Shows
Berkeley TalksBerkeley scholars unpack what's at stake for U.S. democracyEvery spring semester, UC Berkeley Assistant Professor Shereen Marisol Meraji teaches a class on race and journalism. In the course, she and her students explore how colonialism and the legacy of its systems — including forced displacement of Native tribes, slavery and Jim Crow — continue to affect us as a society, and how journalists can meaningfully report on race in America today.“It has led to persistent racial disparities in wealth, in education, housing, healthcare, in policing and incarceration,” said Meraji, who leads the audio program at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. “I firmly believe that you can't meanin...2025-08-091h 01
Berkeley TalksEconomist on the benefits of a (modest) billionaire taxIn this Berkeley Talks episode, economist Gabriel Zucman discusses how wealth inequality and billionaire wealth has soared in recent decades, prompting the need for a global minimum tax of 2% on billionaires. “The key benefit of a global minimum tax on billionaires is not only that it would generate substantial revenue for governments worldwide — about $250 billion a year — but also, and maybe most importantly, that it would restore a sense of fairness,” says Zucman, a UC Berkeley summer research professor and director of the Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality’s Summer Institute. Today, billionaires pay only abo...2025-07-251h 14
Berkeley TalksEzra Klein on building the things we need for the future we want (revisiting)Today we are revisiting an October 2023 Berkeley Talks episode in which Ezra Klein, a New York Times columnist and host of the podcast The Ezra Klein Show, discusses the difficulties liberal governments encounter when working to build real things in the real world. He joins in a conversation with Amy Lerman, a UC Berkeley political scientist and director of the Possibility Lab.“To have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of the things that we need,” begins Klein, who has since published the 2025 book Abundance with co-author Derek Thompson. “It’s so stupidly...2025-07-111h 35
Berkeley TalksHow the tobacco industry drove the rise of ultra-processed foodsIn the early 1960s, R.J. Reynolds, one of the largest and most profitable tobacco companies in the U.S. at the time, wanted to diversify its business. Its marketing strategies had been highly successful in selling its top brands, like Camel, Winston and Salem cigarettes, and executives thought, Why not apply the same strategies to, say, the food industry?So in 1963, R.J. Reynolds acquired Hawaiian Punch. It marked the beginning of the tobacco industry’s entry into the food sector. In the following decades, R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris expanded aggressively into the...2025-06-2757 min
Berkeley TalksA debate on how to feed the world without ‘eating the earth’By 2050, the global population is expected to reach about 10 billion people. That means we need to find a way to feed nearly 2 billion more mouths in the next 25 years. Industrial farming practices have already destroyed countless natural ecosystems, and experts say that expanding farmland even further would have devastating consequences for the planet. In Berkeley Talks episode 227, UC Berkeley Professor Timothy Bowles and journalist Michael Grunwald discuss the impact of our current agricultural methods and debate the ways we can ramp up food production without causing more harm to the environment. “Agriculture is eating the eart...2025-05-301h 14
Berkeley Voices131: How new color 'olo' stretches the limits of human perceptionLast month, UC Berkeley researchers published a study about how they tricked the eye into seeing a new color. It was a highly saturated teal, a peacock green, the greenest of all greens. The scientists produced this color, which they named “olo,” by shining a laser into the eye and stimulating one type of color-sensitive photoreceptor cells called cones. Austin Roorda, a professor of optometry and vision science at Berkeley’s School of Optometry, developed the optical imaging platform they used in this project. It’s called Oz, after the story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In the...2025-05-2618 min
Berkeley TalksDaniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) on reading the authors you want to write likeIt took nearly six years for bestselling author Daniel Handler to sell his first book, a satirical novel called The Basic Eight. When his agent sold it in 1998, it was “for the least amount she had ever negotiated for,” laughed Handler, who spoke at a UC Berkeley event earlier this month. More than two decades later, Handler has published seven novels. Under his pen name Lemony Snicket, he has written dozens of books for children, including the 13-volume series A Series of Unfortunate Events. His most recent book, And Then? And Then? What else?, is part memoir, part in...2025-05-1656 min
Berkeley TalksIn 1970, one in five Americans moved every year. Now it’s one in 13. What changed?In Berkeley Talks episode 225, The Atlantic journalists Yoni Appelbaum and Jerusalem Demsas discuss the decline of housing mobility in the United States and its impact on economic opportunity in the country. Appelbaum, author of the 2025 book Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity, began by tracing the history of housing mobility in the U.S. and its rapid decline in recent decades. He noted that in the 19th century, one out of three Americans moved to a new residence every year, and as late as 1970, one in five did. Today, only o...2025-05-021h 32
Berkeley TalksJ Finley on how Black women use sass to claim their humanityWhen J Finley arrived at UC Berkeley as a graduate student in 2006, she planned on studying reparations and the legacy of slavery. But after a fellowship in South Africa, where she studied the Zulu language and culture, Finley says she realized Black people were never going to get reparations. Switching gears, she started thinking: “How else do Black people make do? Well, we laugh.”In Berkeley Talks episode 223, Finley, an associate professor of Africana studies at Pomona College who earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2008 and 2012, discusses her 2024 book Sass: Black Women’...2025-04-041h 23
Berkeley TalksLaw professors debate the merits of originalismIn Berkeley Talks podcast episode 222, UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Brian Fitzpatrick, the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise at Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville, Tennessee, debate the merits of originalism in constitutional interpretation. Originalism is a theory that argues that the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted based on its original meaning, as understood at the time of its adoption nearly 250 years ago, rather than evolving with society. Arguments for originalism in this debate include: Originalism limits judicial discretion and prevents judges from imposing their own political views under the guise of co...2025-03-211h 05
Berkeley TalksHeather Cox Richardson on the evolution of the Republican PartyIn Berkeley Talks episode 221, American historian Heather Cox Richardson joins Dylan Penningroth, a UC Berkeley professor of law and history, in a conversation about the historical evolution of the Republican Party, and the state of U.S. politics and democracy today. Richardson, a professor of history at Boston College, is the author of the popular nightly newsletter Letters from an American, in which she explains current political developments and relates them to historical events. With more than 3 million daily readers, Richardson says Letters has grown a “community around the world of people who are trying to reestablish a r...2025-03-071h 38
Berkeley TalksUC Berkeley political scientist asks: Does democracy work?If someone asked you to describe democracy in one word, what would you say? An October 2024 survey by the Political Psychology of American Democracy Policy Project, led by UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy Dean David Wilson, asked people just that. Many respondents said, “freedom,” but a lot of others said, “broken.” In Berkeley Talks episode 220, Berkeley political scientist Henry Brady discusses how we got to a place of growing disillusionment with democracy, where so many mistrust the U.S. government and deride fellow voters’ ability to make informed decisions. In his Feb. 3 talk, part of...2025-02-211h 03
