News

The University of California, Berkeley, a world leader in theoretical physics since J. Robert Oppenheimer planted the seed nearly 100 years ago, will share with four other institutions the largest gift ever to the field — $90 million.

Political Science Administrative Director Serena Groen received Berkeley Social Science’s Distinguished Service Award for her outstanding work in her department. 

Leading a team of 12 staffers, Groen’s efforts help achieve political science’s goals and create a more inclusive and supportive environment for faculty, staff and students.

This interview originally appeared in the MCB Spring 2025 Transcript newsletter. 

Thomas Newman became a proud Cal Dad when his daughter enrolled at UC Berkeley as a transfer student to study history in 2022. Just a year later, Newman became a Cal Student, pursuing the same degree.

After 35 years working in restaurants and hotels across the U.S. and Europe, Newman knew it was time for a change. In the past, Newman went to a few junior colleges to pursue an education degree, but never completed college. 

As a specialist in medieval French literature, Henry Ravenhall has examined hundreds of manuscripts from the Middle Ages.

For first-year student Shruti Sahoo, UC Berkeley’s campus seemed to sport a divide: on one side, highly politically engaged students, and on the other, those focused on being part of the cutting edge of technological innovation. 

Since arriving at UC Berkeley from China in the summer of 2021, Yuqi Tian has made an indelible impact on the campus community through her leadership, advocacy and research.

Tian will graduate this semester with three bachelor's degrees in geography, comparative literature and Italian studies. She has also earned a minor in gender and women's studies and a certificate in new media. Overall, Tian has completed 190 units at Cal — often taking 25 units a semester — and will graduate with a 3.991 GPA.

Berkeley Geography Professor Clancy Wilmott is conducting innovative research on the political stakes of mapping in its digital and physical forms. 

Samir Hooker’s path to higher education was anything but easy. He grew up in a neighborhood surrounded by instability and violence, and at just nine years old, he lost his father to gun violence. Not long after, his mother began a years-long struggle with chronic illness. Despite his hardships, however, Samir’s perseverance and dedication to his family drove him to keep working towards his goals.

Today, we are living increasingly longer lives compared to 150 years ago. However, the question is, can that trend go on? 

The Human Mortality Database (HMD), operated jointly by Berkeley Demography researchers, processes data that can help answer that question. 

Co-led by Demography researcher Magali Barbieri, HMD is a collaboration between Berkeley and two other organizations, the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany and the French Institute for Demographic Studies in Paris.

The Berkeley Staff Assembly recently announced the recipients of the 37th annual Excellence in Management Award, who are recognized for leading their teams and team members to meaningful accomplishments this past year. This year’s award theme, “A Culture of Excellence: Inspiring Performance and Growth," highlights leaders who foster an environment where innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement thrive, empowering their teams to achieve their full potential and drive organizational success.  

Héctor Muñoz-Guzmán is a first-year MFA student from South Berkeley. Captivated by art at an early age, he strives to represent his immigrant family and community in the world of fine art. UC Berkeley writer Alexander Rony interviewed Muñoz-Guzmán at an open studio event where he displayed his paintings from the past year.

The academic year 2013-14 changed the direction of Wendy Ingram’s life. Over the course of a few months, four members of the UC Berkeley department in which she was a graduate student died by suicide: an undergraduate student, a doctoral student, a post-doctoral fellow and a faculty member.

Eleni Berg is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores themes of nature, immigration, consumerism, and indigeneity.

Berg spoke with UC Berkeley writer Alexander Rony at a recent open studio event for MFA (master’s in fine arts) students. At the time, Berg was hosting a workshop where visitors were sculpting clay filled with native seeds.

According to a January report from Inside Higher Ed, nearly three in four college students now turn to social media as an important, if not primary, source of news. As algorithm-driven platforms deliver ever more news content, fewer than half of students surveyed thought their universities were robustly training their peers in digital media literacy. 

What do human movement, climate variability and social structures have in common? They are all essential components in understanding the spread of infectious diseases, according to UC Berkeley Demography Professor Ayesha Mahmud.

Mahmud’s research uses data-driven modeling and behavioral analysis to investigate how diseases spread in different environments — urban and rural, humid and dry, connected and isolated.

On a sunny Saturday in March, dozens of onlookers watched Jasmine Nyende charge, pull, twist, and duck under ropes held by six other performers. Nearby, portable speakers blared punk rock. Nyende’s performance — titled “Sankofa Moshpit” — was a joyful memorial to her late friend, Láwû. It was also one of the featured events during UC Berkeley’s MFA Open Studios.

This article originally appeared on April 1, 2025 at Division of Arts & Humanities.

UC Berkeley’s graduate programs maintained their premier-level rankings in a 2025 surveyreleased today (Tuesday, April 8) by US News & World Report, with elite scores achieved in disciplines ranging from the social sciences and engineering to computer science and business.

A remarkably diverse set of Berkeley schools and programs achieved top rankings in the magazine’s annual assessment of graduate programs nationwide.

Meet Jean-Paul Gressieux, department manager for the department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) at UC Berkeley. With a rich background in nonprofit theater management and years of experience at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Jean-Paul brings a unique blend of expertise and passion to his role. From supporting the creative process to fostering collaboration among students, faculty, and staff, he ensures TDPS remains a thriving academic and artistic community.

A new map co-created by scholars from UC Berkeley’s Geography Department challenges the way we look at the Bay Area by reimagining it through Indigenous perspectives. It highlights the cultural revitalization of Indigenous people and connects it to ongoing efforts for rematriation. 

Engineers have designed robots that crawl, swim, fly and even slither like a snake, but no robot can hold a candle to a squirrel, which can parkour through a thicket of branches, leap across perilous gaps and execute pinpoint landings on the flimsiest of branches.

In mid-March five years ago, President Donald Trump tweeted about the threat of a “Chinese virus.” That month marked the official beginning of a pandemic that went on longer and took a larger toll in the U.S. — on lives, the economy, mental health and our social fabric — than a naive public could anticipate.

It is widely believed that receptive listening, or demonstrating openness to someone’s point of view, is key to political persuasion. 

But a new study co-led by UC Berkeley Political Science Professor David Broockman suggests that signalling receptiveness during a persuasive conversation may not be as important as previously thought. 

Stephen Small, African American Studies professor, speaks about his book, In the Shadows of the Big House.

Editor's Note: The work of UC Berkeley Social Sciences faculty helps shape California public policy. In this series, learn more about their research and projects and how they resonate with state policymakers and address solutions to the most pressing issues facing California, from food access to homelessness.

Group photo with kids, staff and volunteers on their last day in Ghana.

It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of our dear colleague and friend, Ben Dillon. Ben, our dedicated marketing and communications manager, passed away the morning of March 4, 2025 after a sudden and intense battle with cancer.

The career coaching and mentorship provided by the UC Berkeley Social Sciences Career Readiness Internship Program (SSCRIP) helps students like political economy major Uzair Pasta explore their interdisciplinary interests and prepare for diverse careers after graduation.

Economics and Cognitive Science junior Pilar Capdevila gravitated towards the UC Berkeley Social Sciences Career Readiness Internship Program (SSCRIP) seeking mentorship and valuable industry insights. The program prepares Social Sciences students for meaningful careers through professional development training and paid summer internships. 

On the campaign trail, President Trump made his promise to drastically slash immigration a rallying cry. Since taking office, he’s issued a flurry of executive orders aimed at achieving those goals, from ending birthright citizenship to freezing funding for refugee resettlement and migrant legal aid organizations. 

The old adage goes: It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. But is it? 

For many people mourning lost love, “the one that got away” lingers, with constant questions of “what-if” coursing through their brain. In the psychology of love, the concept of “the one that got away” refers to a former romantic partner who maintains a significant role in one’s memory. 

Categorized by ending at a — perceived — premature point in the relationship, this lost love can leave an individual fixated on what could have been.

Mars today is a cold, dry, dusty planet with its only obvious water locked up in frozen polar ice caps. But billions of years ago, it appears to have had sandy beaches lapped by waves along the shoreline of a vast ocean.

The evidence for beaches on Mars comes from a Chinese rover, called Zhurong, that landed on the planet in 2021. During its short life it detected evidence of underground beach deposits in an area thought to have once been the site of an ancient sea, bolstering the idea that the planet long ago had large bodies of water.

UC Berkeley Political Science Professor Terri Bimes was recently awarded the James A. Thurber Article of the Year Award from the journal Congress & the Presidency for her co-authored piece, “Hyperpartisanship and the First Hundred Days.” The award recognizes exceptional scholarship on Congress, the presidency, their interactions and national policymaking, with a particular focus on pressing issues in current affairs.

Even in the face of overwhelming evidence, false narratives can be incredibly sticky. Many people insist that the earth is flat, that childhood vaccines cause autism, or that climate change is a hoax, despite ample scientific evidence to the contrary. 

Against her mom’s warnings, UC Berkeley political scientist Marika Landau-Wells watched Arachnaphobia as a kid. Ever since, she has been terrified of spiders. But over the years, she has learned to reason with her quick fear response — No, that spider is not 8 feet in diameter — and calmly trap them and put them outside. 

We regret to inform you that your manuscript has not been selected for publication.

It may be a “train wreck,” in the words of astronomer Dan Weisz, but it’s a beautiful train wreck.

Weisz, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, is referring to the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest large galaxy to our own Milky Way and the closest one that astronomers can study for clues to our galaxy’s evolution.

Valerie Williams-Sanchez, Ph.D., is a UC Berkeley alum who graduated with an English degree in 1992. Today, Valerie is a consultant, researcher, publisher, and creator of the children’s picture book series, Cocoa Kids Collection®.

In a world overflowing with choices — from what to eat for breakfast to which career path to pursue — decision-making has become an ever-present obstacle for most. Research from UC Berkeley’s Department of Psychology has demonstrated a new way that people can overcome this obstacle, by changing the way they approach their decisions.

