Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

Berkeley Economics Professor Edward Miguel has spent his career uncovering the structural forces behind poverty, instability and inequality. As the Oxfam Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics and co-director of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), he leads groundbreaking research that ties together rural finance, climate change, conflict and human capital — often through long-term fieldwork in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Miguel's research isn't just about diagnosis. It's about evidence-based solutions, such as a recent study on post-harvest loans in Kenya that's...

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.

But her brilliance goes far beyond her grades. A wheelchair user herself, Tian...

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.

Now, as he prepares to graduate from UC Berkeley next week with a degree in political economy, Samir is rewriting his future. Motivated by the health...

On Sundays, I used to stand in front of my Mormon congregation and declare that it all was true.

I’d climb the stairs to the pulpit and smooth my long skirt. I’d smile and share my “testimony,” as the church calls it. I’d say I knew God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, prayer, spirits and miracles were all real. I’d express gratitude for my family and for my ancestors who had left lives in Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway to pull wagons across America and build a Zion on the plains. When I had finished, I’d bask in the affirmation of the congregation’s “amen.”

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