Berkeley TalksHow hospitals collect medical debts can hurt patients. Why?When Luke Messac began his emergency medicine residency at Rhode Island Hospital in 2018, he noticed a lot of his patients came to him concerned about costs. Some worried about his recommendations for them to stay in the hospital overnight. Others questioned his motives when he asked them to undergo a test, like an X-ray or MRI. A few came in way too late in the course of their illnesses out of fear of the cost. He’d heard about aggressive debt collection practices at hospitals around the country that put people at risk of profound financial and leg...2025-02-0755 min
Berkeley TalksComing of age as an unaccompanied migrant youth in the U.S.In Berkeley Talks episode 218, sociology professor Stephanie Canizales discusses her 2024 book, Sin Padres, Ni Papeles, about the experiences of undocumented immigrant youth as they come of age in the United States without their parents. Over six years, Canizales conducted 75 in-depth interviews with adult immigrants living in Los Angeles who came to the U.S. as unaccompanied children years before. “Many arrive in the U.S. to find that long-settled relatives who are constrained by their own legal and socioeconomic status are unable to offer material and emotional support, rendering children unaccompanied upon their arrival,” says Canizales, faculty direct...2025-01-241h 24
Berkeley Voices126: Think you know what dinosaurs were like? Think again.For UC Berkeley Professor Jack Tseng, the world of paleontology never gets old. With each new discovery, paleontologists like him learn more about the animals that walked the earth millions of years ago."If you look at books from 50 years ago, they postured dinosaurs very differently from the way we do it today," Tseng says. "This constant profusion of new scientific knowledge into the popular psyche is recorded in children's books, which is a lovely way to see how this science has progressed."Fossils also hold valuable clues about our planet's future and our role...2024-12-3018 min
Berkeley TalksPoet Ocean Vuong on disobedience and the power of languageIn Berkeley Talks episode 216, celebrated poet and novelist Ocean Vuong joins in conversation with UC Berkeley English Professor Cathy Park Hong, a poet and writer whose creative nonfiction book, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, was a 2021 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Together, they discuss the importance of genre fluidity and artistic experimentation, the role of disobedience in their writing and how language can be both a tool of oppression and liberation.“I personally feel a lot of affinity with you as a writer for many reasons,” began Hong, in front of a packed auditorium at the Berkeley Art Muse...2024-12-271h 20
Berkeley Voices125: As crises escalate, so does our fascination with cultsLike millions of other Americans, UC Berkeley Professor Poulomi Saha watched a lot of docuseries about cults during the COVID-19 pandemic. The more Saha watched, the more they felt a kind of change within themself. "I was absolutely enthralled," said Saha. “My reaction no longer fit that old script, the script that I had internalized. I wasn’t just having a passing interest. I wasn’t sort of mildly terrified. I was thinking, “Oh, wow, that makes good sense.’” Saha wanted to understand why. So they started a class, called Cults in Popular Culture, where Saha and their student...2024-11-2529 min
Berkeley TalksA return to monarchy? Bradley Onishi on Project 2025In Berkeley Talks episode 211, Bradley Onishi, a scholar of religion, an ex-evangelical minister and the co-host of the politics podcast Straight White American Jesus, discusses Project 2025, Christian nationalism and the November elections.“Project 2025 is a deeply reactionary Catholic vision for the country,” said Onishi, who gave the 2024 Berkeley Lecture on Religious Tolerance on Oct. 1. “It's a Christian nationalism fueled by Catholic leaders, and in many cases, reactionary Catholic thought.”Many see Trump’s vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance, a first-term senator from Ohio, as bolstering Trump’s outsider image, said Onishi. But it has gone mos...2024-10-181h 30
Berkeley TalksWith white helmets and GoPros, these volunteers risk it all in Syria’s civil warIn 2011, mass protests erupted in Syria against the four-decade authoritarian rule of the Assad family. The uprising, which became part of the larger pro-democracy Arab Spring that spread through much of the Arab world, was met with a brutal government crackdown. Soon after, the country descended into a devastating civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians and displaced over 13 million people, more than half of the country’s prewar population. When the civil war broke out, groups of volunteers formed to provide emergency response to communities across Syria. In 2014, those volunteers vote...2024-10-041h 04
Berkeley TalksLegal scholars on free speech challenges facing universities todayIn Berkeley Talks episode 209, renowned legal scholars Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law, and Nadine Strossen, professor emerita of the New York School of Law and national president of the ACLU from 1991 to 2008, discuss free speech challenges facing universities today. They covered topics including hate speech, First Amendment rights, the Heckler’s Veto, institutional neutrality and what steps universities can take to avoid free speech controversies. The conversation, which took place on Sept. 11, was held in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, in which thousands of students protested successfully for their right to fre...2024-09-201h 41
Berkeley TalksWhat is understanding? Berkeley scholars discussIn Berkeley Talks episode 208, three UC Berkeley professors from a wide range of disciplines — psychology, biology and ethnic studies — broach a deep question: What is understanding?“When I think about it through the lens of being a psychologist, I really think about understanding as a demonstration of, say, knowledge that we have about the world,” begins Arianne Eason, an assistant professor of psychology, in this episode. “But that knowledge doesn't necessarily have to be through what we say. It doesn't necessarily have to be explicit. It's really about shaping the way that we engage with the world a...2024-09-0654 min
Berkeley TalksIt’s not just psychedelics that change minds, says Michael Pollan. Storytelling does, too.In Berkeley Talks episode 207, bestselling author and UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus Michael Pollan discusses how he chooses his subjects, why he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics and the role of storytelling in shifting our perspective. “We're wired for story,” he told KQED’s Mina Kim, whom he joined in conversation at a UC Berkeley event in May 2024. “We're a storytelling and consuming people, and we remember better and we're moved more by narrative than we are by information or argument. “The shorter journalism gets, the more it relies on argument to get any k...2024-08-231h 11
Berkeley TalksHow the Supreme Court divided AmericaIn Berkeley Talks episode 204, Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, discusses the history of the Supreme Court and how its recent decisions will impact generations to come. “When you think of the topics for the first two years of this supermajority — guns, abortion, affirmative action, the interest of the fossil fuel industry — that doesn't sound like a court,” Waldman said to UC Berkeley Law Professor Maria Echaveste, whom he joined in conversation in April 2024. “That sounds like a political caucus.“And so, I think disentangling our reverence...2024-07-131h 07
Berkeley TalksReconsidering Black America’s relationship to the plantationIn Berkeley Talks episode 203, Alisha Gaines, a professor of English and an affiliate faculty member in African American studies at Florida State University, discusses why it’s important for Black America to “excavate and reconsider” its relationship to the plantation. “If we were to approach the plantation with an intention to hold space for the Black people who stayed and labored there,” said Gaines at a UC Berkeley event in April, “we might see the plantation as another origin story — one of resistance, joy, love, craftsmanship and survival, and not just dehumanization and the porn of Black suffering.”2024-06-281h 20
Berkeley Talks'Wave' memoirist on writing about unimaginable lossIn 2004, Sonali Deraniyagala was on vacation with her family on the coast of Sri Lanka when a tsunami struck the South Asian island. It killed her husband, their two sons and her parents, leaving Deraniyagala alone in a reality she couldn’t comprehend. In Berkeley Talks episode 201, Deraniyagala discusses her all-consuming grief in the aftermath of the tragedy and the process of writing about it in her 2013 memoir, Wave.“Wave was the wave was the wave,” said Deraniyagala, who spoke in April 2024 at an event for Art of Writing, a program of UC Berkeley’s Doreen B...2024-05-3151 min
