New Directions
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Event Date: March 10th, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PT
New Directions: Colonial Legacies, Post-Colonial Perspectives
Colonial legacies continue to shape political, social, and intellectual life. While colonialism is often treated as a historical period, its structures and logics persist in contemporary debates around race, territory, knowledge, and power. This panel — part of the Social Science Matrix New Directions series — will bring together UC Berkeley graduate students from anthropology, geography, and sociology to examine how colonial histories are reproduced, contested, and reimagined across different contexts.
Learn More >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 […]
Learn More >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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Interview
Published July 22, 2024
K-Beauty in War: A Visual Interview with Claire Chun
Read our interview with Claire Chun, a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Ethnic Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, whose research explores how modern conceptualizations of “Korean” and “Asian” beauty, wellness, and aesthetics are shaped by overlapping forces of U.S. militarism, tourism, and humanitarianism.
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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.
Learn More >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.
Learn More >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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