Research & Innovation

Urban inequality is often taught through theory and statistics. But for UC Berkeley Continuing Lecturer in Geography 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 development with hands-on research in Oakland neighborhoods. ...

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.

Tulika Singh is a postdoctoral scientist in UC Berkeley’s Harris Research Program, which is run by Professor Eva Harris. Singh was motivated to help others by her family’s history rising out of poverty in India. She studies mosquito-transmitted viruses like Zika and dengue that disproportionately harm poor people in tropical regions.

Singh spoke with UC Berkeley writer Alexander Rony about the life-saving work done by...

In this Berkeley Talks episode, Ramzi Fawaz, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and UC Berkeley alum, explores why the humanities and psychedelics might have more in common than you’d think, and how literature, much like psychedelics, can help open one’s mind to the world.

Fawaz, who spoke at Berkeley in September, argues that the humanities classroom functions as a vital space for shared sense-making, where deep engagement with art and literature can rewire the brain much like a psychedelic experience — helping students heal from the rigid...