Berkeley TalksGigi Sohn on her fight for an open internetIn Berkeley Talks episode 200, Gigi Sohn, one of the nation’s leading public advocates for equal access to the internet, delivers the keynote address at the UC Berkeley School of Information’s 2024 commencement ceremony. “I'd like to share with you some of the twists and turns of my professional journey as a public advocate in the world of communications and technology policy,” Sohn began at the May 18 event. … “I'm hoping that by sharing my story, you'll be inspired to keep choosing the path that you know is right for you and for society, even if it sometimes comes at a co...2024-05-2813 min
Berkeley TalksHarry Edwards to sociology grads: Even in turbulent times, always believe in yourselfIn Berkeley Talks episode 199, Harry Edwards, a renowned sports activist and UC Berkeley professor emeritus of sociology, gives the keynote address at the Department of Sociology’s 2024 commencement ceremony. “As I stand here before you, in the twilight of my life's time of long shadows,” said Edwards at the May 13 event, “from a perspective informed by my 81 years of experience, and by a retrospective assessment of the lessons learned over my 60 years of activism, what is my advice and message to you young people today? What emerges as most critically germane and relevant in today's climate?“First...2024-05-2427 min
Berkeley TalksFeeling like a failure isn't the same as failing, filmmaker tells journalism gradsIn Berkeley Talks episode 198, documentary filmmaker Carrie Lozano delivers the keynote address at the 2024 Berkeley Journalism commencement ceremony. Lozano, who graduated from the school of journalism in 2005 and later taught in its documentary program, is now president and CEO of ITVS, a nonprofit that coproduces independent films for PBS and produces the acclaimed series, Independent Lens. “I've had a lot of tough moments in my career, sometimes feeling like I was not going to recover,” Lozano told the graduates at the May 11 event. “I have put energy into my process for dealing with staggering mistakes and things that d...2024-05-2324 min
Berkeley TalksBerkeley commencement speeches celebrate resilience, braveryIn Berkeley Talks episode 197, we're sharing a selection of speeches from UC Berkeley's campuswide commencement ceremony on May 11. The first speech is by Chancellor Christ, followed by ASUC President Sydney Roberts and ending with keynote speaker Cynt Marshall, a Berkeley alum and CEO of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks."I believe the future of our democracy depends on our ability to engage in civil discourse across the divides and reject the forces of division and polarization," Christ began, as hundreds of graduates chanted in protest of the war in Gaza. "Given recent events and the scourge of COVID, I...2024-05-1733 min
Berkeley TalksRuth Simmons on access and equity in higher educationIn Berkeley Talks episode 196, Ruth Simmons, a longtime professor and academic administrator, discusses how the journey to equal access and fairness in education has reached a critical inflection point — and why educators are essential to the progress we need to see.“History has shown: The failure to resolve satisfactorily the issue of whether and how the state should address the causes and effects of discrimination will continue to impair progress, sow seeds of hatred and despair, and make even more distant the goals and ideals enshrined in the United States Bill of Rights and the U.S. Cons...2024-05-031h 11
Lab to StartupLessons from Evolution of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem at UC BerkeleyRichard Lyons, Ph.D., is the Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer, at the University of California, Berkeley. Rich is an economist and the former dean of the business school. Rich will become the next chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. We talk about a wide variety of topics around the Evolution of innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem at Berkeley. We covered topics like paradigm shifts, cultural transformations, overcoming inertia; global impact and many others. I hope you get some insights from this story, and walk away with appreciation and potentially actionable steps if...2024-04-3058 min
Berkeley TalksThe future of psychedelic scienceIn Berkeley Talks episode 195, UC Berkeley professors discuss how and why psychedelic substances first evolved, the effects they have in the human brain and mind, and the mechanism behind their potential therapeutic role."If it's true that the therapeutic effects are in part because we're returning to this state of susceptibility, and vulnerability, and ability to learn from our environment similar to childhood," says psychology Professor Gül Dölen, "then if we just focus on the day of the trip and don't instead also focus our therapeutic efforts on those weeks after, where the critical period is p...2024-04-191h 02
Berkeley TalksSociologist Harry Edwards on sport in society (revisiting)In Berkeley Talks episode 194, Harry Edwards, a renowned sports activist and UC Berkeley professor emeritus of sociology, discusses the intersections of race and sport, the history of predatory inclusion, athletes’ struggle for definitional authority and the power of sport to change society.“You can change society by changing people’s perceptions and understandings of the games they play,” Edwards said at a March 2022 campus event sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI) and Cal Athletics.“I’m saying whether it’s race relations in America, whether it’s relations between the United States and...2024-04-061h 13
Berkeley TalksSci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson on the need for 'angry optimism'In Berkeley Talks episode 193, science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson discusses climate change, politics and the need for "angry optimism." Robinson is the author of 22 novels, including his most recent, The Ministry for the Future, published in 2020. "It's a fighting position — angry optimism — and you need it," he said at a UC Berkeley event in January, in conversation with English professor Katherine Snyder and Daniel Aldana Cohen, assistant professor of sociology and director of the Sociospatial Climate Collaborative. "A couple of days ago, somebody talked about The Ministry for the Future being a pedagogy of hope. And I...2024-03-221h 25
Berkeley TalksThe future of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)In Berkeley Talks episode 192, Sarah Deer, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma and a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas, discusses the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a federal law passed in 1978 that aims to keep Native children in their families and communities. She also talks about the recent Supreme Court decision in Brackeen v. Haaland, which upheld ICWA, and explores the future of ICWA. “I want to begin by just talking about why ICWA was passed, and it has to do with a very tragic history in the United States of rem...2024-03-0858 min
Berkeley TalksJustice Sonia Sotomayor on fighting the good fightIn Berkeley Talks episode 191, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor talks about getting up every morning ready to fight for what she believes in, how she finds ways to work with justices whose views differ wildly from her own and what she looks for in a clerk (hint: It’s not only brilliance).“I’m in my 44th year as a law professor,” said Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinksy, who was in discussion with Sotomayor for UC Berkeley’s annual Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture on Jan. 29. “I’m teaching constitutional law this semester. I have to say that I’ve...2024-02-231h 02
Berkeley Voices119: Art student's photo series explores masculine vulnerabilityBrandon Sánchez Mejia stood at a giant wall in UC Berkeley’s Worth Ryder Art Gallery and couldn’t believe his eyes. In front of him were 150 black-and-white photos of men’s bodies in all sorts of poses and from all sorts of angles. It was his senior thesis project, "A Masculine Vulnerability," and it was out for the world to see."It came from this idea that as men, we are not allowed to show skin as scars or emotions or weakness," said Sánchez, who will graduate from Berkeley this May with a bachelor’s degree i...2024-02-2208 min
