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California Gov. Jerry Brown praised students for making a difference in the last election, and encouraged them to continue their activism to improve the world, in his keynote speech at Monday’s political-science graduation.
People archive
Haas faculty turn to crowdfunding for solar light research in Uganda
April 19, 2013: Three Haas professors are bypassing traditional grants and going straight to crowdfunding to raise money for a study on how to get people in rural Uganda to replace dangerous kerosene lanterns with life-changing solar lamps.
Cal Day launched graduating senior’s Berkeley experience
April 19, 2013: Senior Ahn-Thi Le’s UC Berkeley journey began with Cal Day, when she fell in love with the campus. Now, after following a path that took her to India to work with rural artisans and to a place in the CellScope initiative improving health care in Vietnam, Le is about to graduate.
Margo Bennett named UCPD’s new police chief
April 18, 2013: Margo Bennett, a University of California Police Department captain with more than 35 years of law enforcement experience that ranges from community policing work to expertise in investigating major crimes at the federal level, has been named UC Berkeley’s new police chief, campus officials announced today (Thursday, April 18). She has been interim police chief since the previous chief retired in December.
Chancellor honored for aid to Dream Act students
April 16, 2013: “I myself am a beneficiary of a community that supported my education,” Chancellor Birgeneau told an appreciative audience at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Center, where he accepted the Centro Legal de La Raza’s “Visionary Leadership Award.”
Groundbreaking sociologist, playful spirit
April 12, 2013: In her consciousness-raising scholarship on work, family and emotional labor, Arlie Russell Hochschild has reshaped popular understandings of society and social change. Her alma mater, Swarthmore College, profiles the Berkeley professor emeritus, a leading feminist sociologist of her generation, in its alumni magazine.
Iraq vet ’13, tells of life after war 
April 11, 2013: Dave Smith deployed to Iraq twice during his time in the Marine Corps. Now he’s a Berkeley senior, about to earn his bachelor’s degree in political science. What he saw and did in Iraq hasn’t made for an easy ride. Smith talks intimately about student life after war, in an interview on KALW radio.
Bakar Fellows Program: Probing the cell’s ‘everywhere’ molecule
April 10, 2013: “Ubiquitin” is the apt term for a molecule that plays a vital role in every cell in our body. Associate Professor Michael Rape, winner of a 2012 Bakar Fellowship, is now on the trail of a potential drug to interrupt excessive ubiquitin production and prevent uncontrolled cell division, a hallmark of cancer.
Living the principles: Ruben Mejia
April 9, 2013: Kudo of the Month: L&S facilities manager Ruben Mejia, an alum who’s worked on campus for 20 years, exemplifies one of Berkeley’s five operating principles: “We include and excel, together.” We’ll be spotlighting a different staffer each month, one for each principle. Want to give kudos to a colleague? Your chance is a click away.
Contest winners shine new light on Fiat Lux
April 9, 2013: The Fiat Lux Remix contest invited students, faculty and staff members to revisit images of UC campuses commissioned in the mid-1960s by then-President Clark Kerr and taken by legendary photographer Ansel Adams – and published in the book Fiat Lux – and give them their own spin.
Biblical scholar on his latest translation, Ancient Israel
April 8, 2013: Biblical scholar Robert Alter considers himself a “literary archaeologist.” He discusses his latest Hebrew Bible translation, an award-winning work on the ancient Biblical books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, on KQED radio’s “Forum with Michael Krasny.”
One librarian. Eight words. One big win in New Yorker cartoon caption contest
April 8, 2013: The prize doesn’t come with a parking place. But UC Berkeley University Librarian Tom Leonard is still tickled to win The New Yorker’s weekly cartoon caption contest.
Berkeley professor to testify in trial of former Guatemalan dictator
April 4, 2013: Professor Beatriz Manz has been called to testify as an expert eyewitness in the genocide trial of a former Guatemalan military dictator.
42 years on, Berkeley’s provost is ready to leave the nest
April 4, 2013: George Breslauer was a 25-year-old Kremlinologist when he arrived at Berkeley in 1971 for his first teaching job. He never dreamed he’d become an administrator, much less the No. 2 man at the nation’s No. 1 public university.
Bakar Fellows Program: Mining the proteome
April 3, 2013: “We need to learn not only what is encoded in the genome – the blueprint of life – but how that actually translates into protein function in health and disease,” says Amy Herr, a Berkeley associate professor of bioengineering. Her research is supported by the campus’s Bakar Fellows Program, which helps early-career faculty pursue innovative research with commercial promise.
Searching for ‘the Berkeley spark’ in Sub-Saharan Africa
April 3, 2013: Admission officer Lin Larson traveled to top high schools in Sub-Saharan Africa to talk to disadvantaged, talented young students about UC Berkeley and opportunities to be a MasterCard Foundation Scholar.
