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.

Matrix On Point

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Event Date: April 23rd, 2025
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PT

150 Years of Border Control: The Legacy of the 1875 Page Act

This event will use the anniversary of the Page Act of 1875, one of the first federal laws to restrict immigration to the United States, as an opportunity to discuss issues of race, gender, and labor in US immigration and Asian American history. A panel of UC Berkeley professors will discuss their past or current work related to race, gender, or labor in US immigration history or Asian American Studies, and their thoughts on the legacies of the Page Act and related issues for the U.S. today. 

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Podcast

Interview

Published September 27, 2024

Prisoner Labor Legacies: An interview with Elizabeth Hargrett and Xander Lenc

While recent news has highlighted how prisoners have fought wildfires, prison labor is not a new phenomenon. Although incarcerated people have built highways, dams, and buildings, their contributions to American infrastructure are often made invisible. Both Elizabeth Hargrett and Xander Lenc have studied how prisoner labor has shaped America’s infrastructure with a focus on North […]

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Interview

Published September 11, 2024

Agricultural Modernization in China: Interview with Ross Doll and Coleman Mahler 

This episode of the Matrix Podcast features Matrix Postdoctoral Fellow Julia Sizek interviewing Ross Doll and Coleman Mahler, two scholars from different disciplines whose work focuses on the modernization of China. Ross Doll is Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow in the UC Berkeley Department of Geography. He researches agrarian change in Asia drawing on political ecology, cultural […]

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Matrix News

Research Teams

Published August 5, 2024

Matrix Welcomes Seven Research Teams for 2024-2025

Social Science Matrix will welcome seven new Matrix Research Teams for the 2024-2025 academic year. This year’s funded teams — three faculty-led team and four graduate student-led teams — will address diverse social science topics, including industrial policy, computational social science, data mining and algorithms, and the language of biomedicine.

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Alumni

Interview

Published June 25, 2024

Anti-Mining Politics in Colombia: A Visual Interview with Ángela Castillo

What can the battle around a new mine in Colombia tell us about the past and future of environmentalist organizing in Latin America? Matrix Postdoc Julia Sizek interviewed Ángela Castillo, who is a recent PhD graduate from UC Berkeley’s Anthropology Department and is now Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Pitzer College.

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Matrix News

Iris Hui Memorial

Published June 15, 2024

Students Chosen for Iris Hui Memorial Graduate Student Scholarship

Two UC Berkeley graduate students — Emma Bates and Tanya Bertone — have been selected to receive the 2024 Dr. Iris Hui Memorial Graduate Student Scholarship. Established in 2021, this scholarship honors the vision and goals of Dr. Iris Hui, a PhD graduate of Political Science from UC Berkeley.

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Matrix News

Faculty Fellows

Published June 14, 2024

Matrix Faculty Fellows Selected for 2024-2025

Four UC Berkeley professors have been selected to be Matrix Faculty Fellows for the 2024-2025 academic year. Launched in 2022, the Matrix Faculty Fellows program supports assistant- and associate-level faculty members at UC Berkeley for work on research that has a significant impact in multiple disciplines in the social sciences.

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