Carol grew up in the 1980s in a rural village in Busia County, Kenya. Like many regions in Sub-Saharan Africa at the time, Busia lacked the infrastructure for clean water and modern sanitation, leading to the pervasive spread of infectious diseases. 

Parents feared deadly outbreaks like malaria and cholera, often unaware of the slower, hidden damage caused by intestinal worms. The symptoms — fatigue, diarrhea, weight loss, stunted growth — rarely made headlines, yet they shaped children’s futures. At the time, more than a billion people worldwide, most of them children, were living with these infections, making parasitic worms one of the most widespread chronic health conditions on the planet.

In 1998, two researchers — Ted Miguel, who is now an economics professor at UC Berkeley, and future Nobel laureate Michael Kremer — launched the Primary School Deworming Project in Busia. They had no idea that their work would become a global model proving just how much a healthy childhood matters — not just for kids in the study, but for generations to come.

“It's kind of mind-blowing to be a researcher and know that your research is being cited and used as a justification for these large-scale programs,” says Miguel. “It’s amazing to see.”

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-voices).

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But in Thailand, they’ve pioneered a different model. A government program called Baan Mankong, or “secure housing,” treats shelter as a collective right — and proves that the U.S.’s individualist framework isn’t the only way.

As a Berkeley Ph.D. student in 2014, Hayden Shelby wanted to know if a similar strategy could work in the U.S. In order to decipher the complex policy, she enrolled in advanced Thai in the Department of Southeast Asian studies.

Now a leading expert on the program in the U.S., Shelby says speaking Thai on the ground with experts and community members was invaluable.

“People open up when they know you’ve made this really deep and difficult investment in learning their language,” she says. “It breaks down that expert/non-expert barrier.”

In this episode of Berkeley Voices, we look at how acquiring a new language can shift our worldview, and what happens when we stop asking what we can do for other countries and start asking what we can learn from them.

This is the fourth episode of our latest season, featuring UC Berkeley scholars working on life-changing research — and the people whose lives are changed by it.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-voices).

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Photo courtesy of Hayden Shelby.

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As she got older, Victoria felt increasingly isolated and hopeless. She often spent her kids’ birthdays at the hospital, where she received regular blood transfusions. “I felt like I was cheating my children out of their childhood,” she says. “I didn’t look forward to a long life. I stopped dreaming. I gave up on school or doing anything … I thought that I was close to dying.”

But at age 34, Victoria got a new chance at life. 

In 2019, she became the first person in the world to receive a revolutionary new treatment for the disease — a gene-editing tool called CRISPR discovered in a UC Berkeley lab, which would go on to win a Nobel Prize just one year later. 

“It felt like an answered prayer for me,” says Victoria. “CRISPR not only freed me, it freed my children.” 

This is the third episode of our latest Berkeley Voices season, featuring UC Berkeley scholars working on life-changing research — and the people whose lives are changed by it.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-voices).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo courtesy of Victoria Gray; illustration by Neil Freese/UC Berkeley.

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More than two decades later, biases and knowledge gaps on Wikipedia of all sorts remain, especially for marginalized communities. But a UC Berkeley professor and her students are working to change that.

Since 2016, ethnic studies professor Juana María Rodríguez has partnered with Wiki Education to teach a range of courses in which students create and edit Wikipedia articles about the contributions of LGBTQ people, especially queer and trans people of color.  

“Wikipedia is a public-facing project — it’s the largest encyclopedia in the world,” says Rodríguez. “In a political moment where these histories are actively being erased from public view, having students work on a platform like Wikipedia becomes even more important.”

This is the second episode of a new Berkeley Voices season, featuring UC Berkeley scholars working on life-changing research and the people whose lives are changed by it.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-voices).

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UC Berkeley photo by Brandon Sánchez Mejia.

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“She was a no-nonsense person,” says Lee-Wynant, a UC Berkeley Ph.D. student in linguistics. “She was an amazing individual. She cared so deeply about passing on what she knew.”

For more than 50 years, Guerrero worked with Berkeley linguists to document her language and culture. These recordings are part of the campus’s California Language Archive. In them, she tells stories, describes cultural practices, says vocabulary and conjugates verbs. Whenever Lee-Wynant hears his aunt’s voice, strong and determined, he knows it’s his responsibility to carry on her work. 

