Campus News

Why we still can't get enough of Shakespeare after all these centuries

April 29, 2026
Sarah Fullerton, Anne Brice

UC Berkeley Professor Oliver Arnold explores the 16th‑century playwright’s enduring appeal and the way ‘Hamnet’ imagines a small‑town son of a glovemaker becoming a global icon.

For centuries, scholars and artists alike have wondered: What makes Shakespeare Shakespeare? What gives his work its strange durability, its emotional force, its endless capacity for reinvention?

We know some things about William Shakespeare. He was born in 1564 in a small market town in England, the son of a glovemaker. We know he married a woman who became an abiding figure in his life, and...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/04/20/why-we-still-cant-get-enough-of-shakespeare…

Two UC Berkeley L&S faculty members win New Horizons prizes for math and physics

April 29, 2026
Robert Sanders

Mathematician Yunqing Tang and physicist Benjamin Safdi were honored for their early career contributions.


Two young UC Berkeley faculty members, Yunqing Tang of mathematics and Benjamin Safdi of physics, are among the winners of this year’s New Horizons Prizes, awarded annually by the Breakthrough Foundation to early-career scientists.

The announcement was made Saturday, April 18, at a gala awards ceremony for...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/04/20/two-uc-berkeley-faculty-members-win-new-hor…

Sunbirds suck, scientists find. Hummingbirds don’t.

April 18, 2026
Robert Sanders

Two unrelated groups of nectar eaters, hummingbirds and sunbirds, evolved different techniques to slurp the sweet liquid from flowers. The tongue suctioning employed by sunbirds is unique among vertebrates.

While we often think of hummingbirds as sucking nectar from flowers, they’re not sucking the way we suction juice through a straw — they’re really sponging up nectar with their tongues and squeezing the juice into their mouths by compressing their tongues with their beaks.

Humans are naturally able from birth to use mouth suction to draw in liquid, but it’s not...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/04/13/sunbirds-suck-scientists-find-hummingbirds-…

The Nordic folklore behind the Joffrey Ballet's 'Midsummer Night's Dream'

April 18, 2026
Anne Brice

As the ballet begins its April 17-19 run at Cal Performances, UC Berkeley scholar Linda Rugg unpacks the surreal Scandinavian rituals and rural history featured in the production.

As the days stretch toward the summer solstice — the longest day of the year — Cal Performances is presenting the Joffrey Ballet’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, an original production by acclaimed Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman that dives headlong into the surreal,...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/04/17/the-nordic-folklore-behind-the-joffrey-ball…

Four UC Berkeley L&S professors win illustrious Guggenheim Fellowships

April 18, 2026
Kara Manke, Public Affairs

From Zora Neale Hurston to Jennifer Doudna, winners of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship are known for artistic creations, scientific discoveries and groundbreaking scholarship that fundamentally transform our world.

This year, four UC Berkeley faculty are joining this illustrious group.

The Guggenheim Foundation announced this week that Berkeley historians Elena Conis and Hannah Zeavin, biologist Rasmus Nielsen, and bioengineer and neuroscientist Michael Yartsev are among...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/04/17/four-uc-berkeley-professors-win-illustrious…

Your news feed may be making polarization worse

April 16, 2026
By Bessy Gomez

A new UC Berkeley Economics study finds that online news algorithms can quietly push readers toward more polarized views by reinforcing what they already believe.

The research from Berkeley Economics PhD Student Mingduo Zhao shows that even small differences in opinion can be amplified over time as algorithms learn what users click on and serve them more of the similar content. The result is a feedback loop that can deepen divisions, while also keeping users more engaged.

In his dissertation, paper titled, ...

L&S Assistant Dean of Advising Sharon Mueller announces retirement after 35 years of service

March 26, 2026
Lauren Miller

Sharon Mueller, the assistant dean of advising in the College of Letters & Science, has announced her retirement after 35 years in the UC Berkeley advising community. Mueller first ventured into the world of undergraduate advising when she applied for a student position with the College of Chemistry Undergraduate Advising Office in 1991, and she sees her current position as “the culmination of [her] career,” saying, “It seemed that every role I had on campus led me to this one,” making her retirement from the position a fitting journey’s end.

...

Political Science study reveals how Americans decide who counts as a person of color

March 31, 2026
By Aubrey Spowart

The term “person of color” has grown increasingly common in American public life. A new Berkeley Political Science paper, “Who Counts as a ‘Person of Color’? The Roles of Ancestry, Phenotype, Self-Identification and Other Factors” seeks to answer what the term actually means to the public, and more specifically, how Americans decide who falls under that label.

UC Berkeley Political Science Ph.D. student William Halm conducted a survey experiment to determine which characteristics matter most in classifying someone as a person of color....

Eight L&S faculty members elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

March 26, 2026

Congratulations to the eleven UC Berkeley faculty members named AAAS Fellows. The newly elected Fellows include a tech pioneer, the author of a book on nature’s poisons and a neuroscientist who can decode what you are seeing from your brain wave activity.

Eleven UC Berkeley faculty members have been elected 2025 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

The honorees, announced today (Thursday, March 26), are among nearly 500...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/03/26/eleven-uc-berkeley-faculty-members-elected-…

ASUC president discusses campus advocacy and priorities for her final months at Cal

March 23, 2026
By Jessica Ballardo

As she nears graduation, ASUC President Abigail Verino is focused on ensuring that her advocacy for UC Berkeley’s most vulnerable groups remains a permanent fixture of student life.

Verino, an Ethnic Studies and Legal Studies double major, has spent her time as ASUC president expanding student-facing systems — from securing over $100,000 for multicultural student organizations to advocating for the basic needs of undocumented students. As she moves forward with her education and career, Verino hopes to apply a critical Ethnic Studies lens to...