Stephan and I met in 1989 as undergraduates at UC Berkeley’s Social Sciences Division, just before the destructive Loma Prieta earthquake struck. It’s an easy anniversary to remember.

He was a political science major, and I was studying history. Stephan had plans to attend law school, but I was uncertain about my path after graduation. People often asked me, "What will you do with a history degree?" Back then, it seemed like people assumed history majors could only go into teaching.

The sketch of modern physics’ conundrum that we in the general public have a hazy picture of hasn’t changed for a hundred years. The cat is both kicking and has kicked, the electron is zipping around but we can’t know both where it is and how quick it is going, the particles are mysteriously linked in ways that appear faster than the speed of light, God does play dice, and so on. If Einstein couldn’t figure it out, what hope do we have?

The past decade has seen historic challenges for U.S. democracy and an intense focus by scholars on events that seem to signal democratic decline. But new research released today (Dec. 17) finds that a bias toward pessimism among U.S. political scientists often leads to inaccurate predictions about the future threats to democracy.

Looking back on another outstanding year, Berkeley Letters & Science has compiled “24 L&S Highlights of 2024”—a recap of news, events, and announcements from the L&S community this year. Here are just a handful of the many stories demonstrating the extraordinary work of L&S students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Enjoy!

Milestones & Research

Several studies at UC Berkeley’s Psychology Department have emerged that promise to reshape our understanding and treatment of bipolar disorder. From securing a $4.5 million grant to launching a diet-focused study, UC Berkeley psychology researchers are determined to improve the lives of those suffering from this complex disorder.

It’s a question that has puzzled thinkers for centuries: Are we humans alone in our pursuit of fairness and the frustration we feel when others get what we want?

In recent years, evolutionary psychologists have suggested that we’re not all that special. Animals, from corvids to capuchin monkeys, express what humans might recognize as jealousy when, for example, they are passed over for a sought-after snack. Many argue this is evidence we are not alone in our aversion toward unfairness. 

Sixty years after UC Berkeley's Free Speech Movement ignited a wave of campus activism, the university’s Ethnic Studies Department is one of its enduring legacies. Born from the demands of student activists who, like those in the Free Speech Movement (FSM), sought to reshape academia, the department symbolizes the intersection of free speech, academic freedom and social justice. 

UCDC Student Spotlight: Raquel Lopez Blanco (she/her)

While Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has been a constant feature of the planet for centuries, University of California, Berkeley, astronomers have discovered equally large spots at the planet’s north and south poles that appear and disappear seemingly at random.

This story originally appeared on research.berkeley.edu on November 6, 2024. 

Editor’s Note: Berkeley Social Sciences faculty are turning their research into action, tackling Oakland’s most urgent challenges — from public safety to affordable housing. In this 3-part series, learn how they are partnering with the community to create lasting and meaningful change by addressing concerns from residents. 

For a long time, Berkeley’s African American Studies department had a vision of increasing the scope of the department’s work outside of the classroom and into local communities. 

Tell us about you.

As California schools prepare for a future in which high school seniors must complete an ethnic studies course to graduate, many educators are seeking guidance on how to implement this new curriculum. For schools across the Bay Area, the UC Berkeley History Social Science Project has become an important partner in navigating this challenge.

Aya de León, African American Studies lecturer and Director of Poetry for the People, speaks about her book, Untraceable.

In a commentary(link is external) published on October 17 in the journal Cell, UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Angelo Forli and faculty member Michael Yartsev argue that recent technological and theoretical breakthroughs finally set the stage for a much-needed paradigm shift in how neuroscience studies behavior.

It is common knowledge that the human gut is home to hordes of bacteria, most of which seem essential for good health. But there is another component of the gut microbiome that receives less attention: viruses.

For UC Berkeley Political Science graduate student Dinah Lawan, April 14, 2014, was a night she will never forget. Lawan went through the terrifying ordeal of being a kidnapping victim of Boko Haram, and later escaped to pursue higher education in the U.S.

Today, as she works towards her doctorate to help those suffering in conflict zones, Lawan recalls how the kidnapping changed her life forever.

Obsessively scrolling through the latest polling averages? Overwhelmed by campaign ads about threats to democracy? Paralyzed with nerves about Election Day and what comes next? 

Raised in farming communities, Adriana P. Ramírez is keenly aware of the challenges migrants face on a daily basis and the struggles they encounter with the U.S. immigration system. The UC Berkeley Sociology graduate student, who is a Berkeley Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI) Fellow, wants to raise the visibility of these challenges and help find solutions to obstacles migrants face when they return to Mexico.

“Altruistic” doctors who prioritize patient care over income and profit achieve dramatically better health outcomes with older patients, a finding that has powerful implications for U.S. health care systems and policies, according to a new study co-authored at UC Berkeley.

The research, published today in JAMA Health Forum, found that when thousands of Medicare patients were treated by such doctors, they were far less likely to need preventable hospital admissions and emergency room visits. In addition, the patients’ annual medical payments were nearly 10% lower on average.