Bears’ winning formula? Aim high, don’t forget to dance
April 2, 2013: Head coach Lindsay Gottlieb, 35, has just led the women’s basketball team to the NCAA Final Four. In a Q&A, she talks about personal influences, her approach to mentoring student-athletes and connecting with fans, and what makes Cal’s diverse team click.
Berkeley alum, Class of ’50, still ‘Running Wild’
April 2, 2013: Dayton Hyde, 88, has been a cowboy, a rodeo clown, a rancher, a photographer, a non-fiction author, a novelist, a poet and a conservationist. And now he’s the star of a new documentary.
Enlisting Android phones to find black holes
March 27, 2013: Wired writer Daniela Hernandez profiles UC Berkeley’s David Anderson, creator of the BOINC platform that runs SETI@home and other crowd-sourced projects, and efforts to capture the computing power of smart phones. Anderson is now testing software on the Android phone that would allow anyone to plug into Einstein@home, another crowd-sourced project, to search for black holes.
Edwin Okong’o, ‘storyteller by any medium necessary’
March 26, 2013: Swahili instructor by day, comedian by night, campus lecturer Edwin Okong’o mines the immigrant experience for comic gold in his stand-up routines. A “storyteller by any medium necessary,” the Cal journalism grad also speaks his truth as radio-show co-host, writer, reporter and award-winning video producer.
Latin America scholars on Chavez’s death, new Pope 
March 21, 2013: What does the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, and the election of an Argentinian cardinal as Pope, mean for Latin America? Experts from the Americas offer commentary, in English and Spanish, via the Center for Latin American Studies’ online video series “Critical Insights.”
BBC video features Asian ‘Dreamers’ at Berkeley
March 21, 2013: Across California, Asian students make up 46 percent of ‘Dreamers’ (who would benefit from the proposed DREAM Act) on UC campuses. Undocumented Asians at Berkeley are featured in a BBC news video.
From ‘Beat Street’ to Berkeley
March 19, 2013: A visiting assistant professor in the music department, J. Griffith “Griff” Rollefson has carved out a unique specialty for himself in the world of musicology. He’s not just a go-to guy when it comes to the study of hip hop and its cultural impact. He’s the go-to guy in the field of European hip hop.
Berkeley’s top teaching honor goes to five faculty 
March 18, 2013: Among the many illustrious faculty at UC Berkeley, five have been ben selected as winners of the prestigious 2012 Distinguished Teaching Award, which recognizes teaching that incites intellectual curiosity in students, engages them thoroughly in the enterprise of learning and has a lifelong impact.
In Richmond, a hands-on approach to energy tech
March 13, 2013: Just three miles from the site of the future Richmond Bay Campus, the Northern California Workshop for Energy Technologies underscored the need for partnerships, and featured a keynote address from former Michigan governor (and current Berkeley faculty member) Jennifer Granholm.
1st 3D-printing vending machine headed to UC Berkeley
March 12, 2013: Dreambox founding members David Pastewka, Richard Berwick and Will Drevno met at a mobile-application development class at Berkeley in 2011. Finding it difficult to get quick delivery of 3D-printed creations from online vendors, they came up with the idea of creating a network of local, accessible, automated 3D-printing vending machines.
Coaching Cal athletes for success after sports
March 12, 2013: Derek Van Rheenen, the director of Berkeley’s Athletic Study Center, is living proof that “you can have a very rich athletic, physical life and a very rich academic and intellectual life.” He’s determined to teach today’s crop of Cal athletes they can “have it all.”
Chancellor receives CASE CEO award
March 12, 2013: Chancellor Birgeneau has received the 2013 Chief Executive Officer Leadership Award from District VII of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
Berkeley Law students win two of six diversity scholarships offered nationwide
March 8, 2013: Berkeley Law students Cristina Sepe and Criselda Haro will each receive a $10,000 scholarship after being named Latham & Watkins Diversity Scholars. They are two of just six law students chosen from more than 300 applicants nationwide.
Person of Interest: Matt Wolpe is building a better chicken coop
March 5, 2013: Person of Interest: It’s an understatement to say that Matt Wolpe, who works in the College of Environmental Design’s fabrication shop, likes to design and build small structures. His new book (with a friend) features 14 designer coops for chickens, and he lives in a 104-square-foot house he made himself.
Standing up for low-paid restaurant workers
March 1, 2013: After 9/11, activist Saru Jayaraman co-founded Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, whose focus is workplace justice for restaurant workers. Jayaraman, who directs UC Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center, is featured in a PBS “Moyers & Company” segment.
