Berkeley Talks: What is understanding? Berkeley scholars discuss
In Berkeley Talks episode 208, three UC Berkeley professors from a wide range of disciplines — psychology, biology and ethnic studies — broach a deep question: What is understanding?
Berkeley Buffet
With more than 1,500 faculty members, including a handful of Nobel laureates, scores of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellows, and abundant National Academy of Sciences members, Berkeley offers far more than any student could ever hope to explore during their time here. But a first-of-its-kind course endeavors to provide students with a generous, semester-long sampling of […]
Amidst misinformation, critical thinking needs a 21st century upgrade
In 2013, the University of California, Berkeley, debuted a course to teach undergraduates the tricks used by scientists to make sense of the world, in the hope that these tricks would prove useful in assessing the claims and counterclaims that bombard us every day. It was launched by three UC Berkeley professors — a physicist, […]
‘Third Millennium Thinking’: How to use scientific tools to solve everyday problems
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Saul Perlmutter, philosophy professor John Campbell, and social psychologist Robert MacCoun teach a course at the University of California Berkeley on using scientific tools to approach everyday problems. They’ve now turned that course into the book “Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense.” Perlmutter joins host Scott Tong to […]
He led Cal to Olympic gold in 1928. Now his rowing medal is back at UC Berkeley
By Jason Pohl | January 30, 2024 For decades, in a family’s home in West Marin, a set of rowing oars hung horizontally over the French doors leading to the patio. Below the oars was a finish line photo of the moment UC Berkeley’s undefeated 1928 men’s varsity eight won the world championship. And next […]
New Brilliance of Berkeley course introduces undergrads to 28 luminaries — in one semester
By Gretchen Kell | January 18, 2024 With so much brilliance at UC Berkeley — from headline-grabbing research to stellar faculty members across disciplines — it’s impossible for undergraduates, many scouting for their academic passions, to sample it all while on campus. But this week, a new spring semester course, Brilliance of Berkeley, kicks off […]
New ‘Boys in the Boat’ movie — and a unique campus class — spark pride in Cal’s rowing history
By Jason Pohl | December 5, 2023 In the 1920s, when football fans first packed California Memorial Stadium, thousands of people also lined the Oakland Estuary, eager to spectate the campus’s original sport. They cheered as eight Cal rowers and a coxswain crammed in a narrow shell and raced in college sports’ fiercest rivalries. Next […]
UC Berkeley’s Alison Gopnik wins Rumelhart Prize in Cognitive Science
Alison Gopnik, a University of California, Berkeley, psychology professor whose research has transformed our understanding of how children learn and what they can teach us about ourselves, is this year’s winner of the prestigious David Rumelhart Prize in Cognitive Science. Read more >
New fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Eleven UC Berkeley faculty members have been elected lifetime fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, professor of psychology, “for outstanding contributions to the science on the causes and consequences of prejudice and the identification of factors […]
How a Bit of Awe Can Improve Your Health
Awe can mean many things. It can be witnessing a total solar eclipse. Or seeing your child take her first steps. Or hearing Lizzo perform live. But, while many of us know it when we feel it, awe is not easy to define. “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast […]