Past Events

The Center for Global Metropolitan Studies and Social Science Matrix invite members of the UC Berkeley community — including doctoral students, researchers, and faculty — to participate in a campus-wide, interdisciplinary research initiative entitled, “Critical Infrastructure Under Stress.” The objective of the year-long series of events is to build connections across disciplines and to define and enable an impactful research agenda that leverages the rich research community at UC Berkeley and beyond.

The 2021 Citrin Award honors the scholarship of Diana Mutz, Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics, whose wide-ranging work using both surveys and experiments has enhanced knowledge in communication and persuasion in politics with a much-needed focus on the bases of civility and mutual understanding in American democracy.

Please join us on October 1, 2021 at 12pm for a panel discussion focused on Amazon Mechanical Turk, a popular online tool for conducting social science research. The panel will will bring together researchers who will share their experience with the MTurk platform, as well as others who have written about the social and ethical aspects of this platform more generally.

The online Berkeley Conversation, “Defending Against Disinformation,” will be held on Tuesday Sept. 21 from 12 noon to 1:30 p.m. The event will be streamed live on YouTube and on Facebook. “Defending Against Disinformation” features a panel of elite scholars who specialize in democracy, law, racial justice, communication and technology: Geeta Anand, dean of the School of Journalism; Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law; Hany Farid, associate dean and head of the School of Information; Susan D. Hyde, chair of the Department of Political Science; and john powell, director of the Othering & Belonging Institute. The panel will be moderated by Henry Brady, former dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy.

Is secularism (laïcité) compatible with religious tolerance? Join us on September 13, 2021 as Professor Denis Lacorne, Senior Research Fellow at CERI (Centre d’Etudes et des Researches Internationales), Sciences Po, will explore the impact of secular regimes on religious tolerance, emphasizing religious symbols and the space granted to religious symbols in the public square.

Moderated by Democratic strategist Katie Merrill, this September 10 panel discussion will feature LA Times political reporter Seema Mehta, USC Distinguished Professor of Sociology Manuel Pastor, and IGS Poll Director Mark Di Camillo, along with results from an IGS Poll that surveyed over 8,000 California voters in the final weeks leading up to the election. 

In the upcoming virtual meeting of the UC Berkeley Center for Catastrophic Risk Management (CCRM), Paul Schulman and Emery Roe propose to review and analyze not only the practical medical and public health challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the challenges the pandemic poses to our understanding of basic concepts applied to public organizations, their administration and management.

Join us on April 22 for a "Matrix on Point" discussion, as a group of distinguished panelists will approach questions of objectivity, disinformation, and the construction of truth from a media-consumption (rather than media-production) perspective, focusing on how internet users find information, how algorithms play a deterministic role in search results, and how lies propagate and solidify.

Join us for a panel discussion on how President Joe Biden has fared during the first 100 days of his term. Panelists will include: Mark Z. Barabak, Vanessa Tyson, Terry Bimes, and George Breslauer.

Please join us on April 19, 2021 for an "Authors Meet Critics" book talk featuring "Redistributing the Poor: Jails, Hospitals, and the Crisis of Law and Fiscal Austerity," by Armando Lara-Millán, Assistant Professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology.

On April 12th, Eric K. Ward, a leading expert on the relationship between racism, antisemitism, and authoritarian movements; and Michael Rothberg, an eminent scholar of historical exclusion and its legacies, will tackle important questions in contemporary Black-Jewish relations.

Presented by the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research, this panel discussion will feature: Daron Shaw, Distinguished Teaching Professor and Frank C. Erwin J. Chair of State Politics, University of Texas, Austin; Mike Madrid, Founder of Madrid and Associates, former political Director of California Republican Party, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, leading expert on Latino voting; Kristin Olsen, Partner, California Strategies, former Vice Chair of California Republican Party, Minority Leader California State Assembly 2014-2016; John Thomas, President, Thomas Partners Strategies, Chief Strategist for Republican candidates at all levels, Campaign and Elections Journal Rising Star Award winner; Dan Schnur (Chair), Lecturer in Political Science, UC Berkeley and University of Southern California.