As UC Berkeley celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, it is emerging as a national leader in developing science-based practices that nurture constructive dialogue. The goal: Cool tensions, promote understanding and ease polarization.
Even before David Z. arrived at UC Berkeley, he had a strong, uneasy sense that he would not fit in. His family is conservative, and so is he. He’s not doctrinaire: He supports Donald Trump, but he believes in climate change, too. Even so, he suspected that at Berkeley, so famously progressive, he might be an outsider....
In Berkeley Talks episode 208, three UC Berkeley professors from a wide range of disciplines — psychology, biology and ethnic studies — broach a deep question: What is understanding?
“When I think about it through the lens of being a psychologist, I really think about understanding as a demonstration of, say, knowledge that we have...
We are saddened to share the following news from our department of African American Studies:
The Department of African American Studies mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus Robert Allen, who joined the ancestors on July 10, 2024. Professor Allen was a beloved colleague, mentor, and friend in our community. In collaboration with Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, AAS will honor Professor Allen's life and contributions to our departments with an event in the fall. More details are forthcoming. In the meantime, we share...
In Berkeley Talks episode 203, Alisha Gaines, a professor of English and an affiliate faculty member in African American studies at Florida State University, discusses why it’s important for Black America to “excavate and reconsider” its relationship to the plantation.
“If we were to approach the plantation with an intention to...
William Carter was in a National Archives reading room in the United Kingdom staring at a box of tattered pages covered in cursive writing, sea water stains and smears of blood. It smelled musty, and his hands became smudged turning the soot-covered pages.
Carter, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidate in geography, was mining these centuries-old slave ship logs in 2020 as part of his research into the transatlantic slave trade and what lessons from then might apply to our own understandings about race, literacy and power today.
But there was a problem: He couldn’t read a single...
Standing on Asilomar State Beach just west of Monterey, Marius Castro talked with dozens of his fellow UC Berkeley students for hours under the moonlight. The moment felt special to Castro, like he was in a movie. In actuality, he was attending the first annual MPS Scholars retreat.
“Everybody I met had such good vibes,” said Castro, a third-year student double majoring in applied mathematics and computer science. “I...
Growing up in San Francisco's West Portal neighborhood, Christopher Ying had vague plans to become a lawyer and began prepping by joining the speech, debate and mock trial teams at Lowell High School.
But he credits the University of California, Berkeley, and the opportunities it provided — in particular, to report and edit for the Daily Californian and to tutor inmates at the former San Quentin State Prison — with helping him find his true passion in the legal field: giving a voice to marginalized members of society.
Those only-at-Berkeley experiences — plus a 3.981 grade...
Are inventors born or made? Berkeley engineers explore that question in the award-winning documentary “Pathways to Invention,” set to premiere in May on PBS stations nationwide. The 60-minute special follows eight “modern inventors of diverse backgrounds and their journeys as they develop life-changing innovations.”
Yuno Iwasaki has been awarded a 2024 Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellowship and will pursue a Ph.D. in physics at UC Berkeley. As a Fellow, Yuno will receive up to $90,000 to support her graduate education.
The Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellowship is a program for "outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants from all over the country and world who are pursuing graduate school here in the United States." The 2024 class is comprised of 30 honorees, out of a competitive pool of more than 2300 applicants, and Yuno is one of two UC Berkeley students included in this...
Viet Thanh Nguyen emerged from UC Berkeley with more than a diploma.
In fact, he earned three (but who’s counting?) — dual bachelor’s degrees in English and ethnic studies in 1992, and a doctorate in English in ’97.
But his education wasn’t confined by the walls of a classroom.
Nguyen became steeped in activism, leaving Berkeley with “four misdemeanors, three diplomas, two arrests, and an abiding belief in solidarity, liberation, and the power of the people and the power of art,” he recalls in his memoir, 2023’s A Man of Two Faces.
In Berkeley Talks episode 208, three UC Berkeley professors from a wide range of disciplines — psychology, biology and ethnic studies — broach a deep question: What is understanding?
Standing on Asilomar State Beach just west of Monterey, Marius Castro talked with dozens of his fellow UC Berkeley students for hours under the moonlight. The moment felt special to Castro, like he was in a movie. In actuality, he was attending the first annual MPS Scholars retreat.