Berkeley TalksWhy so many recent uprisings have backfiredIn Berkeley Talks episode 190, journalist and UC Berkeley alumnus Vincent Bevins discusses mass protests around the world — from Egypt to Hong Kong to Brazil — and how each had a different outcome than what protesters asked for. “From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in mass protests than at any other point in human history,” said Bevins, author of the 2023 book, If We Burn. “These protests were often experienced as a euphoric victory at the moment of the eruption. But then, after a lot of the foreign journalists, like me, have left (the countries), and we look at what actually happened, t...2024-02-091h 11
Berkeley Voices118: Take the first Black history tour at UC BerkeleyThe self-guided Black history tour at UC Berkeley begins at Memorial Stadium, where student Walter Gordon was a star of the football team more than 100 years ago. It then weaves through campus, making stops at 13 more locations, each highlighting an important person or landmark related to Black history.There's Ida Louise Jackson Graduate House, named in honor of the first African American woman to teach in Oakland public schools. Next is Barbara Christian Hall, named for the first Black woman to be granted tenure at Berkeley. Other stops include Wheeler Hall and Sproul Plaza, where Black visionaries...2024-02-0109 min
Berkeley Voices117: Bonobos and chimps show 'a rich recognition' for long-lost friends and familyBonobos and chimpanzees — the closest extant relatives to humans — could have the longest-lasting nonhuman memory, a study led by a UC Berkeley researcher found. Extensive social memory had previously been documented only in dolphins and up to 20 years."What we're showing here," said Berkeley comparative psychologist Laura Simone Lewis, "is that chimps and bonobos may be able to remember that long — or longer."Berkeley News writer Jason Pohl first published a story about this study in December 2023. We used his interview with Lewis for this podcast episode.Photo courtesy of Laura Simone Lewis.Music...2024-01-2607 min
Berkeley TalksFree speech on campus in times of great divisionIn Berkeley Talks episode 188, a panel of scholars discusses free speech on university campuses — where things stand today, what obligation campus leaders have to respond to conflicts involving speech and the need for students to feel safe when expressing their own views."Issues of free speech on campus have been there as long as there have been universities," began Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky at a UC Berkeley event on Jan. 10. "There's no doubt that since Oct. 7, universities across the country, including here at Berkeley, face enormously difficult issues with regard to freedom of speech.""Espe...2024-01-121h 00
Berkeley VoicesAfterthoughts: The true origins of American immigration policyHistorians have long assumed that immigration to the United States was free from regulation until the introduction of federal laws to restrict Chinese immigration in the late 19th century. But UC Berkeley history professor Hidetaka Hirota, author of Expelling the Poor, says state immigration laws in the country were created earlier than that — and actually served as models for national immigration policy decades later.This is an episode of Afterthoughts, a series that highlights moments from Berkeley Voices interviews that didn’t make it into the final episode. This excerpt is from an interview with Hirota featured in Berke...2024-01-0804 min
Berkeley TalksProtecting survivors of sex traffickingIn Berkeley Talks episode 187, Bernice Yeung, managing editor of Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program; public health journalist Isabella Gomes; and gender-based violence expert Holly Joshi discuss how sex trafficking can appear invisible if we don’t know where to look, and how doctors, nurses, police officers, hotel operators — all of us — can do more to protect victims and survivors. “If we're just looking at sex trafficking as the issue, then it's a bipartisan issue,” said Joshi, director of the GLIDE’s Center for Social Justice in San Francisco, and a nationally recognized expert on gender-based violence prevention and i...2023-12-291h 36
Berkeley TalksThe transformative potential of AI in academiaIn Berkeley Talks episode 186, a panel of UC Berkeley scholars from the College of Letters and Science discusses the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in academia — and the questions and challenges it requires universities and other social institutions to confront. "When it comes to human-specific problems, we often want fair, equitable, unbiased answers," said Keanan Joyner, an assistant professor of psychology. "But the data that we feed into the training set often is not that. And so, we are asking AI to produce something that it was never trained on, and that can be very problematic. We have...2023-12-151h 12
Berkeley TalksNate Cohn on polling and the 2024 electionIn Berkeley Talks episode 185, New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn discusses how polling works, the challenges facing pollsters today and where polling stands as we head into the 2024 U.S. presidential election."I don't think it's a coincidence that we have a crisis of polling at the same time we have a crisis of democracy," said Cohn, who gave UC Berkeley’s Citrin Award Lecture on Oct. 19."I don't think it's a coincidence that Trump mobilized a so-called silent majority of voters who felt that they were unrepresented in our political system, and who t...2023-12-011h 23
The Berkeley Remix"From Generation to Generation" Episode 4 - "Origami as Metaphor"In season 8 of The Berkeley Remix, a podcast of the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley, we are highlighting interviews from the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project. The OHC team interviewed twenty-three survivors and descendants of two World War II-era sites of incarceration: Manzanar in California and Topaz in Utah. This four-part series includes clips from these interviews, which were recorded remotely via Zoom. Using healing as a throughline, these life history interviews explore identity, community, creative expression, and the stories family members passed down about how incarceration shaped their lives.
In this episode, we explore creative expression...2023-11-1338 min
The Berkeley Remix"From Generation to Generation" Episode 3 - "Between Worlds": Japanese American Identity & BelongingIn season 8 of The Berkeley Remix, a podcast of the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley, we are highlighting interviews from the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project. The OHC team interviewed twenty-three survivors and descendants of two World War II-era sites of incarceration: Manzanar in California and Topaz in Utah. This four-part series includes clips from these interviews, which were recorded remotely via Zoom. Using healing as a throughline, these life history interviews explore identity, community, creative expression, and the stories family members passed down about how incarceration shaped their lives.
In this episode, we explore identity and...2023-11-1335 min
The Berkeley Remix"From Generation to Generation" Episode 2 - "A Place Like This": The Memory of IncarcerationIn season 8 of The Berkeley Remix, a podcast of the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley, we are highlighting interviews from the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project. The OHC team interviewed twenty-three survivors and descendants of two World War II-era sites of incarceration: Manzanar in California and Topaz in Utah. This four-part series includes clips from these interviews, which were recorded remotely via Zoom. Using healing as a throughline, these life history interviews explore identity, community, creative expression, and the stories family members passed down about how incarceration shaped their lives.
In this episode, we explore the history...2023-11-1339 min
The Berkeley Remix"From Generation to Generation" Episode 1 - "It's Happening Now": Japanese American ActivismIn season 8 of The Berkeley Remix, a podcast of the Oral History Center at UC Berkeley, we are highlighting interviews from the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives Oral History Project. The OHC team interviewed twenty-three survivors and descendants of two World War II-era sites of incarceration: Manzanar in California and Topaz in Utah. This four-part series includes clips from these interviews, which were recorded remotely via Zoom. Using healing as a throughline, these life history interviews explore identity, community, creative expression, and the stories family members passed down about how incarceration shaped their lives.
