Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

Soon, California educators must teach ethnic studies. UC Berkeley is helping them prepare.

March 28, 2024

Starting in the 2025-26 academic year, by law, California’s public high schools must begin teaching ethnic studies, and students in the Class of 2030 can’t graduate without passing a class on the subject. But while the state, which enacted the law in 2021, has adopted an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum focused on the contributions of Asian, Black,...

Economics Professor Emi Nakamura talks about monetary policy, hard work and passion for the profession

April 8, 2024

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

Nakamura is the recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal; co-vice chair of the Economics Department; previous co-editor of the American Economic Review; a member of the American Academy of Arts and...

Anthropology Chair Sabrina Agarwal talks about her students, research and ethics

April 1, 2024

UC Berkeley Anthropology Department Professor and Chair Sabrina Agarwal’s long career has made a big impact in her field of research, teaching and student mentorship. Her research focuses on age and sex-related changes in bone quantity and quality, as well as the application of biocultural and life course approaches to the study of bone health to examine the dynamics of gender and social inequality in the past and...

UC Berkeley anthropology study: Exploitation of human remains for educational purposes lasted centuries

March 27, 2024

Skeleton of Richard Helain

Anatomical skeletal remains have been used in science and medical classrooms around the world for centuries. But students don’t know the names or any information about the individuals, let alone the dark history of their origins.

A new study from UC Berkeley...

Amidst misinformation, critical thinking needs a 21st century upgrade

March 26, 2024

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.

The class,...

UC Berkeley African American Studies launches Banned Scholars Project with a Mellon Foundation grant

March 27, 2024

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.

The Mellon Foundation,...

Psychology Professor Serena Chen shares her passion in researching self-compassion and guiding her students

March 19, 2024

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. She is also a Fellow of the Society of Personality and Social...

Op-Ed: Some jobs are better than others right out of prison

March 19, 2024

What’s a good job for formerly incarcerated people?

You often hear this mantra from people in corrections: Get a job, any job. Work will reduce your risk of going back behind bars. As a result, people coming out of prison feel pushed to take jobs that have difficult schedules, low pay, no benefits or poor working conditions.

That’s bad advice. In my research with other scholars, we’ve found that formerly incarcerated people just churn through jobs like that. Indeed,...

Berkeley Sociology grad student investigates inequities in the criminal legal system through the CRELS Program

March 18, 2024

UC Berkeley Sociology graduate student Ángel Mendiola Ross’ curiosity about using big data and computational methods to try and tackle perpetuating inequities in the criminal justice system led them to apply to the Berkeley Social Sciences’ multidisciplinary Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System (CRELS) Program. The program aims to combine social science and computational science to examine systemic inequities in...

From UC Berkeley to rural India, an anthropologist works to expand library access

March 4, 2024

Headshot of woman with long dark hair braided over one shoulder. Wearing black lace shirt under a floral sari. In her many years of fieldwork in rural central India, UC Berkeley Anthropology Professor Aarti Sethi pondered what could make a real difference in the lives of people there. She realized the answer was knowledge: a public library system, an asset scarcely available in the region, which would open doors to literacy...