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.

Book Talk

REGISTER

Event Date: May 5th, 2026
4:00pm-5:15pm

The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us

Join us on May 5 for a talk on "The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us," by Benjamin Recht, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. The conversation will be moderated by Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology and Director of Social Science Matrix.

Learn More >

Interview

Article

Published May 23, 2016

Mazda Farias-Virgens: “Birdsong and Human Language”

UC Berkeley anthropology graduate student Madza Farias-Virgens draws upon research into birdsong and genome sequencing to address questions related to the evolution of human language.

Learn More >

Interview

Article

Published May 10, 2016

Katherine Zubovich: “A Towering Legacy”

In her dissertation, Katherine Zubovich, a Ph.D. candidate in Russian and Soviet History at UC Berkeley, examines the history of a 1950s skyscraper project in Moscow.

Learn More >

Interview

Article

Published March 10, 2016

John Ohala: “Vocal Fry and the “Frequency Code””

John J. Ohala, Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley, explores a plausible connection between lion manes and the creaky-voice phenomenon known as "vocal fry".

Learn More >

Interview

Article

Published March 1, 2016

P[art]icipatory Urbanisms: Arts of the Global City

An innovative collaboration by UC Berkeley graduate students explores the interplay between art and politics, with a focus on practitioners in New Delhi and São Paulo.

Learn More >

Interview

Published February 17, 2016

Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton: “Peering Inside the Achievement Gap”

UC Berkeley social psychologist Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton researches the far-reaching effects that stereotypes and prejudice can have on minority student performance and considers new support systems to help address this challenge.

Learn More >

Matrix News

Published January 26, 2016

Tips for Computational Text Analysis

Social science researchers are increasingly enlisting computer-driven textual analysis to help their research. This article provides an overview of the key steps required for this kind of analysis, with a focus on resources available at UC Berkeley.

Learn More >