In episode 1, we explore activism and civic...2023-11-1326 min
Berkeley Voices114: Theater as power: New professor brings Caribbean performance practice to BerkeleyUC Berkeley's first social justice theater professor, Timmia Hearn DeRoy, talks about how Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival practice, rooted in emancipation, drives her work today."Trinidadian Carnival, it’s social justice theater in practice. Every moment, it’s all about emancipation, the subverting of the powerful narrative through humor, through performance, through doublespeak. And it just taught me so much about the possibilities of the art form."Photo courtesy of Timmia Hearn DeRoy.Music by Blue Dot Sessions.Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on Berkeley News...2023-10-1722 min
Berkeley TalksChinese activist Ai WeiWei on art, exile and politicsIn Berkeley Talks episode 181, renowned artist and human rights activist Ai WeiWei discusses art, exile and politics in a conversation with noted theater director and UCLA professor Peter Sellars and Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society and former dean of Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.Ai, who grew up in northwest China under harsh conditions because of his poet father's exile, is openly critical of the Chinese government's stance on democracy and human rights. He is well-known for his provocative works, including his 2014-15 installation on San Francisco Ba...2023-10-061h 29
The Berkeley RemixVoices for the Environment - Episode 3: Environmental Justice for AllEpisode 3: Environmental Justice for All
The podcasts for "Voices for the Environment: A Century of Bay Area Activism" are part of a Bancroft Library Gallery exhibition at UC Berkeley. This exhibit charts the twentieth-century evolution of environmentalism in the San Francisco Bay Area through the voices of activists who galvanized public opinion to advance their causes—from wilderness preservation, to economic regulation, to environmental justice. The "Voices for the Environment" exhibition was curated by UC Berkeley's Oral History Center and is free and open to the public from Oct. 6, 2023 to Nov. 15, 2024, in The Bancroft Library Gallery, located just inside the ea...2023-10-0326 min
The Berkeley RemixVoices for the Environment - Episode 2: Tides of ConservationEpisode 2: Tides of Conservation
The podcasts for "Voices for the Environment: A Century of Bay Area Activism" are part of a Bancroft Library Gallery exhibition at UC Berkeley. This exhibit charts the twentieth-century evolution of environmentalism in the San Francisco Bay Area through the voices of activists who galvanized public opinion to advance their causes—from wilderness preservation, to economic regulation, to environmental justice. The "Voices for the Environment" exhibition was curated by UC Berkeley's Oral History Center and is free and open to the public from Oct. 6, 2023 to Nov. 15, 2024, in The Bancroft Library Gallery, located just inside the east en...2023-10-0329 min
The Berkeley RemixVoices for the Environment - Episode 1: A Preservationist SpiritEpisode 1: A Preservationist Spirit
The podcasts for "Voices for the Environment: A Century of Bay Area Activism" are part of a Bancroft Library Gallery exhibition at UC Berkeley. This exhibit charts the twentieth-century evolution of environmentalism in the San Francisco Bay Area through the voices of activists who galvanized public opinion to advance their causes—from wilderness preservation, to economic regulation, to environmental justice. The "Voices for the Environment" exhibition was curated by UC Berkeley's Oral History Center and is free and open to the public from Oct. 6, 2023 to Nov. 15, 2024, in The Bancroft Library Gallery, located just inside the east en...2023-10-0329 min
Berkeley TalksWhat are Berkeley's Latinx Thriving Initiatives?In Berkeley Talks episode 180, Dania Matos and Fabrizio Mejia, vice chancellor and associate vice chancellor, respectively, for UC Berkeley’s Division of Equity and Inclusion, join Berkeley student Angelica Garcia to discuss the campus’s Latinx Thriving Initiatives (LTI) and how these efforts are supporting Berkeley’s goal of not only becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), but also of transforming Berkeley into a Latinx Thriving Institution.“There's a practical standpoint of this that's about becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution,” begins Matos. “That's why you'll hear HSIs a lot, and it's important in that naming and framing. Dr. Gina Garci...2023-09-2252 min
Berkeley TalksPoet Ishion Hutchinson reads 'The Mud Sermon' and other poemsIn Berkeley Talks episode 179, Jamaican poet Ishion Hutchinson reads several poems, including "The Mud Sermon," "The Bicycle Eclogue" and "After the Hurricane." His April reading was part of the UC Berkeley Library’s monthly event Lunch Poems."I take this voyage into poetry very seriously," begins Hutchinson, "and take none of it for granted, because of the weight of history, both growing up in Jamaica and knowing the violent history that comes with that. But also the violence, too, of canon, and seeing that my work as a poet, in part, is to figure out what sort of em...2023-09-0941 min
Berkeley Voices113: Funky and free-spirited: How a 1970s summer camp started a disability revolutionIt was summertime in the early 1970s in New York City. Fifteen-year-old Jim LeBrecht boarded a school bus headed for the Catskill Mountains, home to Camp Jened, a summer camp for people with disabilities. As the bus approached the camp, he peered out the window at the warm and raucous group below."I wasn't exactly sure who was a camper and who was a counselor," he said. "I think that's really indicative of one of the many things that made that camp special."Over several years, the camp changed him in profound ways."...2023-09-0540 min
Berkeley TalksOppenheimer's Berkeley yearsIn Berkeley Talks episode 177, a panel of scholars discusses theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and how his years at UC Berkeley shaped him, and how he shaped the university.Oppenheimer, the subject of Christopher Nolan’s summer 2023 film Oppenheimer, came to Berkeley in 1929 as an assistant professor and over the next dozen years established one of the greatest schools of theoretical physics. He went on to direct the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, during which the first nuclear weapons were developed. He’s often referred to as “the father of the atomic bomb.”...2023-08-171h 27
Berkeley TalksJessica Morse on how we can live with fireIn this Berkeley Talks episode, Jessica Morse, the deputy secretary for forest and wildland resilience at the California Natural Resources Agency, discusses the current wildfire crisis in California and how we got here, strategies the state is implementing, and lessons they've learned in order to decrease catastrophic wildfires and create more resilient forests.Morse began her Nov. 4, 2022, lecture with a story about the Camp Fire, the nation's deadliest wildfire in a century that killed 85 people and destroyed more than 18,000 structures in Northern California. "The story for me starts Nov. 8, 2018, almost four years ago to the d...2023-07-291h 25
Berkeley TalksLegal scholars unpack Supreme Court ruling on affirmative actionIn this episode, three leading legal scholars — john a. powell, director of UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (OBI); Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law; and Sheryll Cashin, professor of law at Georgetown Law School — discuss the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that public and private universities cannot use race as a factor in admitting students. The court, with its conservative justices in the majority, ruled that such affirmative action violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, reversing decades of legal precedent.In California, UC Berkeley and other public colleges and universities have been prohibited from consid...2023-07-111h 01
