Research & Innovation

New sociology book explores how personal relationships change over a lifetime

February 12, 2026
By Aubrey Spowart

From graduating college to dealing with health problems, major life changes can disrupt our social world. A forthcoming book, “Personal Networks over the Life Course: Dynamic Perspectives,” which was written by scholars from UC Berkeley and other institutions, examines how and why our relationships change over a lifetime.

The researchers found that major life events can strain or break some relationships. For example, moving to a new country or graduating college can cause people to lose touch with friends. However, most people eventually...

Geography instructor and students explore Oakland through community-based scholarship

December 18, 2025
By Jessica Park

Urban inequality is often taught through theory and statistics. But for UC Berkeley Geography Continuing Lecturer Seth Lunine, the most meaningful insights come from spending time with the Bay Area communities who live the realities that students study.

At a recent Social Matrix event, titled “Promise & Precarity: Exploring Oakland Through Community-Engaged Scholarship,” Lunine discussed how he combines classroom learning on racialized inequalities in urban...

How the Berkeley Seismology Lab turns data into disaster prevention

February 12, 2026
Robert Sanders

In this Research With Results video, lab director Richard Allen explains how their work helps keep Californians safe while contributing to important earthquake-related research.

Earthquakes may cause some people to flee the Golden State, but Richard Allen came to California precisely because of them. As a seismologist — a scientist who studies the geological causes of quakes — he saw UC Berkeley as the epicenter of cutting-edge research in the field.

Much of that is thanks to the Berkeley Seismological...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/02/12/how-the-berkeley-seismology-lab-turns-data-…

Linguistics professor discusses AI’s role in scientific discovery at OpenAI Forum

February 10, 2026
By Jessica Ballardo

At a recent forum hosted at the OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, Linguistics Professor Gašper Beguš discussed how AI can act as a catalyst for biological discovery and a bridge between animal and human communication.

He highlighted his recent study with Project CETI, where he serves as...

Roland Bürgmann awarded Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship

February 6, 2026

Roland Bürgmann, UC Berkeley professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, has been awarded the 2026 Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship. This honor is bestowed upon a scientist for making lasting contributions to the study of physics of the Earth and whose lectures will provide solid, timely, and useful additions to the knowledge and literature in the field.

Bürgmann was recognized for developing important work that has transformed our understanding of how the lower crust and upper mantle respond to large stress changes from...

https://www.nasonline.org/award/arthur-l-day-prize-and-lectureship/

Why are Tatooine planets rare? Blame general relativity.

February 3, 2026
Robert Sanders

Of the more than 4,500 stars known to have planets, one puzzling statistic stands out. Even though nearly all stars are expected to have planets and most stars form in pairs, planets that orbit both stars in a pair are rare.

Of the more than 6,000 extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, confirmed to date — most of them found by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) — only 14 are observed to orbit binary stars. There should be hundreds. Where are all the planets with two suns, like Tatooine in Star Wars?

Astrophysicists at the...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/01/30/why-are-tatooine-planets-rare-blame-general…

From Theory to “Tapeout”: Berkeley Students Design and Test Quantum Chips in First-of-its-Kind Course

January 30, 2026
Dione Rossiter

In a groundbreaking new course supported by the CIQC, students aren’t just learning the equations behind quantum mechanics, they are designing and measuring their own superconducting qubit chips.

Walk into the laboratory of CIQC Investigator Alp Sipahigil in early December, and you won’t see students sitting in lecture halls. Instead, you will find teams of graduate and undergraduate researchers huddled around cryostats, instruments capable of cooling electronics to temperatures colder than deep space. Inside those chambers are quantum chips that the students designed themselves...

https://ciqc.berkeley.edu/from-theory-to-tapeout-berkeley-students-design-and-te…

These Berkeley researchers may stop the next pandemic — if we let them

January 30, 2026
by Alexander Rony

Moving labs can be a stressful time for any researcher. For integrative biology professor Cara Brook, her July arrival at UC Berkeley was complicated by the sudden loss of nearly half a million dollars in federal funding.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) eliminated a portion of her innovative research award...

A gorilla doctor working to prevent the next pandemic

January 29, 2026
by Alexander Rony


Tierra Smiley Evans travels to some of the world’s most remote forests to protect its largest inhabitants from microscopic threats. Her work involves caring for mountain gorillas and Asian elephants while examining mosquitos and humans for deadly diseases.

Smiley Evans holds both a Ph.D. in infectious disease epidemiology and a doctorate of veterinary medicine. This background gives her a unique perspective on emerging...

From cave to clinic: Bat research in a post-pandemic world

January 29, 2026
by Alexander Rony

Bats attract many unflattering myths, but one aspect is true: the diseases they carry are extremely virulent. Still, Cara Brook, a disease ecologist who spends two to three months a year in Madagascar, loves her fruit bat subjects. By studying bat viruses, she is able to protect both them and us.