California Spotlight
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Event Date: February 9th, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PT
California Spotlight: Higher Education Under Attack
This California Spotlight panel brings together leading scholars to examine the forces challenging public higher education today. Drawing on areas spanning finance, policy, and labor, the discussion will explore how these dynamics are shaping the UC system, and what is at stake for students, employees, the public, and the future of higher education.
Learn More >Matrix Teach-In
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Event Date: February 19th, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:15 PM PT
Matrix Teach-In: Ula Taylor
Matrix Teach-Ins bring UC Berkeley’s most engaging social science lectures into a public setting. Join us on February 19 as Ula Taylor, Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies & African Diaspora Studies, will present a Matrix Teach-In centered on an oral biography of Frances M.Beal.
Learn More >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 >Special Event
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Event Date: March 11th, 2026
4:00pm-5:30pm
Social Science Matrix – BESI Open House
Register to join us on March 11 at 4:00pm for the Matrix-BESI Open House. Co-organized by Social Science Matrix and the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI), this event is an opportunity to network with other members of the Berkeley social science community and learn more about our projects, events, and funding and research opportunities. Light bites and refreshments will be served.
Learn More >CRELS
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Event Date: March 18th, 2026
1:30pm
Algorithms of Distinction: Class, Credit Scores, and Property in South Africa
Please join us on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 at 1:30pm for a public lecture by Julien Migozzi, an economic geographer and Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge. Professor Migozzie's lecture, "Algorithms of Distinction: Class, Credit Scores, and Property in South Africa," will explore how how digital, legal, and financial transformations have reorganized the housing market in Cape Town, South Africa.
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
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Event Date: April 7th, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PT
Trevor Jackson: “The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World”
Join us for a panel on "The Insatiable Machine," by Professor Trevor Jackson, which traces capitalism’s development from the accidental construction of an international monetary system to the creation of banking, the emergence of a new form of slavery, fossil–fuel industrialization, and finally the global capitalist system spread by imperialism.
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
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Event Date: April 9th, 2026
12:00pm-1:30pm
Incommunicable: Toward Communicative Justice in Health and Medicine
Please join us on Thursday, April 9th from 12-1:30pm for an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book "Incommunicable: Toward Communicative Justice in Health and Medicine," by Charles Briggs, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Professor Briggs will be joined in conversation by Elinor Ochs and Eric Snoey.
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
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Event Date: April 20th, 2026
12:00 PM to 1:30 PM PT
POSTPONED: Daniela Cammack: “Demos: How the People Ruled Athens”
The Authors Meet Critics panel on the book "Demos: How the People Ruled Athens," by Daniela Cammack, Assistant Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, has been postponed. Stay tuned to the Matrix website and newsletter for future updates.
Learn More >CRELS
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Event Date: April 21st, 2026
10:00am-11:30am
Scoring Justice: Risk Assessment Tools, Court Practices, and Fairness Perceptions
Please join us on Tuesday, April 21 for a lecture by Simone Zhang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at New York University. Zhang's research examines how classification systems, predictive models, and AI shape the distribution of benefits, burdens, and recognition in society. Much of her work focuses on the implications of these systems for institutional decision-making in social policy, education, and law.
Learn More >Authors Meet Critics
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Event Date: April 29th, 2026
4:00pm-5:30pm
Normalizing Inequality: How Californians Make Sense of the Growing Divide
In their new book, "Normalizing Inequality," sociologists G. Cristina Mora and Tianna S. Paschel illuminate how middle-class Californians perceive and come to accept the inequalities that surround them. At this Authors Meet Critics event, Professors Mora and Paschel will be joined in conversation by Desmond Jagmohan and Lisa García Bedolla, with Nicholas Vargas moderating.
Learn More >Interview
Podcast
Published February 3, 2026
“Some College” and the Social Function of Higher Education: An Interview with Sarah Payne
What are the economic consequences of starting, but not completing college? On this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Sarah Harrington, Program Manager at Social Science Matrix, spoke with Sarah Payne, a sociologist who recently published a paper in Sociology of Education that examined what happens when students begin college but fail to graduate. “Although non-completion […]
Learn More >Lecture
Recap
Published February 3, 2026
American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now
How did Americans come to elect Barack Obama — and then Donald Trump? Watch the video of a talk by Paul Starr, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, and Stuart Professor of Communications and Public Affairs, at Princeton University, discussing his book, "American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now."
Learn More >Matrix News
Funding Opportunity
Published February 3, 2026
Call for Proposals: 2026-2027 Matrix Research Teams
The application window is now open to submit proposals for Matrix Research Teams for the 2026-2027 academic year. The deadline for submitting proposals is March 16, 2026. Faculty-led Research Teams can receive funding up to $5000. They run for one to two semesters. Student-led Research Teams will receive funding up to $1500. Coordinated by one or more graduate students, they meet regularly, around 5-10 times over the course of the academic year.
Learn More >Matrix Lecture
Recap
Published December 16, 2025
Alexis Madrigal: “To Know A Place”
Recorded on December 4, 2025, this video features a Social Science Matrix Distinguished Lecture, “To Know a Place,” presented by journalist and author Alexis Madrigal. In this talk, Madrigal turns his attention to the question of how we come to know a place. Drawing on his background as a reporter, writer, and thinker of cities, landscapes, and histories, he explores different ways of writing about and understanding place, revealing how perspective, memory, and narrative inform the stories we tell about the world around us.
Learn More >CRELS
Recap
Published December 16, 2025
Maximilian Kasy: “The Means of Prediction: How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits)”
Recorded on December 2, 2025, this video features a talk by Maximilian Kasy, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford, presenting his book The Means of Prediction: How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits). In the book, Kasy clearly and accessibly explains the fundamental principles on which AI works, and, in doing so, reveals that the real conflict isn’t between humans and machines, but between those who control the machines and the rest of us.
Learn More >Matrix Teach-In
Recap
Published December 16, 2025
Seth Lunine: “Promise & Precarity: Exploring Oakland Through Community Engaged Scholarship”
Recorded on November 17, 2025, this video features a lecture by Seth Lunine, Lecturer in the UC Berkeley Department of Geography, who presented a talk reflecting on his experiences with collaborative scholarship between UC Berkeley undergraduates and community-based organizations in Oakland’s Fruitvale District.
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