Matrix Research Teams

Matrix Research Teams are groups of scholars who gather regularly to explore or develop a novel question of significance in the social sciences. Successful research teams integrate participants from several social-science disciplines and diverse ranks (i.e. faculty and graduate students); address a compelling research question with real-world significance; and deploy or develop appropriate methodologies in creative ways. Matrix teams may address any social science research question, theoretical or empirical, drawing on any of the social sciences. Matrix is especially interested in original and emerging approaches that explore new theoretical and empirical questions, and that combine research at different scales and from different methodologies.

Research Team

Governing After Political Transitions in the Global South

War, revolution, and decolonization are frequently the focus of media coverage and social scientists’ investigations, but the processes that follow these dramatic transitions—such as peacebuilding, democratization, economic reconstruction, and social service provision—tend to receive less attention. In 2015, Social Science Matrix sponsored a prospecting seminar dedicated to studying the often neglected, but crucial processes that […]

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Research Team

Electoral Violence in Developing Countries

The political process in the United States may seem rough-and-tumble at times, but at least U.S. voters can rest assured that their elections will be free of violence. This is not the case in many countries, however: violence affected more than 120 of the nearly 600 presidential and parliamentary elections held around the world between […]

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Research Team

Designated Emphasis in European Studies

In Spring 2015, Social Science Matrix sponsored an initiative to develop a Designated Emphasis in European Studies at UC Berkeley. Led by Jeroen Dewulf, Director of UC Berkeley’s Institute of European Studies, the purpose is to convene a core faculty group to develop a new interdisciplinary degree in European Studies for Ph.D. students. “This would […]

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Research Team

Risk Management and Resiliency in Latin American Cities

Latin America is the most urbanized continent in the world after North America, with 79% of the population living in urban areas, according to 2011 data from the United Nations. The high urbanization rates that the continent has experienced since the 1940s have been accompanied by substantive political changes, including changes in the role of […]

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Research Team

The Impact of “Human Rights” in a Global Age

What is the relationship between ‘human rights’ and other conceptions of ‘rights’? What is the nature and impact of human rights? How have alternative narratives of rights shaped how individuals and groups frame inequality, access, or injustice? In Spring 2015, Social Science Matrix sponsored a seminar that set out to examine these and other questions, […]

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Research Team

Emergence and Aggregation

If we try to understand an individual event—such as a specific sermon, ritual performance, judicial decision, birth, business closing, residential move, or crime—we might turn to the cultural contexts and motivations of the actors, the structural factors that held influence, or the contingencies of historical chance. But when we try to understand aggregates of events, […]

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Research Team

Behavior Measurement & Change

For decades, social-science researchers were limited to collecting data through in-person ethnographies or surveys. But in the world of data-tracking mobile devices, researchers have the ability to measure behavior “in the wild,” and can even use digital tools to influence behavior and motivate positive change. To explore these emerging opportunities and their far-reaching implications, Social […]

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Research Team

Integrating Social and Biophysical Epistemologies, Data, and Methods

Is climate change the result of human activity, or is it a natural phenomenon? For Nathan Sayre, Associate Professor and Chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Geography, this framing of an important modern question is misleading, as it fails to take into account the fundamental fact that humans are part of nature. “I’m struggling with […]

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Research Team

Crime, Community Support, and Policing

Social Science Matrix is supporting a team of researchers from diverse social science disciplines to explore new approaches for measuring attitudes toward law enforcement in local communities. Bringing together methods from fields such as political science, psychology, and development economics, a key goal is to “to understand how police departments can transform relationships with local […]

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Research Team

Algorithms as Computation and Culture

Algorithms—the chains of “if-then” logic by which computers make calculations—are increasingly finding their way into the broader culture, whether through politics, media, science, or everyday life. To explore the ramifications of this shift, UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix is sponsoring a seminar entitled “Algorithms as Computation and Culture,” which will bring together computer scientists, social […]

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Research Team

Prosopography and Historical Social Networks

Social scientists working to study modern society have an array of data sources available, from government censuses to digital social networks. But for researchers trying to study people who lived, say, 2500 years BFB (before Facebook), trying to figure out which people were friends (or business associates, family members, or political allies) can pose significant […]

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Research Team

The Politics of Biology and Race in the Twenty-First Century

In 2000, Craig Ventner, Head of Celera Genomics and a lead scientist in the Human Genome Project, declared that "race is a social concept, not a scientific one," based on an analysis of the genomes of five people. Of course, his proclamation did little to remove perceptions of racial difference from society, and in fact, […]

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