Supporting the Social Sciences

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The Fund for Excellence in Social Sciences

Support Fund

UC Berkeley Women in Leadership Circle

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Join The Charter Hill Society for the Social Sciences!

Berkeley Social Sciences asks questions about the human condition and circumstances under which a good society can flourish.

In an ever-changing world, we ask about how population displacement, refugees, and inequality affect human flourishing; about the impacts of technology on cognition; how we can create responsible, informed citizens; and the future of democracy. In addressing these questions, we leverage the extraordinary intellectual breadth and depth of our faculty and students. While the technology we are interacting with is new and ever-changing, the fundamental questions remain. New tools allow access to social data as never before and require new methods of training. Your support enables Berkeley Social Sciences to meet these challenges and embrace opportunity. No other institution creates this combination of access and excellence while enabling research for the public good and social mobility.

Philanthropic support is integral to the teaching and research of UC Berkeley. Your gift to the social sciences allows students to focus on what is most important and graduate on time, eases the burden of costs in the Bay Area, and ensures access to the greatest teachers and scholars in the world.

Support Social Sciences Departments

Mail-in Form: Checks and Cash

Gifts of cash made to the UC Regents and the UC Berkeley Foundation are equally tax-deductible and are used for the purposes specified by the donor. Download the mail-in form here.

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Your investment in faculty and graduate students will ignite the very core of Berkeley’s excellence and secure our intellectual future for decades to come.

Supporting Faculty

Supporting social sciences faculty addresses both near- and long-term needs by improving endowed funds targeting recruitment and retention, raising current use gifts in support of research, and securing additional funds to support career teaching positions. Supporting our faculty in this way relieves bottlenecks in gateway courses and brings teaching commitments by tenure-track faculty in line with peer institutions. Your support ensures that our students have access to the best scholars in the world and that cutting-edge research is conducted at UC Berkeley amidst our commitment and dedication to the public good.  

Supporting Graduate Student Fellowships

Recognizing the importance of graduate students to the research enterprise, as well as their impact on teaching and institutional reputation, the Social Sciences Division will expand the number and total amount of graduate fellowship endowments. Among our priorities are more stable, multi-year fellowships to ensure the size and quality of our graduate student cohorts and an increase in the amount of summer funding to ensure they remain focused on their scholarship.

Meet the Development Team 

<h3>Christian Gordon</h3> Christian Gordon is the Assistant Dean of Development for the Social Sciences. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Christian led successful fundraising programs in science and engineering, business, and liberal arts at institutions on both coasts. He earned a bachelor's degree from Grand Valley State University and a master's degree from Boston University. 
Anya Essiounina Anya Essiounina is the Director of Development for the Division of Social Sciences. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Anya led the development operations team at the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund in San Francisco. She moved to the Bay Area from New York, where she worked for the Clinton Foundation. She holds a BA from UCLA and an MPA from USC. She was born in Vladivostok, Russia and grew up in San Diego, California. 
Erik Lehto Erik Lehto is the Associate Director of Development for the Social Sciences division. Prior to joining the Division of Social Sciences, Erik worked in UC Berkeley's Principal Gifts group, where he assisted gift officers in building relationships with some of the university's most significant philanthropic partners. He holds a master’s degree in religion, ethics, and politics from Harvard Divinity School, a master’s degree in Catholic systematics from Boston College, and bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and English from Colorado State University.
Tara C. H. McCulloch Tara C. H. McCulloch is the Associate Director of Development for the Division of Social Sciences. Tara previously served in the office of international relations, where she facilitated the engagement of Berkeley's international alumni, parents, friends, and institutions for support of the campus's highest priorities. Tara holds a bachelor's degree in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.