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.

Matrix Lecture

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Alexis Madrigal

Event Date: December 4th, 2025
4:00pm-5:30pm

Alexis Madrigal: “To Know a Place”

In this Matrix Distinguished Lecture, journalist Alexis Madrigal — host of KQED's Forum and a contributing writer at The Atlantic — 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 will explore different ways of writing about and understanding place, revealing how perspective, memory, and narrative inform the stories we tell about the world around us.

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Research Highlights

Article

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Published November 10, 2014

Taming the Dust Devils

In an effort to control air pollution, the Chinese government is offering incentives to Mongolian pastoralists to shift their source of income, according to research by a UC Berkeley doctoral student.

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Matrix News

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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