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

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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.

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Matrix News

Published November 7, 2014

UC Berkeley Research Network Graph

Social Science Matrix is building an interactive data visualization tool to highlight collaborations among UC faculty and students.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published October 16, 2014

The Dragon of Debt

An oral history project about the national debt features interviews with top U.S. policy-makers from the past five decades.

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Workshop/Symposium

Published October 7, 2014

Behavior Measurement and Change

A Matrix seminar explored how mobile devices and other "sensors" are transforming how social scientists working in different disciplines can measure—and change—human behavior.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published October 6, 2014

Credit and Class

Economic classification tools such as credit scores directly contribute to stratification and class division, according to Berkeley sociologist Marion Fourcade.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published October 2, 2014

From Plantation to Corporation

A UC Berkeley historian explores how commonly used modern-day business practices evolved from methods used in the operation of brutal slave plantations.

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Research Highlights

Article

Published September 30, 2014

Behind the Beef Machine

The origins of the modern U.S. beef industry go farther back than most people realize, says UC Berkeley historian Joshua Specht.

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