As a graduate student researcher for the archive, Lee-Wynant is cataloging and analyzing a new collection that includes hours of recordings of his aunt, among other materials. “It's such a trove of information about ... my family's history,” he said. “I always get the chills whenever I listen to it because you never know what story is gonna come up.”

In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Lee-Wynant shares how his aunt's recordings have opened a portal to his family’s history and led him to teach their language to new generations.

And in this UC Berkeley News companion piece, learn more about the linguist who created the archive's newly acquired collection, her lifetime of research with Indigenous communities and how her collection of tapes and notebooks found their way to the archive. 

This is the first episode of a new Berkeley Voices season, featuring UC Berkeley scholars working on life-changing research and the people whose lives are changed by it. New episodes come out on the first Thursday of every month, from November through April.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-voices).

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This work can be highly theoretical and technical, taking decades to fully develop. Yet its impact extends far beyond academia, leading to world-changing results, from the invention of CRISPR gene editing that has saved lives to ethnic studies courses that foster a stronger sense of identity and critical consciousness. 

Within these broad impacts are millions of stories of how Berkeley’s research has transformed society. In this season of Berkeley Voices, we hear two sides of a story — from Berkeley scholars working on life-changing research, and from the people who’ve been changed by it.

New episodes will come out on the first Thursday of each month, from November through April. Listen to Berkeley Voices on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube @BerkeleyNews. You can find all of our podcast episodes, with transcripts and photos, on UC Berkeley News at news.berkeley.edu/podcasts.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-voices).

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The scientists produced this color, which they named “olo,” by shining a laser into the eye and stimulating one type of color-sensitive photoreceptor cells called cones. 

Austin Roorda, a professor of optometry and vision science at Berkeley’s School of Optometry, developed the optical imaging platform they used in this project. It’s called Oz, after the story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In the 1939 film adaptation, the lead character, Dorothy, goes from her black-and-white farm in Kansas to the color world of Oz.

“Ozvision is really directly tied to the book and to the movie where the Emerald City is this unearthly green color,” said Roorda. “The intent and the aspiration was to elicit that same kind of response by going from a natural-colored world to a supernatural-colored world by a direct stimulation of these cones.” 

It has enormous potential, he said, to transform how we understand and treat eye diseases, and to expand the way we see the world around us.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo via Unsplash+

This is the last episode of our Berkeley Voices series on transformation. In eight episodes, we have looked at how transformation — of ideas, of research, of perspective — shows up in the work that happens every day at UC Berkeley. We'll be back with a new series in the fall.

See all episodes of the series.

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Up until that moment, she’d been a talkative and outgoing person. She taught math and physical education, and coached volleyball and basketball at a high school in Saskatchewan, Canada. She’d just had a baby a year earlier with her new husband. 

And the thing is, she still was that person. It's just that no one could tell. Because the connection between her brain and her body didn’t work anymore. She would try to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t move. 

Eighteen years later, she finally heard her voice again.

It's thanks to researchers at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco who are working to restore people’s ability to communicate using a brain-computer interface. The technology, the researchers say, has enormous potential to make the workforce and the world more accessible to people like Ann. 

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts). There, you can also watch a video about Ann and the research team.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo by Noah Berger, 2023.

This year on Berkeley Voices, we’re exploring the theme of transformation. In eight episodes, we explore how transformation — of ideas, of research, of perspective — shows up in the work that happens every day at UC Berkeley. New episodes come out on the last Monday of each month, from October through May.

See all episodes of the series.

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The Chinese village was known for mass producing copies of Western art. She’d read about it in The New York Times, which described a kind of compound where thousands of artists painted replicas of famous artworks, like da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or van Gogh’s Starry Night, for European and U.S. hotels and condos.

“We had an expectation, which was that there would be this giant factory,” said Wong, a professor of rhetoric at UC Berkeley. “And in this factory, there would be these painters working in an assembly line fashion: One person would paint the rocks, and one person would paint the trees, and one person would paint the sky.”

But when she arrived in the small gated village, what she saw surprised her. In 2013, she published van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade, a book about her six years of research in Dafen and how it forever changed the way she thinks about art and authenticity and the nature of creativity.

See more artwork and photos of Dafen from 2015, when Wong and architecture professor Margaret Crawford took a group of graduate students on a 14-day trip to the Pearl River Delta region to study urban art villages.

Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see more photos on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo by José Joaquin Figueroa.

This year on Berkeley Voices, we're exploring the theme of transformation. In eight episodes, we explore how transformation — of ideas, of research, of perspective — shows up in the work that happens every day at UC Berkeley. New episodes come out on the last Monday of each month, from October through May.