Berkeley TalksPoets laureate share works about creation, sacrifice and homeIn this episode, three poets laureate — Lee Herrick, the first Asian American poet laureate of California; Kealoha, Hawai'i’s first poet laureate; and Nadia Elbgal, the Oakland youth poet laureate — perform and read their works in celebration of National Poetry Month in April.Kealoha, a slam champion who has a degree in nuclear physics from MIT, began by performing a scene from his film, The Story of Everything, a creation story inspired by his son that tells 13.8 billion years worth of time, from the Big Bang to human life on Earth. Next, Elbgal, a Yemeni American activist and re...2023-06-301h 18
Berkeley Voices112: How the Holocaust endsGrowing up, Linda Kinstler knew that her Latvian grandfather had mysteriously disappeared after World War II. But she didn't think much about it."That was a very common fate from this part of the world," says Kinstler, a Ph.D. candidate in rhetoric at UC Berkeley. "It didn't strike me as totally unusual. It was only later when I began looking into it more that I realized there was probably more to the story."What she discovered was too big for her to walk away.In 2022, she published her first book, Come to...2023-05-1828 min
Berkeley Voices110: Gericault De La Rose knows who she is and won't change for anyoneGericault De La Rose is a queer trans Filipinx woman, and refuses to change for anyone."Being that queer trans person completely owning herself I hope gives other people permission to be themselves, too," she says. A master's student in UC Berkeley's Department of Art Practice, Gericault explores in her art Philippine mythology and her experience as a trans woman. One time, she dressed up like a manananggal — a kind of monster that detaches from her lower body at night to look for unborn babies to eat — and then slept in an art gallery for six h...2023-05-0922 min
Berkeley Voices109: Ali Bhatti on Ramadan and how his faith guided him through deep lossYesterday at sunset marked the start of Ramadan, the ninth and holiest month of the Islamic calendar. For Ali Bhatti, a Ph.D. candidate in science and math education at UC Berkeley, it’s a time to feel closer to God, to break habits and to remember what he’s thankful for. In this episode, Ali describes, in his own words, what the month means to him. He also talks about how 9/11 shaped his childhood in New Jersey, finding his Muslim community at Berkeley and how Islam, and the support of his family and Berkeley community, helped him get thro...2023-03-2315 min
Berkeley Voices108: 'Be the Change': Purvi Shah on the moments of beauty as a civil rights lawyerIn this episode of Be the Change, host Savala Nolan, director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, interviews Purvi Shah.Shah is the founder and executive director of Movement Law Lab and a civil rights litigator, policy advocate and law professor who has spent over a decade working at the intersection of law and grassroots social movements.During their conversation, they talk about the nuts and bolts of founding a legal nonprofit in response to current events, and the intellectual and philosophical theory behind “movement lawyering,” a type of lawyering that aims...2023-03-2240 min
Berkeley Voices107: 'Be the Change': Nazune Menka on creating the course, Decolonizing UC BerkeleyIn this episode of Be the Change, host Savala Nolan, director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, interviews Nazune Menka.Menka is a lecturer at Berkeley Law and a supervising attorney for the campus’s Environmental Law Clinic. She is Denaakk’e from Alaska and Lumbee from North Carolina. In fall 2021, Menka designed and taught a new undergraduate legal studies course called Decolonizing UC Berkeley, and she taught Indigenous Peoples, Law and the United States at the law school in spring 2022.During their conversation, they talk about how to bring a deco...2023-03-1545 min
Berkeley Voices106: 'Be the Change': Khiara M. Bridges on claiming her voice as a prominent Black womanHost Savala Nolan, director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, interviews Khiara M. Bridges. Bridges is a professor at UC Berkeley's School of Law and a powerful public intellectual who speaks and writes about race, class, reproductive justice and the intersection of the three.During their conversation, they talk about the process of Bridges claiming and using her voice as a prominent Black woman. And they discuss the complexities of presentation and adornment for members of marginalized communities — especially in academia — and about approaching work with a sense of liberation, creativity and hustle.2023-03-0851 min
Berkeley Voices105: 'Be the Change': A podcast that aims 'to remove the mystery of making change'Embodying the change you want to see in the world can feel ... well, intimidating. Impossible, even. But Berkeley Law's Savala Nolan wants to help us all figure it out — one step at a time — in her podcast, Be the Change. "We're talking about transforming the world and being the change and these very lofty concepts," says Nolan, director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice. "But I hope what they see is that big, lofty concepts really contain lots of little, teeny, tiny steps that are repeated and built upon over time."In seaso...2023-03-0120 min
Berkeley Voices103: Law student Hoda Katebi: Iran's protests are about 'total liberation'In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Berkeley Law student Hoda Katebi discusses how, after she began wearing the hijab as a sixth-grader in Oklahoma, she learned that clothes are inherently political. "It played a huge role in shaping my own personal growth, as well as my relationship to politics," Katebi says.Since protests broke out in Iran nearly three months ago, sparked by the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini by Iran's so-called morality police, Katebi has been an outspoken supporter of the protesters. "The main demand that we're hearing is, 'Jin, Jiyan, Azadî,' or...2022-12-0814 min
Berkeley Voices102: Exploring the sound of the American Indian occupation of AlcatrazOn Nov. 20, 1969, a group of Indigenous Americans that called itself Indians of All Tribes, many of whom were UC Berkeley students, took boats in the early morning hours to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. They bypassed a Coast Guard blockade and took control of the island. The 19-month occupation that followed would be regarded as one of the greatest acts of political resistance in American Indian history.Everardo Reyes is a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at Berkeley. After taking several classes with John-Carlos Perea, who last year was a visiting associate professor in Berkeley’s De...2022-11-0919 min
KPFA - Law & Disorder w/ Cat BrooksShake Alert: Earthquake preparedness w/ Dr Jennifer Strauss from the UC Berkeley Seismology LabScientists in California have long been trying to prepare and warn us in California for when the next big earthquake comes. We are joined by Dr Jennifer Strauss, external relations officer for the UC Berkeley Seismological Lab, product manager for the MyShake App, and the media coordinator for Earthquake County Alliance Bay Area. We talk about earthquake preparedness, and how the new Shake Alert system that can give emergency response just enough notice to begin preparing to respond.
