UC Berkeley’s flagship institute for social science research

Our purpose is captured in our name: we provide an organizational framework—a “matrix”—that supports cross-disciplinary research pursued by social scientists across the University of California, Berkeley campus and beyond.

Lecture

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Event Date: April 26th, 2024
1:00pm-2:00pm Pacific

Steven J. Davis: “The Big Shift to Work from Home”

Why did the shift to work from home endure, rather than reverting to pre-pandemic levels? Join us on April 26 for a lecture by Steven J. Davis, the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Davis will consider how work-from-home rates vary by worker age, sex, education, parental status, industry and local population density, and why it is higher in the United States than other countries, as well as some implications for pay, productivity, and the pace of innovation.

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Matrix On Point

Recap

Published May 9, 2022

Organize! Power and Collective Action

What can we learn from historical and contemporary cases about building organizations that engage, mobilize, and manage to wield influence on the political process? What kinds of infrastructural choices best support engagement and success in the long run? Recorded on May 5, 2022, this panel explored the varied and changing terrain of collective action to reflect on the nature, promises, and pitfalls of associational power in the 21st century.

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Matrix Research Team

Recap

Published May 3, 2022

Digital Transformations in Global Land, Housing, and Property

Recorded on April 27, 2022, this panel discussion brought together members of the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix Research Team on Digital Transformations in Property and Development to discuss how state, corporations, and grassroots actors are employing digital technologies to remake global land, housing, and property.

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Authors Meet Critics

Recap

Published May 3, 2022

Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation

Recorded on April 22, 2022, this “Author Meets Critics” panel focused on the book Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation by Sarah Vaughn, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Professor Vaughn was joined in conversation by Stephen Collier, Professor of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, and Sugata Ray, Associate Professor in the Departments of History of Art and South and Southeast Asian Studies at UC Berkeley. The panel was moderated by Daniel Aldana Cohen, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley and Director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2. This event was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Office of Sustainability.

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Special Event

Recap

Published May 3, 2022

Solving Big Problems: Berkeley Psychology in the 21st Century

As part of an ongoing series of events celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Psychology Department at UC Berkeley, this video featured talks by three Berkeley Psychology faculty members: Professors Robert Knight, Sheri Johnson, and Jason Okonofua. The presentation was moderated by Serena Chen, Professor and Chair of Berkeley Psychology, and includes remarks by Raka Ray, Dean of the Division of the Social Sciences at UC Berkeley, and Carol Christ, Chancellor of UC Berkeley.

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Article

Interview

Published April 25, 2022

The Terracene: An Interview with Salar Mameni

What does the War on Terror have to do with the Anthropocene? In this interview, Salar Mameni, Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, discusses their book project, "Terracene: A Crude Aesthetics."

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Affiliated Centers

Recap

Published April 22, 2022

(Why) Are Democrats Losing the Latino Vote?

Recorded on April 19, 2022, this panel discussion was presented by the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research. The panel featured Amanda Iovino, Vice President, Polling Director, WPA Intelligence, Youngkin for Governor; Anaís López, Senior Analyst, BSP Research; David Shor, Head of Data Science, Blue Rose Research; and Mike Madrid, Principal, GrassrootsLab.

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