Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

The College of Letters & Science is thrilled to congratulate the five L&S faculty members (Marla Feller, Tyrone Hayes, Hilary Hoynes, Donald Rio and Emmanuel Saez) and their campus colleagues recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Seven UC Berkeley faculty members were among 120 new members and 23 new international members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announced this week, an honor that recognizes their distinguished and...

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word “penguin” as “any of various erect short-legged flightless aquatic birds (family Spheniscidae) of the southern hemisphere.” That description seems simple enough, but definitions are not what people have in mind when they actually use words. Instead people think of concepts: the myriad properties, ideas, examples and associations that spring to mind when we think about a word.

Our concepts are crucial to exactly what we mean when we use language, and new research has found that the concepts people hold, even for a word like penguin,...

A personal journey of macroeconomic curiosity has led UC Berkeley alum Sandile Hlatshwayo Ph.D. ’17 to the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) as a senior economist. Hlatshwayo is covering the international portfolio during her year at CEA, which advises the president on trade, inflation, employment, supply chains, and other top economic issues. She is on a temporary leave from the International Monetary Fund, where she began working in 2017.

Hlatshwayo’s career trajectory began with an “econ origin story,” as she calls it, which stemmed from growing up in suburban Ohio and often...

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.

Jason Okonofua, assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, and the study’s...