Students

A great leap forward for MPS scholars’ careers

April 23, 2024
by Alexander Rony

Standing on Asilomar State Beach just west of Monterey, Marius Castro talked with dozens of his fellow UC Berkeley students for hours under the moonlight. The moment felt special to Castro, like he was in a movie. In actuality, he was attending the first annual MPS Scholars retreat.


“Everybody I met had such good vibes,” said Castro, a third-year student double majoring in applied mathematics and computer science. “I...

L&S First-Year Pathways Recap - Fall 2025

January 15, 2026
Lauren Miller

In Fall 2025, the L&S First-Year Pathways program welcomed its largest cohort yet, serving 230 first-year students across its record number of 17 clusters, up from last year's six clusters, which served 125 students. With this expansion of the program, Pathways instituted new, creative ways to help students feel connected with each other and with the program. From social events like the welcome reception at the start of the semester and study break event during UC Berkeley's Reading, Review, and Recitation (RRR) Week to...

Carolyn Nguyen Named UC Berkeley’s First Churchill Scholar Since 2016

February 5, 2026
Liza Davitaia

UC Berkeley senior Carolyn Nguyen (’26) has been selected as a 2026–27 Winston Churchill Scholar, making her Berkeley’s first recipient in a decade. Awarded by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States, the Churchill Scholarship supports a year of master’s study at Churchill College, Cambridge, for students pursuing advanced work in science, mathematics, and engineering.

A double major in Molecular and Cell Biology and Business Administration (Haas), Nguyen is passionate about advancing next-generation therapeutics. At Berkeley, she conducts research in Dr. James Nuñez’s...

Seeing the Other Side

January 23, 2026
Daniela X. Sandoval, M.J. ’26

United we stand. United, we are not.

As tensions have flared over events ranging from the 2020 murder of George Floyd to the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, our nation’s divisions seem to grow more and more stark. Against that backdrop, Berkeley’s new course “Openness to Opposing Views” aims to foster dialogue across ideological divides.

The asynchronous, self-paced course launched in the summer with just 50 enrollees. Since then, it has grown to roughly 700 students, with thousands more Cal faculty, staff, and alumni taking advantage of the free, non-...

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/2025-fall-winter/seeing-the-othe…

Economics and cognitive science student discusses AI startup to solve global blackouts with UC Regents

January 20, 2026
By Jessica Ballardo

For millions of people, reliable electricity is not a guarantee. In many communities powered by solar mini-grids, evening demand surges routinely trigger blackouts, pushing operators to fall back on costly, polluting diesel generators.

Evardi Energy, a startup co-founded by economics and cognitive science student Diva Bhartesh Shah, aims to transform this broken system into one with reliable power that is resistant to blackouts. Their solution involves using AI to predict demand surges before they occur, allowing operators to adjust usage as needed.

Shah co-founded Evardi in...

From ‘too much’ to just right: How one student found a home at Berkeley

January 7, 2026
Yesenia Ochoa

Growing up in Sonoma, California, Victoria Hernandez Padilla always felt like she was too much. Too curious, too loud, too bold. She was always asking questions. As a toddler before she’d learned English, she’d spend hours arranging bright magnetic letters on the fridge, asking her mom again and again if it spelled a word.

In school, her classmates would whisper about her, saying she talked too much. She felt she couldn’t ask questions, otherwise she’d be cast into the “loud Latina” stereotype. But Victoria wanted answers and would push until she got them.

“I never felt...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/01/06/from-too-much-to-just-right-how-one-student…

For 20 years, this UC Berkeley program has helped students who've been in foster care succeed

December 17, 2025
Lila Thulin

Tristan Lombard’s first interaction with what was then known as the Cal Independent Scholars Network was to call the Better Business Bureau and report a scam.

It was 2006, and Lombard’s pre-college years had looked different than most of his peers: He’d attended four different high schools, sold drugs, had brushes with law enforcement and experienced periods of homelessness. So, as what he terms a “very bitter 17-year-old,” he saw an invitation to create a wish list for move-in day dorm products and assumed it was a con.

It wasn’t. Rather, it was part of a fledgling program...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/12/16/for-20-years-this-uc-berkeley-program-has-h…

Not everyone reads the room the same. A new UC Berkeley study examines why.

December 16, 2025
By Jason Pohl

Are you a social savant who easily reads people’s emotions? Or are you someone who leaves an interaction with an unclear understanding of another person’s emotional state?

New UC Berkeley research suggests those differences stem from a fundamental way our brains compute facial and contextual details, potentially explaining why some people are better at reading the room than others — sometimes, much better.

Human brains use information from faces and background context, such as the location or expressions of bystanders, when making sense of a scene and assessing someone’...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/12/16/not-everyone-reads-the-room-the-same-a-new-…

Should homelessness interventions target housing or mental health treatment?

December 2, 2025
by Sydney Costantini

The debate over homelessness solutions has raged for decades: Should policy prioritize housing or mental health treatment? New research tracking nearly 300,000 veterans for three years provides compelling answers—just as the federal government prepares to change course.

The number of unhoused individuals in the U.S. reached a record high of 770,000 at the end of 2024 (Porter 2024). Homelessness policy remains a source of vehement partisan debate. Some argue that homelessness is, in fact, a housing problem, with permanent housing solutions required to help those most in need...

https://econ.berkeley.edu/stories-interviews/should-homelessness-interventions-t…

Seeing Differently: Kelly Chuang on Vision, Speculation, and Unreliable Narrators

December 1, 2025
Lucille Lorenz, Arts & Humanities writer-in-residence

Kelly Chuang is a third-year English and Rhetoric double major and a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. She has a strong interest in speculative fiction, the uncanny, and narratology, and she jokes that she can connect almost anything she reads back to cyborgs, Carl Sagan’s Contact, or sci-fi.

Kelly chose English because of her long-standing love of literature and the teachers who encouraged it. She added Rhetoric after discovering how much she enjoyed the department’s interdisciplinary approach and the energy of its faculty.

Firstly, I would love to hear you introduce...
https://artshumanities.berkeley.edu/news/seeing-differently-kelly-chuang-vision-…