UC Berkeley is the No. 1 public university in the U.S and the eighth-best university in the world, according to the Times Higher Education’s 2025 World University Rankings, released on Oct. 8. Berkeley has held the ranking of top U.S. public university for nine of the past 10 years. 

Political Economy alumnus Larry Kao got his first taste for working in entertainment during his time as a Berkeley Social Sciences student. That meaningful experience led him to his current role as a special projects supervisor for The Walt Disney Company.

It may not seem like UC Berkeley Social Sciences alumna Sandra Lo's Ethnic Studies degree directly relates to her 25-year career in tech. But she says much of the knowledge, communication skills and ability to think critically she gained in this field at Berkeley Social Sciences have been essential to her success in the tech industry.

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was shared by David Baker, a biochemist who received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1989 working with Randy Schekman, a professor of molecular and cell biology who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

From a hard-scrabble pioneer apple farm in Boulder Creek, California, nestled in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Carla and Renata Hesse’s great-aunts planted the seeds for their family’s extensive ties to UC Berkeley. Spanning four generations and more than 100 years, 10 members of the Hesse family have earned degrees from Berkeley, including eight in the College of Letters & Science. 

It was a time of historic change, and society was buckling under the stress. There had been a war, then a deadly pandemic. Economic crisis was constant: Racing inflation, unemployment and changes in technology provoked extreme economic insecurity.

From the U.S.’s first Black theater in New York to today's Broadway stages, there’s been “a kind of de facto censorship” of diverse stories throughout the country's history, says Professor Shannon Steen.

The 2024–25 cohort of Berkeley’s Social Sciences Career Readiness Internship Program (SSCRIP) has officially begun their fall course, the start of a year-long journey that will equip students with the practical skills and essential knowledge to succeed in a variety of professions.

A surge of scholarly interest across the country in Ukrainian studies is far exceeding American universities’ capabilities, but UC Berkeley is positioning itself to fill that gap.

UC Berkeley Psychology Professor Emerita Christina Maslach was awarded the Association for Psychological Science’s (APS) 2025 James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award in recognition of her lifetime achievement and groundbreaking work on occupational burnout that led to developing the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), a measurement of burnout that has been long considered the “gold standard” in the field. 

Assistant Professor of Earth & Planetary Science Penny Wieser has been named AGU’s 2024 Hisashi Kuno Award recipient. This award is presented annually to an early career scientist for outstanding contributions to the fields of volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology. It is named to honor the life and work of Hishashi Kuno, an exceptional volcanologist and petrologist of the mid-twentieth century.

Fareed Zakaria GPS takes a comprehensive look at foreign affairs and global policies through in-depth, one-on-one interviews and fascinating roundtable discussions.

On the September 2, 2024 episode: Reengineering Life: The Next Frontiers in Science

Fareed examines two emerging technologies that are already changing life as we know it—CRISPR gene editing and artificial intelligence—in interviews with two women who pioneered them: UC Berkeley’s Jennifer Doudna and Stanford’s Fei-Fei Li.

Berkeley Social Sciences has welcomed 17 new faculty for the 2024–2025 academic year, including new professors of psychology, sociology, economics, gender and women’s studies, history, political science, linguistics, African American studies, geography and demography.

They bring insight, expertise and dedication to the Social Sciences. Learn more about them here

In Berkeley Talks episode 208, three UC Berkeley professors from a wide range of disciplines — psychology, biology and ethnic studies — broach a deep question: What is understanding?

In the last hundred years, particle physicists have developed a fine-grained understanding of how the building blocks that make up the universe fit together, called the Standard Model. The concrete and steel are basic particles like protons, neutrons, and electrons, and the energies that weld them together are divided into three or four forces: strong, electromagnetic, weak, and sometimes gravity. Testing shows that the Standard Model is very accurate, but it’s not quite perfect.

Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra Nevada is known for its towering tufa formations, abundant brine shrimp and black clouds of alkali flies uniquely adapted to the salty, arsenic- and cyanide-laced water.

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have now found another unusual creature lurking in the lake’s briny shallows — one that could tell scientists about the origin of animals more than 650 million years ago.

Over the course of nearly five months in 2022, NASA’s Perseverance rover collected rock samples from Mars that could rewrite the history of water on the Red Planet and even contain evidence for past life on Mars.

But the information they contain can’t be extracted without more detailed analysis on Earth, which requires a new mission to the planet to retrieve the samples and bring them back. Scientists hope to have the samples on Earth by 2033, though NASA’s sample return mission may be delayed.

Berkeley’s Social Sciences students and alumni made a resounding impact at the Paris Olympics, securing eight medals in total. Their impressive haul includes two golds, four silvers and two bronze medals in sports such as rowing, discus, swimming, hammer throw, water polo, etc. Twenty athletes from Social Sciences competed in the 2024 Olympics, highlighting the Division’s extraordinary talent.

