Welcome New Social Sciences Faculty

Berkeley Social Sciences: New Faculty 2024-2025

Amitai Shenhav

Amitai Shenhav, Psychology

Research interests: Neural and Computational Mechanisms of Motivation, Affect, Decision-Making, and Cognitive Control.

Areej Sabbagh-Khoury

Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Sociology

Research interests: Political Sociology, Historical Sociology, Knowledge Production, Sociology and Social Theory, Colonialism and Settler Colonialism, and Citizenship.

Hillel Soifer

Hillel Soifer, Political Science

Research interests: Latin American Politics, State Building and Research Methods.

Stephanie Canizales

Stephanie Canizales, Sociology

Research interests: Immigration and Immigrant Integration; Children, Youth and Families; Inequality, Poverty and Mobility; Latinx Sociology; and Qualitative Methods.

Geronimo Barrera de la Torre

Geronimo Barrera de la Torre, Geography

Research interests: Social Mapping, Political Ecology, Historical and Political Geography, Indigenous/Peasant Ontologies and Epistemologies, Latin American Geographies, and Videography.

Jenna Nobles

Jenna Nobles, Demography

Research interests: Migration and Immigration Policy, Fertility and Fecundity, Reproductive Health, Mathematical Demography, and Computational Social Science. 

Ekedi Mpondo-Dika

Ekedi Mpondo-Dika, Sociology

Research interests: Emotions, Poverty, Family and Personal Relationships, Mental Health, and Ethnography.

Ianna Hawkins Owen

Ianna Hawkins Owen, Gender and Women's Studies

Research interests: Asexuality, Black Literary and Visual Culture, Critical Eating Studies, Queer Studies, and Creative Practice.

Mariam Aly

Mariam Aly, Psychology

Research interests: Cognitive Neuroscience, Memory, Prediction, Perception and Attention.

Nicole Holliday

Nicole Holliday, Linguistics

Research interests: Sociophonetics, Prosody, African American English, Linguistic Discrimination, Bias in AI and Speech Technology.

Anna Stilz

Anna Stilz, Political Science

Research interests: History of Political Thought (Especially Rousseau, Kant and Post-Kantian Political Thought); Nationalism; Political Obligation, Authority and State Legitimacy; Rights to Self-Determination, Sovereignty, Land and Territory; Colonialism, Anticolonialism and Decolonization; Theories of Collective Agency; Migration; and Climate Justice.

Dmitri Brown

Dmitri Brown, History

Research interests: US West, Native American (Pueblo) Studies, Indigenous Epistemology, American Southwest, Nuclear Colonialism and Science and Technology Studies (STS). 

Chenzi Xu

Chenzi Xu, Economics

Research interests: International Macroeconomics and Finance, Economic History, Banking, and Trade.

Matthew Shutzer

Matthew Shutzer, History

Research interests: Environmental History, South Asia, Political Economy, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and Social Theory.

Andreas Schaab

Andreas Schaab, Economics

Research interests: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics.

Henry Washington, Jr.

Henry Washington, Jr., African American Studies

Research interests: 19th and 20th Century African American Literature, Black Intellectual History, Black Feminist and Trans Theory, Black Visual Cultures, and Performance Theory.

Hedy Kober

Hedy Kober, Psychology

Research interests: Substance Use Disorders (“Addictions”); Craving; Eating Behavior and Disorders; Emotion Regulation; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Mindfulness Treatments and Meditation — and the Psychological, Behavioral and Neural Mechanisms Underlying These Processes; and Developing Digital Treatments.