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

Recap

Published May 14, 2026

Benjamin Recht: “The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us”

Recorded on May 5, 2026, this video features a talk by Benjamin Recht, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, focused on his book, The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us. Professor Recht was joined in conversation by Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology and Director of […]

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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.

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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".

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Matrix News

Published December 17, 2015

Crowdsourcing Social Research

The capability to democratically distribute tasks within a directed project presents novel possibilities for researchers—and social scientists at UC Berkeley are taking advantage.

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