Top philosophy graduate students from around the world are finding their way to UC Berkeley thanks to a recently established fellowship that enriches the discipline with new approaches.

The fellowship honors Carol Lee Price, a Berkeley alum who led a curiosity-driven life. Price was born in Cleveland to a Jewish family that emphasized education as an object of value that no one could take away. Whenever she moved, she took the knowledge she had gained with her.

UC Berkeley Psychology Professor Mahesh Srinivasan began his journey in academia after receiving his bachelor’s degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford and his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Harvard. Throughout his career at Berkeley, Professor Srinivasan has taught and inspired many undergraduate and graduate students. 

Already known as a leader in quantum science and a testbed for quantum computing, the University of California, Berkeley, is expanding its footprint with the hiring of four early-career experimental physicists who use quantum systems to explore new frontiers in physics.

U.S. wins first gold medal at Paris Olympics with win in men's 4x100m freestyle relay

New Jersey's Jack Alexy joined Caeleb Dressel, Hunter Armstrong and Chris Guiliano to capture the United States' first gold medal at the Paris Olympics

The United States earned its first gold medal of the Paris Olympics with a resounding win in the men's 4x100m freestyle swimming relay Friday.

Team USA came in first with a time of 3:09:28 followed by Australia in second with a time of 3:10:35, with Italy taking the bronze with a time of 3:10:70.

In Greece, and about 2,000 miles from the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, UC Berkeley is celebrating 100 years of archaeological excavation at a site of the ancient Panhellenic Games, a religious and athletic event that inspired the modern Olympics.

The plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film, Rope, is a disturbing one:Two men in their shared apartment strangle a former classmate to death. Then, they host guests — including the victim’s family — at a dinner party. It’s an attempt to prove their superiority by committing the “perfect murder.”  

Although the killers — Brandon and Phillip — live together, it’s never acknowledged openly that they’re a couple. (At the time, the Motion Picture Production Code prohibited the depiction of “sex perversion,” which included homosexuality, on the big screen.) 

UC Berkeley History and Law Professor Dylan Penningroth began his journey in academia after receiving his bachelor’s degree in history from Yale and his Ph.D. in history from the Johns Hopkins University. Throughout his career at Berkeley, Professor Penningroth has taught, mentored and inspired countless undergraduate and graduate students. 

Political Economy graduates. Photo by Emily Yang.

Ten years ago, Johnny Smith sat in a prison cell with no hope and no future. And that’s when he decided to dream big and "reinvent" himself. 

Mellony Palma, a Berkeley senior majoring in Sociology, was recently selected for Berkeley’s Robert J. and Mary Catherine Birgeneau Recognition Award for Service to Underrepresented Students for her efforts to help young children and adults navigate the foster system. The award honors individuals whose work betters the lives of those in underrepresented communities. 

Somdeng “Danny” Thongsy knows what it’s like to be dealt a bad hand in life.

A refugee from Laos, he grew up in a tough neighborhood, living in poverty and surrounded by gangs. His brother was murdered when Danny was a teenager. This led Danny to commit a serious crime that landed him a 27-years-to-life sentence in state prison.

This first-person narrative was written from an interview with Daniella Lake, who will graduate this May with a degree in media studies.

Much as ChatGPT generates poetry, a new A.I. system devises blueprints for microscopic mechanisms that can edit your DNA.

UC Berkeley History Alumnus Jefferson Cowie, who is a history professor at Vanderbilt University, was awarded a prestigious 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship

Standing on Asilomar State Beach just west of Monterey, Marius Castro talked with dozens of his fellow UC Berkeley students for hours under the moonlight. The moment felt special to Castro, like he was in a movie. In actuality, he was attending the first annual MPS Scholars retreat.

Six UC Berkeley researchers have been elected 2023 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

The honorees, announced today (Thursday, April 18), are among 502 scientists, engineers and innovators recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements.

When Nathanael Stephen Payne ’23 was developing Wrestle with Jimmy for UC Berkeley’s “Introduction to Playwriting” class, he had no idea where the project would take him. His answer came several years later, when he crossed the stage at graduation as one of two students to receive the Larry Belling Promising Writers’ Award.

Rich Lyons, an established economist, former dean of the Haas School of Business and the campus's current leader for innovation and entrepreneurship, will become the next chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, the UC Board of Regents announced today (Wednesday, April 10).

Some companies discriminated against Black applicants much more than others, and H.R. practices made a big difference.

Focusing her research on the effects of monetary and fiscal policy on the economy, Chancellor's Professor of Economics Emi Nakamura brings her distinguished academic background to UC Berkeley’s Department of Economics.

An extensive CO2 monitoring network set up around the San Francisco Bay Area by an atmospheric chemist from the University of California, Berkeley, has recorded the first evidence that the adoption of electric vehicles is measurably lowering the area's carbon emissions.

