Social Sciences

UC Berkeley is a powerhouse for generating innovative ideas and solving global issues. This past summer, four fellows in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) L&S program pushed forward this initiative of pioneering visionary change by bringing research back to their communities and addressing questions that spark social change. From working with incarcerated people to immigrant families to Indigenous...

Our beloved colleague, Michael Burawoy, was killed the evening of February 3, 2025 when he was hit by a car while walking near his home in Oakland. Michael was a pillar of our community for decades, an intellectual giant, a dedicated mentor and educator, and a dear friend. Indeed, he played a central role in defining who we are as an intellectual and human community.

UPDATE: The American Sociological Association and International Sociological Association are hosting an online tribute to Michael Burawoy's life and legacy at 9am Pacific time on...

Omer Sharon, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, has been awarded a $75,000 grant from the 2024 Glenn Foundation for the Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellowship in Aging Research. Sponsored by the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), this prestigious fellowship supports research aimed at advancing our understanding of human aging.

Sharon, who conducts his research at Berkeley’s Center for Human Sleep Science, focuses on how sleep maintains brain health. One key idea is that during sleep, the brain’s cleaning system, known as the...

Against her mom’s warnings, UC Berkeley political scientist Marika Landau-Wells watched Arachnaphobia as a kid. Ever since, she has been terrified of spiders. But over the years, she has learned to reason with her quick fear response — No, that spider is not 8 feet in diameter — and calmly trap them and put them outside.

We all encounter problems like this, she says, where we have quick reactions to things we’ve learned to fear. It might be something that is actually dangerous that we really should quickly react to, but it...