Under the mentorship of Associate Professor of management Ye Li, UCR student Alyssa Fundal ’24 was named one of 13 Chancellor’s Research Fellows for undergraduate research at UC Riverside.

“Fellowship applications are highly competitive, including a review of the project proposal by an interdisciplinary faculty review committee and an in-person interview for select finalists,” says Li. “This is obviously a big accomplishment for Alyssa and exciting news for the business school, as the Chancellor’s Research Fellowship awardees represent the most promising researchers across campus.”

Li is the first School of Business faculty member to successfully mentor a Chancellor’s Research Fellow, which includes a $5,750 summer stipend and research funding.

Fundal is a member of Li’s Behavioral Economics and Decision-making Lab , and she is a double major in environmental science and psychology.

Her six-month research study is entitled “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Social Responsibility- based Poster Messaging at Demotivating Food Waste Behaviors in UCR Residential Dining Halls.” As detailed in the study’s proposal, Fundal will “measure and reduce food waste in UCR’s two buffet-style residential dining halls … the study will administer pre- and post-intervention surveys to 600 UCR residents to better understand diners’ perceptions and motivations behind food wastage and evaluate the effectiveness of posters with social responsibility-based messaging at reducing food waste.”

The study will be conducted in partnership with UCR Dining Services, and the hope is that the findings will, according to the proposal, “help advance UCR toward systemwide waste goals set in the University of California’s systemwide Sustainable Practices Policy.”