UC Berkeley’s African American Studies (AAS) Department launched a groundbreaking project this week with a $100,000 Affirming Multivocal Humanities grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Banned Scholars Project is a direct response to increasing restrictions on academic freedom, particularly in the fields of critical race theory, DEI and gender studies. It was spearheaded by AAS professors Michael M. Cohen, Tianna S. Paschel and Ula Taylor; department chair Nikki Jones; and managed by staffer Barbara Montano.

In 2013, the University of California, Berkeley, debuted a course to teach undergraduates the tricks used by scientists to make sense of the world, in the hope that these tricks would prove useful in assessing the claims and counterclaims that bombard us every day.

It was launched by three UC Berkeley professors — a physicist, a philosopher and a psychologist — in response to a world afloat in misinformation and disinformation, where politicians were making policy decisions based on ideas that, if not demonstrably wrong, were at least untested and uncertain.

UC Berkeley Psychology Professor and former Department Chair Serena Chen began her almost three decades journey in academia after receiving her Ph.D. in social psychology from New York University. Throughout her long tenure at Berkeley Social Sciences, which began in 2000, Professor Chen has taught, mentored and inspired countless undergraduate and graduate students. In addition to shaping the lives of her students, Chen has produced new knowledge in the field of self-compassion and authenticity.

Neutrinos and antineutrinos are nearly massless particles produced in many nuclear reactions, including the fission of uranium in nuclear power plants on Earth and the fusion reactions at the core of the sun.

But they are devilishly hard to detect — most pass through Earth without stopping — making it difficult to study the nuclear reactions taking place at the core of stars or in stellar explosions or to monitor nuclear power plants for illicit production of bomb material.

A UC Berkeley-led study revealed that disparities in the share of Black and Latino students admitted to America’s elite colleges and universities have endured and even widened over the last 40 years. 

The UC Berkeley Women in Leadership Circle (WILC) is a vibrant and supportive community committed to empowering alumnae of Cal who are in leadership roles across various sectors. At the heart of WILC's mission are the core values of democracy, equity, inclusion, mentorship, and networking. Through monthly activities, workshops, and networking events, WILC fosters both personal and professional growth, encouraging members to reach new heights.

Many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, are characterized by the accumulation of protein clumps, or aggregates, in the brain, which has led scientists to assume that the protein tangles kill brain cells. The search for treatments that break up and remove these tangled proteins has had little success, however.

The Women in Leadership Club (WILC) at UC Berkeley is a forerunner in empowering the next generation of female leaders. Established in 2019 to bridge the gender gap in leadership roles, WILC provides a dynamic platform for ambitious women to hone their leadership skills, foster professional growth, and advocate for gender equality across various industries.

Each fall and spring, a cohort of UC juniors and seniors embark on an academic journey to the epicenter of American politics and culture: Washington, D.C. The UCDC program provides students from all majors with the unique opportunity to study and learn in the nation's capital, where they engage in internships, research endeavors, and academic coursework.

For our next interview, I will be speaking with Professor Atreyee Gupta of the History of Art Department. Professor Gupta’s area of focus is on Global Modernism, and Modern and Contemporary South and Southeast Asian art.

As the battle to control what students read continues in K-12 schools across the country, policies backed by U.S. legislators have contributed to a recent rise in the banning of books that include the history and experiences of people of color.   

One of the most explosive volcanic eruptions ever witnessed by humans took place 3,600 years ago, around 1,600 B.C.E., off the island of Santorini in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The unique underwater kelp forests that line the Pacific Coast support a varied ecosystem that was thought to have evolved along with the kelp over the past 14 million years.

But a new study shows that kelp flourished off the Northwest Coast more than 32 million years ago, long before the appearance of modern groups of marine mammals, sea urchins, birds and bivalves that today call the forests home.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment, whose authors include UC Berkeley Georgraphy Professor Tianna Bruno, is the U.S. Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks and responses.

In Berkeley Talks episode 186, a panel of UC Berkeley scholars from the College of Letters and Science discusses the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in academia — and the questions and challenges it requires universities and other social institutions to confront. 

Astronomy students who grew up building telescopes for backyard stargazing sessions could hardly find a better instructor than Jessica Lu. An associate professor in the Department of Astronomy, Lu studies black holes and helps design adaptive optics that sharpen images taken with major telescopes like the one at the Keck Observatory in Hawai‘i.

This year, Lu began her first stint as astronomy chair, a role she accepted with surprise.

Peihang "Marshall" Li ('23, Political Economy) and Vishwaa Sofat ('24, Political Science and Science, Technology & Society) have been named as 2024–2025 Schwarzman Scholars and will be heading to Tsinghua University in Beijing in Fall 2024 to enroll in a fully fund

The shimmering green, red and purple curtains of the northern and southern lights — the auroras — may be the best-known phenomena lighting up the nighttime sky, but the most mysterious are the mauve and white streaks called Steve and their frequent companion, a glowing green "picket fence."

Ethnic Studies student Angelica Garcia shares her story of why studying at Berkeley Social Sciences is so unique. 

David Henkin, professor of history, speaks about his book, The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are.

