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 News

Article

UC Berkeley’s Campanile, or Sather Tower, photographed from Tightwad Hill overlooking Berkeley, Calif.

Published July 10, 2026

Matrix Welcomes Eight Research Teams for 2026-2027

Social Science Matrix is pleased to welcome eight new Matrix Research Teams — three faculty-led teams and five graduate student-led teams — for the 2026-2027 academic year. The teams will address topics such as the political economy of wildfire risk, the global politics of declining fertility, and the use of digital tools for governance and development in South Asia.

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Interview

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Published September 6, 2016

Karen Barkey: “Shared Sacred Sites”

Dr. Karen Barkey, a sociologist joining UC Berkeley in Fall 2016, directs the Shared Sacred Sites initiative, which uses digital humanities methods to present fieldwork on sacred sites shared by different religious communities.

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Matrix News

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Published June 28, 2016

Fall 2016 Matrix Research Teams Announced

Climate change. Immigration. Creating resilient rural communities. These are among the issues that Social Science Matrix Research Teams will take on during the coming academic year.

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Interview

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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.

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Interview

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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.

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Interview

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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".

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Interview

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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.

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