Follow the UC Berkeley Seismology Lab on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BerkeleySeismo
Check out the UC Berkeley Seismology L...2022-09-2831 min
Berkeley Voices101: 'Interior Chinatown' is about roles and how we play them In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Charles Yu discusses his 2020 book, Interior Chinatown, which goes inside the mind of a young Asian American man trying to make it in Hollywood. Incoming UC Berkeley students read the book over the summer as part of On The Same Page, a program from the College of Letters and Science."This is really a book about roles and how we play them," Yu said. "Sometimes they are fundamental to who we are, but they can also be very limiting or reductive. I hope that people can see that, in one way...2022-08-2423 min
Berkeley Voices100: How Roe v. Wade radically changed American cultureWhen Roe v. Wade was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, which protected a woman’s right to an abortion, “it changed everything,” says Kristin Luker, a professor emerita of law and of sociology at UC Berkeley. “It was so revolutionary — I argue it was on a par with the American Revolution or the French Revolution.”Last Friday, the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe, giving states broad power to curtail or end abortion. As of today, abortion is now banned in at least seven states, and about half of states across the country are expected...2022-06-2922 min
Berkeley Voices99: Indi Garcia lives and breathes the 'abolitionist philosophy'In episode 99 of Berkeley Voices, Berkeley Law student Indi Garcia, who is graduating on May 13 with pro bono honors for her work on the Post-Conviction Advocacy Project, talks about how meeting with incarcerated men as a college student inspired her anti-prison and criminal justice work. "These men were just brilliant," said Garcia. "They were so much more than the crimes that led them there."Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/05/05/berkeley-law-student-indi-garcia-graduation-2022Follow Berkeley Voices and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.2022-05-0510 min
Berkeley Voices98: How one student finds hope in her 'fellow earthlings'In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Hope Gale-Hendry, a fourth-year student in ecosystem management and forestry at UC Berkeley, shares in her own words how she discovered her deep interconnectedness with all living things, and why she decided to study the American pika. "We have a shared history on this planet," said Hope. "That is the lesson that I have been able to use to foster my passion for conservation and foster this love and admiration that I have for my cousins on this planet. Not just humans, but moss and squirrels and horses and farm animals and lichen...2022-04-1516 min
Berkeley Voices97: Biologist confronts deep roots of climate despairIn this episode of Berkeley Voices, Bree Rosenblum, a professor of global change biology at UC Berkeley, talks about why we need to stop blaming each other for the environmental crisis that we’re in, and instead confront its root causes and expand our ideas of what it means to be human on our planet. "We are in such an individual and collective squeeze point," she said. "Do we want humanity to mean what it has meant in the past, or do we want to create a new meaning for our species and our purpose?"Listen to th...2022-04-0119 min
Berkeley Voices95: 'The past will be present when Roe falls’ Berkeley Law professor and anthropologist Khiara Bridges discusses the history of reproductive rights in the U.S., what’s at stake when Roe v. Wade is overturned and why we should expand our fight for reproductive justice. "Roe v. Wade didn't fall out of the sky," says Bridges. "In 1973, the justices weren’t like, 'You know what we should make up? A right to an abortion.' Roe v. Wade was actually part of a long line of cases dating back to the 1920s." And it likely won’t stop at abortion rights, says Bridges. By saying that Roe v. Wad...2022-03-0425 min
Berkeley Voices94: How the seven-day week made us who we areAs a kid growing up in New York City, Roqua Montez was interested in everything — comics, dinosaurs, science, music and dance, martial arts — and his calendar filled up fast. Now, as the executive director of communications and media relations in UC Berkeley's Office of Communications and Public Affairs, he still has a lot to keep track of. To manage his activities and responsibilities, Roqua has relied on something that we all rely on: the seven-day week.The week has been used as a timekeeping unit and calendar device to organize society for about 2,000 years, says David Henkin, a pr...2022-02-1813 min
Berkeley Voices93: How the Great Migration transformed American musicBetween 1910 and 1970, about 6 million Black Americans moved from the rural South to cities in the North, the West and other parts of the United States. It’s known as the Great Migration. Musicians who moved to these cities became ambassadors, says UC Berkeley history professor Waldo Martin, “not only for the music of the South, but for the culture from which the music emerged. And the music was made and remade, and continues to be today. On Feb. 17, mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran and jazz pianist Jason Moran — and an all-star roster of jazz collaborators — will perform their remaking of the musi...2022-02-0415 min
Berkeley Voices92: California needs a new water supply. Could wetlands be an answer?As drought and the effects of climate change continue to threaten the water supply that Californians rely on, experts at UC Berkeley are looking for new ways to generate an ongoing, stable water supply in its cities that is not as reliant on the weather. "Californians are leaders worldwide in the recycling of water," says David Sedlak, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of the Berkeley Water Center. There's just one problem that needs to be solved — and if it is, it could open up water recycling opportunities in many parts of the wo...2022-01-2113 min
Berkeley Voices90: Giving up Twitter with Michael PollanToday, we share an episode of The Science of Happiness, a podcast produced by our colleagues at the Greater Good Science Center. Host and UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner talks with Berkeley Journalism professor and bestselling author Michael Pollan about what it was like for Pollan to give up Twitter — something that he found was becoming a somewhat unproductive compulsion.Next week, we'll be back with our final Berkeley Voices episode of the season. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/11/26/science-of-happiness-michael-pollanArtwork by W...2021-11-2622 min
Berkeley Voices87: How Nobel winner David Card transformed economicsThe labor economist and UC Berkeley professor of economics, who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in economics, talks about why his research on the economics of the minimum wage, immigration and education was so controversial — and how it continues to be today. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/15/berkeley-voices-nobel-prize-economics-david-cardUC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.2021-10-1523 min
Berkeley Voices86: Disabled and empowered: How Mariana Soto Sanchez found self-advocacy at BerkeleyIn January 2015, 15-year-old Mariana Soto Sanchez woke up one Saturday morning at her home in Ontario, California, with weakness in her hand. Within minutes, the feeling had spread throughout her body. Her parents rushed her to the hospital. By the time they got there, she had total paralysis. Later that night, they found out she had a rare disorder called transverse myelitis. From that point on, Mariana had to adjust to an entirely new way of living. Six years later, Mariana has regained some mobility and will graduate from UC Berkeley this December with a degree in media studies a...2021-10-0126 min
America Adapts the Climate Change PodcastFundamentals of Wildfire, Land Management and Climate Change with Dr. Brandon Collins of UC BerkeleyDoug Parsons hosts Dr. Brandon Collins, an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley and the lead scientist at Berkeley Forests. As wildfires rage in the Western U.S., why are some areas more prone to out of control fires than others? Brandon explains the ecology of western forests and some of the management options to mitigate against these extreme events. We also discuss the growing impact of climate change on these catastrophic fires and why the land management of a hundred years ago is making it harder for these landscapes to adapt to climate change. Topics covered: S...2021-08-3154 min
Berkeley Voices83: How wildfire can create healthier forestsBerkeley News writer Kara Manke discusses a new report from UC Berkeley that shows how allowing lightning fires to burn in Yosemite’s Illilouette Creek Basin recreated a lost — and more resilient — forest ecosystem. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/20/berkeley-voices-wildfirePhoto by Emily Gonthier Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.2021-08-2011 min
Berkeley Voices76: How the Asian American movement began at Berkeley, sparked creativity and unityIn the second part of a three-part series, playwright and UC Berkeley professor Philip Kan Gotanda discusses how he began to write music during the emerging Asian American movement, which began at Berkeley in the late 1960s. And how, after his music career didn’t take off as he’d hoped, he went to law school, where he wrote his first play. Now, he’s one of the most prolific playwrights of Asian American-themed work in the United States.Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/14/podcas...2021-05-1407 min
Berkeley Voices74: Berkeley MFA student Fred DeWitt: George Floyd never wanted to be in my artFred DeWitt is a Master of Fine Arts student and the first artist-in-residence in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley. DeWitt, 61, shares in his own words what the Black Panthers meant to him as a young boy growing up in the Bay Area, how Barack Obama’s election as president inspired him to go back to school to study art, and the complicated nature of honoring the lives of people who never wanted to be remembered for their deaths. His MFA show will be at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) in June....2021-04-2015 min
Climate BreakWhendee Silver - Compost and GrasslandsCarbon sequestration is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide to slow the pace of climate change. There are two major types of carbon sequestration: geologic and biologic. Geological carbon sequestration injects carbon dioxide captured from an industrial or energy-related source into underground geologic formations. Biological carbon sequestration refers to the storage of atmospheric carbon in vegetation, soils, woody products, and aquatic environments1. While carbon dioxide (CO2) is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, and physical processes, some artificial sequestration techniques exploit the natural processes to slow the atmospheric accumulation of CO2.Soil...2020-08-2101 min
Who Belongs? A Podcast on Othering & BelongingEP 18 - 400 Years of Resistance to Slavery Initiative at UC BerkeleyIn this episode of Who Belongs? we hear from two guests about a year-long initiative at UC Berkeley marking the 400th anniversary of the start to slavery in North America. The initiative includes weekly events with scholars, activists, and artists from around the country reflecting on the enduring legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, looking at the Civil Rights era, our current era, and also trying to imagine a future based on justice, reconciliation, and belonging.