In this interview, David Henkin recalls his experience collecting and conducting research for his book, The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are. Henkin's book explores the emergence of the "natural" ordering of weeks, revealing how our current devotion to the weekly rhythms emerged during the first half of the nineteenth century in the United States. 

Dozens of documentaries about cults are currently available on Netflix, Hulu, and Max, along with countless podcasts on Spotify, Apple, and other platforms. What's driving this trend? What's behind our collective fascination with communities and spiritualities that offer total belonging and total enthrallment?

Most birds that flit through dense, leafy forests have a strategy for maneuvering through tight windows in the vegetation — they bend their wings at the wrist or elbow and barrel through.

UC Berkeley Professor Dave Wahl and Quaternary Paleoecology Lab researcher Marie Champagne co-authored a new paper in Science titled "Independent age estimates resolve the controversy of ancient human footprints at White Sands," which rewrites the history of humans in the

Samantha Lewis, Ph.D., UC Berkeley assistant professor in cell biology, development, and physiology, has been honored with a $500,000 grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)

Michal I. Shuldman has returned to her alma mater here in Integrative Biology Department at UC Berkeley. She began her role as Assistant Teaching Professor in July 2023. As a graduate student in the Dawson Lab, she examined the influence of ecotypic variation in response to heatwaves in California native shrubs. She has expertise in plant ecology, plant ecophysiology, soil science, and stable isotopes.

Congratulations to assistant professors Lilla Balint (German), Fumi Okiji (Rhetoric), and Nathaniel Wolfson (Spanish and Portuguese) on being named 2023 Hellman Fellows(link is external)!

The standard story of the peopling of the Americas has Asians migrating across a land bridge into Alaska some 14,000 years ago, after Ice Age glaciers melted back, and gradually spreading southward across a land never before occupied by humankind.

But the claim in 2021 that human footprints discovered in mud in what is now New Mexico were between 23,000 and 21,000 years old turned that theory on its head.

The culture and spirit of innovation at UC Berkeley throughout history can be seen in the changemakers — the Berkeley students, researchers, entrepreneurs, faculty members and alumni — who have helped in countless ways to improve our lives and our world.

What languages do you speak? 

I speak English, Hindi, French, Korean, Catalan, German, and Italian, and I can read Latin and Old French. Out of these, the languages I have studied at Berkeley are Latin, Old French, Catalan, German, and Italian. I highly recommend all of these classes. 

“Eggtooth,” Jesse Nathan’s debut poetry collection, is alert to the wonderful and terrible things that happen beneath our feet. 

In a poem titled “In a Churchyard After Dark, with Ruth,” friends “lounge in a burr oak’s buttress-root couch.” In “Between States,” the “grass sea” of the 19th century Midwest is stolen from Indigenous Americans. In “Boy With Thorns,” a locust tree’s spike — “evolved to ward off long gone / mammoths” — pierces “my plantar fascia’s rivers / of tissue.” 

The department of East Asian Languages and Cultures(link is external) (EALC) is excited to announce a new major in East Asian Humanities. "This major will open doors," says Chair Robert Ashmore.

The Henry Wheeler Center for Emerging and Neglected Diseases (CEND) is co-hosting a dynamic art show featuring captivating portraits of 60 groundbreaking Nobel Prize winners and scientists, including UC Berkeley's Jennifer Doudna:

The biological sciences, encompassing fields from genetics and ecology to microbiology and bioinformatics, have long been the frontier of understanding life’s intricacies. What is now emerging as an equally crucial aspect is the emphasis on inclusivity within these scientific pursuits. By fostering diverse voices, perspectives, and talents, the biological sciences are not only enriching its intellectual landscape but also embracing the concept that innovation thrives in environments where everyone’s voice is heard and valued.

UC Berkeley researchers launched a pioneering interdisciplinary training program this week that will blend criminal justice and computer science in ways that experts say will help reduce long-standing, systemic inequities in the criminal legal system.

Two groundbreaking research papers by UC Berkeley Anthropology Professor Andrew Wooyoung Kim reveal transformative insights into mental health, focusing on the intergenerational effects of mental well-being in Uganda and resilient coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic in metro Johannesburg, South Africa.

With its sensitive infrared cameras and high-resolution spectrometer, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is revealing new secrets of Jupiter’s Galilean satellites, in particular Ganymede, the largest moon, and Io, the most volcanically active.

In two separate publications, astronomers who are part of JWST’s Early Release Science program report the first detection of hydrogen peroxide on Ganymede and sulfurous fumes on Io, both the result of Jupiter’s domineering influence.

Scientists have devised a new technique for finding and vetting possible radio signals from other civilizations in our galaxy — a major advance in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that will significantly boost confidence in any future detection of alien life.

In support of queer doctoral economics students nationwide, Berkeley Social Sciences recently hosted the inaugural American Economic Association Queer Economics Ph.D. Student Mentoring Conference.

