Faculty

Berkeley Talks: Ezra Klein on building the things we need for the future we want (revisiting)

July 14, 2025

Today we are revisiting an October 2023 Berkeley Talks episode in which Ezra Klein, a New York Times columnist and host of the podcast The Ezra Klein Show, discusses the difficulties liberal governments encounter when working to build real things in the real world. He joins in a conversation with Amy Lerman, a UC Berkeley political scientist and director of the Possibility Lab.

“To have the...

He pioneered the cellphone. It changed how people around the world talk to one another — and don’t

July 7, 2025

“Dick Tracy” got an atom-powered, two-way wrist radio in 1946. Marty Cooper never forgot it.

The Chicago boy became a star engineer who ran Motorola’s research and development arm when the hometown telecommunications titan was locked in a 1970s corporate battle to invent the portable phone. Cooper rejected AT&T’s wager on the car phone, betting that America wanted to feel like Dick Tracy, armed with “a device that was an extension of you, that made you reachable everywhere.”

Fifty-two years ago, Cooper declared victory in a call from a Manhattan sidewalk to the head of AT...

When warnings never cease, can we still trust our instincts?

July 7, 2025

UC Berkeley political scientist Marika Landau-Wells first watched the 1990 movie Arachnophobia as a kid. Her mom warned her not to see it: The horror-comedy, about a California town terrorized by a deadly species of spider accidentally imported from a Venezuelan jungle, was PG-13, and Landau-Wells was a lot younger than 13. But some of her friends were going to the theater to see it — at least one of their parents thought it was fine — so she went.

“I now have this deep-seated conviction that all spiders are at least 8 inches in...

A T. rex with feathers? Scientists say dinosaurs were likely different from what most of us picture

June 26, 2025

Man stands at a railing to look over at a full size cast of a T.rex skeleton

For a long time, paleontologists thought that the famous, long-extinct apex predator, the Tyrannosaurus rex, may have chased its prey at high speeds. Children’s books and movies often showed the dinosaur sprinting at a terrifying pace; you might remember scenes from the 1993 film Jurassic Park in which a massive T. rex chases...

CIQC’s Impact in Action: Building Quantum Careers in Mathematics

June 24, 2025

Behind the scenes of NSF’s CIQC is a powerful story of workforce development: mathematicians without any prior exposure to quantum science are emerging as leaders in a rapidly expanding field, thanks to a training model that’s both rigorous and deeply interdisciplinary.

Headshot of Lin Lin, wearing glasses and a black shirt in front of an ivy leaf background“I had never worked on quantum computation before 2019,” says Lin Lin,...

New research says framing protests as fights for civil rights ‘backfires.’ So what might work?

June 23, 2025

Millions of people took to the streets last weekend in solidarity against President Donald Trump. Protest signs and public speeches decried his administration’s attacks on immigrants, LGBTQ people and other vulnerable groups. Many protesters deemed current policies an affront to civil rights.

But framing modern...

Lowriding was once banned in Sacramento. Now, it’s celebrated on Capitol Mall

June 23, 2025

Armando Lara-Millán was about to join hundreds of polished, modified and brightly colored cars in Sacramento when the back windshield of his new lowrider flew onto the highway.

Lara-Millán’s destination was the third annual Lowrider Holiday Celebration where cars like his lined four blocks of Capitol Mall Sunday afternoon. Without a windshield, Lara-Millan went from participant to spectator.

“It’s all good,” Lara-Millán, an associate professor of sociology at UC Berkeley, said. “It’s all part of the game.”

The Lowrider Holiday Celebration was organized by Cruising for...

It’s Not Just Trump Voters. Both Parties Are in Denial.

June 23, 2025

Sociology Professor Emerita Arlie Russell Hochschild spoke to The New York Times for an episode of "The Opinions" podcast.

In this episode of “The Opinions,” the editorial board director David Leonhardt talks to Arlie Russell Hochschild about why voters in Appalachia continue to support the president, despite the broken promises of Trump’s first term and looming cuts to social programs they depend on.

Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the...

Op-Ed: The Genius Act Will Bring Economic Chaos

June 18, 2025

Economics and Political Science Professor Barry Eichengreen wrote an op-ed that was published today in the The New York Times.

The growing value of cryptocurrency is resurrecting one of the most notorious features of the Wild West. Just as stagecoach drivers of the 19th century were ambushed by gold-seeking, gun-toting bandits, crypto holders and their families are increasingly finding themselves victims of...

Ahmad Nabhan: Bringing an Industry Perspective

May 21, 2025

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2025 MCB Transcript newsletter.

Headshot of Ahmad Nabhan wearing a blue t-shirt and glassesAssistant Professor Ahmad Nabhan, who joined MCB’s faculty in January 2025, brings some...