The two guests are Denise Herd, and Waldo Martin. Denise is a professor in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley who is...2019-12-1841 min
The Berkeley RemixSleeping With The Light On - Let There Be Light - Season 4, Episode 1This season of the Berkeley Remix we’re bringing to life stories about our home — UC Berkeley — from our collection of thousands of oral histories. Please join us for our fourth season, Let There Be Light: 150 Years at UC Berkeley, inspired by the University’s motto, Fiat Lux. Our three episodes this season explore issues of identity — where we’ve been, who we are now, the powerful impact Berkeley’s identity as a public institution has had on student and academic life, and the intertwined history of campus and community.
In Episode 1: Sleeping With The Light On, we’ve come to think of comm...2019-07-2418 min
Berkeley TalksProfessor Tina Sacks on maintaining social welfare programs in the Trump eraWhat are some of the current challenges to maintaining social welfare programs for the nation's most vulnerable people in the Trump era?Tina Sacks, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley's School of Social Welfare, gave a lecture on this topic on Jan. 30, 2019, as part of a series of talks sponsored by UC Berkeley's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI).Sacks's fields of interest include racial disparities in health, social determinants of health, race, class and gender and poverty and inequality. Prior to joining Berkeley Social Welfare, Sacks spent nearly a decade in federal service at the C...2019-02-0154 min
Berkeley Voices46: Berkeley Haas Chief of Staff Marco Lindsey lives like his 80-year-old self is watchingEvery morning, Marco Lindsey wakes up in East Oakland, where he was born and raised. He puts on a suit and tie, packs his briefcase, chats with his neighbors and drives to work at Berkeley Haas. It's a typical morning routine, but to Marco, it’s a lot more than that. It’s a way to show boys and young men in his community that they have possibilities. He didn't have that growing up. But his drive — and mentors who helped steer him — propelled him forward, and now he's helping others to succeed. His motto: Live your life as if your...2018-12-1109 min
KPFA - East Bay YesterdayRichard Pryor’s transformative East Bay experience, Berkeley in the 1970s and moreThe first segment of this episode explores the Richard Pryor’s time living in Berkeley:
Richard Pryor was one of the most influential comedians of all time, but when he first arrived in the East Bay, he said: “I don’t think I have a style yet.” This episode explores how living in Berkeley during an era full of riots and revolutionaries sparked Pryor’s creative evolution. Authors Cecil Brown and Ishmael Reed share memories of these tumultuous times and Pryor biographer Scott Saul explains how the controversial performer went on to change American culture forever.
The secon...2018-10-2435 min
Berkeley Voices41: At Berkeley, nobody stuffs a bird like Carla CiceroAfter Lux — one of the peregrine falcons born on the Campanile — died last year after striking a window of Evans Hall, the campus community was heartbroken. But Carla Cicero, the staff curator of birds at UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, has given the peregrine a new purpose. Lux is now one of 750,000 specimens — birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals — at the museum used for research at Berkeley and across the world. Lux is the 4,287th specimen that Carla has prepped for the museum in the past 30 years. Although the museum is closed to the public, for one day a year — C...2018-09-2505 min
Berkeley Voices40: From the archive: On Berkeley time? He keeps Campanile's clocks tickingLast week, Berkeley students noticed that one of the Campanile’s four clocks stopped. While the north-facing clock was at a standstill, the other three kept going. How could that happen? Turns out each of the clocks has its own motor and runs independently from one another. But because the bell tower’s clocks are so old — the Campanile was built more than 100 years ago — its parts can’t just be replaced. The campus has to send them away to be repaired or find another way to keep the clocks ticking. A few years ago, I interviewed Art Simmons...2018-09-1804 min
Berkeley Voices15: Roaya and Nissma on their surprise connectionWhen Roaya and Nissma met as freshman at UC Berkeley last year, they were amazed at how much they had in common. They were both Canadian and Moroccan, and were on the pre-med track. They became fast friends. But the next year, when they were moving into their new apartment, they realized their friendship wasn't a new one. Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/08/30/roaya-and-nissma-reunited-at-berkeley/ Photo by Anne Brice Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.2017-08-2803 min
Berkeley Voices07: How Moscow’s Tsar Bell found its voice — at BerkeleyWe’re at UC Berkeley’s Campanile courtyard listening to sounds of an ancient bell that have never been heard before. It’s the 20-foot-tall, 200-ton Russian “Tsar Bell” — the largest bell in the world — in duet with the campus’s carillon.But the bell isn’t actually here. It’s at the Moscow Kremlin. A UC Berkeley team, along with researchers at Stanford and the University of Michigan, worked together to digitally create the sound they believed the bell would make.Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/04/21/russian-tsar-bell-podcast/ Hosted on Acast...2016-04-2203 min
Berkeley Voices04: Berkeley Law professor Melissa Murray on the darker side of marriageMarriage — modernly — is seen as sort of unalloyed good, says law professor Melissa Murray. “Everyone would like to get married, or most people would like to get married. Certainly, most people’s mothers want them to get married.”Murray teaches family law at UC Berkeley. She says the marriage equality movement has built up the idea that marriage is this wonderful thing that everyone should want. And there are a lot of benefits to being married in the United States. People who are married have better financial outcomes than people who aren’t. They are often healthier (especially men...2015-11-1006 min
Berkeley Voices02: On Berkeley time? He keeps Campanile's clocks tickingThe Campanile clock tower is the campus’s North Star. At 100 years old and 307 feet tall, it’s a landmark everyone knows and trusts. But what happens when the clocks stop? There’s only one person to call: Art Simmons.“Everybody in Berkeley watches those clocks,” says Simmons. “Not just the people on campus. So when the clocks stop, the whole city knows about it and it doesn’t look good.”Read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2015/07/29/campanile-clocks/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.2015-07-2903 min
SpectrumBerkeley Science ReviewThree members of The Berkeley Science Review (Editor-in-chief Sebastien Lounis, Web Editor Adam Hill, and BSR Author Lindsay Glesener) talk about the printed Review and the digital blog. They describe how the BSR has changed their view of science.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Mm hmm. [inaudible]. Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science [00:00:30] and technology show on k...2012-11-1630 min