Mathematical & Physical Sciences

The Keck Foundation, whose mission is to boost high-impact basic scientific research, invited UC Berkeley to apply to its one-time Bridge Funding Initiative in order to rapidly deploy funding to early- to mid-career faculty and their graduate students who were especially vulnerable to changes in the federal funding landscape.

Funding for these projects is meant to ensure that there is no disruption to the career trajectories of graduate students and to help retain faculty in their early and middle career stages.

According to the grant’s principal investigator, Vice Chancellor...

The National Academy of Sciences announced its newest members this week, among them six eminent UC Berkeley faculty members, including former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.

Membership in the academy, now held by more than 135 living Berkeley faculty members, recognizes scientists for “their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

The National Academy of Sciences, along with the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine, advise the...

This week, seven UC Berkeley faculty — representing academic fields from philosophy to molecular biology to engineering — were named members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Academy, chartered in 1780, was established to recognize accomplished individuals and engage them in addressing the greatest challenges facing the U.S. The 252 new electees encompass leaders in academia, the arts, industry, journalism, philanthropy, policy, research and science, and include the actor Jodie...

In a Q&A, UC Berkeley astronomer Gibor Basri reality-checks the recent sci-fi movie and talks about the chances of encountering life elsewhere in the galaxy.

In the sci-fi book and now movie Project Hail Mary, astronaut Ryland Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, encounters three different alien lifeforms in the vicinity of Earth. He joins forces with one of them, from the star 40 Eridani, to try to stop another, an alien microbe from Tau Ceti, that is eating stars — including our sun. The third lifeform saves the day.

Aliens have long been a common trope in...