Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

The Script Encoding Initiative (SEI), led by researchers Anushah Hossain and Deborah Anderson in the Linguistics Department, recently received grants from the Internet Society Foundation ($300,000) and the Mellon Foundation ($1M) for research on digital inclusion of diverse writing systems. SEI aims to increase the number of writing systems...

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.

UC Berkeley Economics and Public Policy Professor Hilary Hoynes uses her expertise in child poverty and the social safety net to influence California public policy and develop solutions to the state’s economic issues. ...

Over the past few years, raging wildfires in Italy have become a common and deadly occurrence. In Southern Italy, intense, record-breaking heat waves and dry scirocco winds create the perfect conditions for wildfires—both natural and coordinated.

In the paper “Land on fire: The spatial production of the mafia,” published in a special issue of "New Geographies of Organised Crime" in Criminology & Criminal Justice, UC Berkeley Geography Ph.D. student Lauren Pearson links...

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.

This innovative approach, detailed in a study recently published in Nature Human Behaviour, focuses on altering the way people think of the relationship between their...