Research & Innovation

What do human movement, climate variability and social structures have in common? They are all essential components in understanding the spread of infectious diseases, according to UC Berkeley Demography Professor Ayesha Mahmud.

Mahmud’s research uses data-driven modeling and behavioral analysis to investigate how diseases spread in different environments — urban and rural, humid and dry, connected and isolated.

Her current projects focus on how individual behavior and large-scale population movements interact with...

We often assume that the decision to go to war is a carefully calculated process – one in which political leaders methodically weigh the risks and benefits before taking escalatory action. However, this belief is not supported by cognitive science and is becoming increasingly outdated.

UC Berkeley Political Science Assistant Professor Marika Landau-Wells is working to change that perception. Her research integrates psychology into our understanding of decision making, particularly as it relates to war, conflict and foreign policy, in order to update...

Restaurants, retail stores and other small businesses, long thought to be vulnerable to increases in the minimum wage, generally do not cut jobs and may actually benefit when governments raise minimum pay, according to a new study co-authored at UC Berkeley.

The prevailing wisdom among many business owners and policymakers is that when the minimum wage rises, smaller low-wage employers suffer more from higher labor costs and are more likely to cut jobs. But the...

Is a dog more similar to a chicken or an eagle? Is a penguin noisy? Is a whale friendly?

Psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, say these absurd-sounding questions might help us better understand what’s at the heart of some of society’s most vexing arguments.

Research published online Thursday in the journal Open Mind shows that our concepts about and associations with even the most basic...