Faculty

Using virtual reality and psychedelics to restore brain function

March 26, 2026

When Professor Gül Dölen joined UC Berkeley’s neuroscience and psychology departments in January 2024, the influential scientist got to work designing her new lab and office. Now, after an extensive renovation, Dölen can finally reveal the results, complete with dinosaur brain replicas, a wall-to-wall bookshelf, colorful floor tiles, trippy Beatles posters, and all manner of octopus paraphernalia.

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...

What do parasitic worms and wages have in common? More than you think

March 25, 2026

Carol Nekesa doesn’t know if she was ever infected by parasitic worms. But it’s likely, she says, since most kids in her community had them. “It was just a normal part of childhood,” she says.

Carol grew up in the 1980s in a rural village in Kenya’s Busia County. Like many regions in Sub-Saharan Africa at the time, Busia lacked the infrastructure for clean water and modern sanitation, leading to the pervasive spread of infectious diseases.

Parents feared deadly outbreaks like malaria and cholera, often unaware of the slower, hidden damage caused by intestinal worms. The...

Psychology professor explains how youth use Roblox to cope with ICE raids

March 6, 2026

People process immigration raids in so many different ways. For some children and young adults, the online gaming platform Roblox is their way of making sense of these events and participating in the national discourse, according to Psychology Professor Giovanni Ramos.

They do this by role-playing Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers conducting raids and community members protesting them. Clips of these reenactments appeared on TikTok, prompting a Roblox spokesperson to tell the Associated Press it’s a violation of Roblox’s community...

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

March 23, 2026

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...

Social Sciences in the News: African American Studies Chair Ula Taylor in BET

March 23, 2026

African American Studies Chair Ula Taylor was featured in an op-ed for Black Entertainment Television (BET) titled "She Started It. She'll End It."

On March 11, 2026, Pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant stood at a podium inside the National Press Club and declared victory. The yearlong "Target Fast" he had led from his Atlanta megachurch was officially over, he said. He had met with the company’s new CEO. Progress had been made. Time to move on.

Within hours,...

UC Berkeley faculty weigh Chavez allegations and support student center renaming

March 19, 2026

For decades, Cesar Chavez has been honored at UC Berkeley as a symbol of resistance, dignity and Latinx political power. Now, new sexual abuse allegations are prompting faculty to reexamine that legacy and to ask what happens when a movement's hero becomes an apparent source of harm.

In response, Berkeley Social Sciences and ...

Social Sciences in the News: Economics Professor Emmanuel Saez in San Francisco Chronicle

March 18, 2026

Economics Professor Emmanuel Saez was featured in an article titled "Progressives love him. Billionaires hate him. Can a Berkeley professor pass California's wealth tax?" in San Francisco Chronicle.

Emmanuel Saez doesn’t look like a political provocateur. Tall and lean, with graying temples and rectangular eyeglasses, the UC Berkeley economics professor favors V-neck sweaters, drives a 2009 Honda Fit and speaks so softly in his French accent that colleagues lean in to...

Social Sciences in the News: Political Science Professor David Broockman in The New York Times

March 16, 2026

Political Science Professor David Broockman's paper Should Moving to the Middle Win Candidates Votes? It Depends Where Voters Are was cited in an op-ed in The New York Times titled "The Democratic Brand Is Toxic in Too Many States."

Even with Donald Trump’s approval rating in the toilet and Democrats ahead in generic ballot polling for the House...