Public education in the United States is profoundly unequal. Many public school systems are highly dependent on local revenues generated by local property taxes, meaning that areas with higher home values have better-funded schools. Wealthier people self-sort into areas with higher property values and better schools, while poorer communities have poorly funded schools. As a result, policymakers have asked: how can we solve the problem of inequality among school districts?

Knowledge may be power. But what if the information that leads to that knowledge is wrong?

To Celeste Kidd, assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, the answer is simple: It’s dangerous and perhaps the most concerning aspect of generative AI’s rapid expansion. 

Despite steady improvements in quantum computers, they’re still noisy and error prone, which leads to questionable or wrong answers. Scientists predict that they won’t truly outcompete today’s “classical” supercomputers for at least five or 10 years, until researchers can adequately correct the errors that bedevil entangled quantum bits, or qubits.

But a new study shows that, even lacking good error correction, there are ways to mitigate errors that could make quantum computers useful today.

Benjamin Coleman has always loved being on a team.

The UC Berkeley senior, one of more than 10,000 graduating students walking in Saturday’s commencement ceremony, grew up in Calgary, Canada. At age 5, he joined his first hockey team, the Glenlake Hawks. He played with the same teammates until he graduated from high school. Although he played a lot of other sports growing up — badminton, soccer, skiing, swimming — hockey was his favorite.

With each passing year, more undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) are choosing to pursue professions in the biotech industry, and MCB’s research has increasingly found its way into clinical applications. In response to these trends, in July 2023 the department will launch a new division, Molecular Therapeutics (MTx), to better prepare students for careers in biotechnology and to support Berkeley’s science with the potential to develop new therapeutic modalities.

As commencement season kicks off across the U.S., UC Berkeley’s Department of African American Studies is preparing to host the annual Black Graduation ceremony on May 20, 2023, at Zellerbach Hall. Black Grad, as it is affectionately called, honors and celebrates Black-, African-, and African American-identifying students upon completion of their undergraduate, master’s, Ph.D., J.D., and professional degree programs from departments all over campus. Black Grad is more than just a ceremony; it is a celebration of resilience, perseverance, and achievement.

UC Berkeley's Division of Social Sciences recently held its annual celebration, Social Sciences Fest, which highlighted the faculty and staff's remarkable achievements over the past year. From winning various awards to receiving grants and launching new programs, the event showcased the division's continued commitment to producing research that matters and nurturing its students. In addition, two faculty members received the Distinguished Teaching Award, and the department managers were recognized with the Distinguished Service Award.

The jersey hijab Ro’aa Alkhawaja wore in high school drew ire and ill-informed questions from her classmates who sometimes assumed she was a refugee displaced from war, and the headscarf was an oppressive tool she was obligated to wear out of fear. That it somehow limited her physical and intellectual capabilities — her freedom.

But for Ro’aa, the hijab is an empowering symbol that signifies the love she has for her Muslim faith and the modesty and humility of character “I strive for inwardly.”

A Berkeley View of Women’s History Month

This March, I’ve been thinking about the campus leaders and groups that champion women and their contributions to the Berkeley community.

A new study by UC Berkeley researchers reveals alarming racial disparities in school discipline rates, with Black students facing a 50x higher risk of discipline than their white counterparts. The study highlights the "dynamic" nature of discipline throughout the school year, with rates decreasing before major vacations and increasing when classes resume. This real-time data is critical for educators to intervene before incidents occur and reduce escalating school tension.

Joel Wanek's short film, Passing Through, will have its World Premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival! 

Joel Wanek is a film and audio artist working in the realms of creative non-fiction. Over the years, he has developed a practice that celebrates and investigates spatial poetics, racial dynamics, and the immaterial possibilities of sound and image.

Click here to learn more about Wanek and his work!

In Fall 2021, Bryce Wallace (’23, English & Linguistics) was still stunned that he had gotten into Cal as a transfer student from Irvine Valley College, when more UC-related honors started pouring in.

Baxter Liberty Initiative

Wednesday, April 12th | 4:00 - 6:00 P.M. | Sibley Auditorium University of California, Berkeley

The Baxter Liberty Initiative engages high-profile intellectual leaders whose expertise and scholarship focus on the ideal of freedom in political and economic life. Visiting scholars are invited to UC Berkeley for a multi-day visit of public lectures, dialogue with a respondent, and discussions with students centered on the theme of liberty.

A sci-fi fan since young adulthood, Rixin Li found himself among the many inspired to study planetary science when, in the early 2010s, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope began detecting thousands of exoplanets. A few years later, he would conduct sophisticated numerical modeling to explain how such planets could form, illuminating their leap from tiny dust and ice particles to planetesimals—or bodies of solid materials, such as asteroids. Using code he developed, Rixin has described how conditions of the protoplanetary disk surrounding a young star influence planetesimal demographics.

Monday, April 3 | 4:00 - 6:00 P.M. PST | Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall

Register Here

Is a dog more similar to a chicken or an eagle? Is a penguin noisy? Is a whale friendly?

Psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, say these absurd-sounding questions might help us better understand what’s at the heart of some of society’s most vexing arguments.