Faculty

The below message was sent to campus leaders and the Biological Sciences community on Wednesday, Feb. 18.

Dear Colleagues,

We wish to let you know that Richard Harland will be completing his planned three-year appointment as dean of the Division of Biological Sciences on June 30, 2027. We are grateful for his many years of service in leadership roles within the division.

During his tenure, Dean Harland has continued the Division of Biological Science’s long history of scientific and scholarly excellence. He has focused on deepening connections with campus and...

UC Berkeley African American Studies Professor Leigh Raiford has been named the 2026 Gordon Parks Genevieve Young Fellow. The prestigious, invitation-only fellowship provides $25,000 to “support the research, development and publication of a new project” related to the work of the famed African American photographer Gordon Parks.

Before arriving at Berkeley in 2004, Professor...

Psychology Postdoctoral Researcher Ozge Ugurlu was featured in an article titled "What It Means to Be 'Touch-Starved'" for The New York Times.

Allora Dannon, 35, an author who lives in Rochester, N.Y., longed for physical touch for much of her adult life.

As a “romantic late-bloomer” who didn’t begin dating until she was 32, she said she ached for someone to hold her. Not a “meaningless brush” with another body, she said, but the type of touch that had “intention behind it.”

This wasn’t a yearning for sex. She wanted someone to hold hands with, someone lightly...

Roland Bürgmann, UC Berkeley professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, has been awarded the 2026 Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship. This honor is bestowed upon a scientist for making lasting contributions to the study of physics of the Earth and whose lectures will provide solid, timely, and useful additions to the knowledge and literature in the field.

Bürgmann was recognized for developing important work that has transformed our understanding of how the lower crust and upper mantle respond to large stress changes from...