Does State of Residence Influence Concerns about Economic Inequity
Hannah Galindo
Mentor: Ronald Hayduk
Embodiment in XR: Using Research through Design Techniques in VR to Explore New Approaches to Attention, Interaction Rituals and Spatial Metaphors
Crystal Candalla
Mentor: Joshua McVeigh-Schultz
Gender’s Corporeality: Deconstructing Trans-Boundaries in Cinema
Lindhan Le
Mentor: Elizabeth Ramirez-Soto
Ireland and the Rise of Left-Wing Nationalism
Mikayla Cordero
Faculty member: Amy Skonieczny
Potential Wilderness
Duriel Meisner
Mentor: Sean McFarland
Social Media Usage and Political Behavior: Understanding How Situational Context Impacts Participation
Jorge Urroz
Mentor: Francis Neely
The Construct of Love and Sexuality in 17th-Century Japan
Kayla Ratliff
Mentor: Laura Lisy-Wagner
The Value of Life
Jamila Hayes
Mentor: Celine Parreñas Shimizu
