Alumni

In this Berkeley Talks episode, Ramzi Fawaz, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and UC Berkeley alum, explores why the humanities and psychedelics might have more in common than you’d think, and how literature, much like psychedelics, can help open one’s mind to the world.

Fawaz, who spoke at Berkeley in September, argues that the humanities classroom functions as a vital space for shared sense-making, where deep engagement with art and literature can rewire the brain much like a psychedelic experience — helping students heal from the rigid...

For Cal alumni Sanjay Shah and Rachelle Mendez, lessons learned as undergraduate rhetoric majors forged a path to success in Hollywood.

In the late 1990s, Sanjay Shah and Rachelle Mendez were assigned to the same group project in a UC Berkeley rhetoric class. That collaboration would become a blueprint for two decades of friendship and creative partnership that led to parallel paths into the television industry, multiple hit shows, and prestigious awards like the Emmys.

Shah is a writer, showrunner, and executive producer on Everybody Still Hates Chris, an...

This year's Nobel Prize winners were invited to officially accept their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in a special ceremony this week. UC Berkeley faculty John Clarke and Omar Yaghi were among this year's Nobel laureates, in addition to UC Berkeley alumni Michel Devoret and John Martinis. Among other festivities, the weeklong celebration featured lectures delivered by the Nobelists. John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis were presented with the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric...

UC Berkeley’s Anthropology Department recently opened the newly refurbished and endowed Constance Chiang Pan Anthropology Reading Room (CCPARR), made possible by a transformative gift from Anthropology and Economics Alumna Constance Chiang Pan.

The reading room is a vibrant new space for anthropology students and the entire anthropology community on campus, providing a welcoming and comfortable environment for individual and group study, as well as a dedicated place for anthropology student-led initiatives and hosting student groups. ...