See all episodes of the series.

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“Letters sent between friends are often full of the kinds of loving and affectionate language that today we would only associate with romantic or sexual relationships: ‘My darling,’ ‘I love you,’ ‘I can't wait to be near you,’” said UC Berkeley historian Sarah Gold McBride, who in 2022 created the course, Friendship in America, with Berkeley anthropologist Christine Palmer. 

Throughout history, with changes in cultural norms and communication technology, the ways we stay connected to each other has also changed, and not always for the better. While social media can make it easier to find people with similar interests, it can also make it easier to forget what it takes to build and keep meaningful relationships. 

Gold McBride and Palmer hope their class will inspire students to draw from the past and approach their friendships with the intentionality they require.

This is the fifth episode of our eight-part series on transformation. In eight episodes, we’re exploring how transformation — of ideas, of research, of perspective — shows up in the work that happens every day at UC Berkeley. New episodes of the series come out on the last Monday of each month. See all episodes of the series.

Key takeaways:

• Gender norms, throughout U.S. history to the modern day, influence the kinds of friendships we make and how we express affection for each other.
• As our dominant modes of communication shift, how we conceive of friendship evolves, too.
• By investigating friendship in a deeper way, we can better understand the role of friendship in our lives and become more intentional in how we make and maintain our connections.

Read the transcript, listen to episode and see photos on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Find us on YouTube@BerkeleyNews.

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Photo by Sarah.rdguezz via Wikimedia Commons.

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We all encounter problems like this, she says, where we have quick reactions to things we’ve learned to fear. It might be something that is actually dangerous that we really should quickly react to, but it could also be a tiny, non-threatening spider. 

Each time, we have to decide what kind of problem it is and then how to respond. She says this task is especially hard today because we're inundated with messages trying to hijack our fear response, from junky online ads to the way politicians speak.

Landau-Wells studies how we make these kinds of decisions, and what influences how we act, especially in situations where there’s a lot on the line.

This is the fourth episode of our eight-part series on transformation. In eight episodes, we’re exploring how transformation — of ideas, of research, of perspective — shows up in the work that happens every day at UC Berkeley. New episodes of the series come out on the last Monday of each month. See all episodes of the series.

Key takeaways:

• We learn what to be afraid of; once we fear something, it’s hard to change our perception.
• We’re bombarded with messaging trying to hijack our quick fear responses.
• Research on how the brain processes fear could help us persuade people to see dangers differently and influence how world leaders make decisions.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Image by Sara Oliveira/Unsplash+

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"If you look at books from 50 years ago, they postured dinosaurs very differently from the way we do it today," Tseng says. "This constant profusion of new scientific knowledge into the popular psyche is recorded in children's books, which is a lovely way to see how this science has progressed."

Fossils also hold valuable clues about our planet's future and our role within it as we experience climate change, he says.

"The questions we ask of them have to do with how different species sometimes survive, when others go extinct. Paleontology is sort of pre-adapted to plug in to understanding the future of Earth because we have billions of years of the fossil record to learn from."

This season on Berkeley Voices, we’re exploring the theme of transformation. In eight episodes, we’re exploring how transformation — of ideas, of research, of perspective — shows up in the work that happens every day at UC Berkeley. New episodes will come out on the last Monday of each month, from October through May. See all episodes of the series.

Key takeaways:

• Paleontologists can better understand how dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals looked and lived by studying living animals.
• New discoveries have reshaped what we thought we knew about dinosaurs and the prehistoric world.
• Fossils hold clues about the role of different species of plants and animals during climate change — and the future of Earth.

Listen to the podcast and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

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UC Berkeley photo by Stanley Luo.

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So they started a class, called Cults in Popular Culture, where Saha and their students explore the history of cults, the transformative power of these groups and the conditions that give rise to our collective fascination. After all, Saha says, what better way to make sense of this phenomenon than to ask several hundred Berkeley undergraduates to be test subjects?

This season on Berkeley Voices, we're exploring the theme of transformation. In eight episodes, we’re exploring how transformation — of ideas, of research, of perspective — shows up in the work that happens every day at UC Berkeley. New episodes will come out on the last Monday of each month, from October through May. See all episodes of the series.

Key takeaways:

• Nobody joins a cult; they join a good thing. It’s labeled a cult when it goes bad.
• Our fascination with cults rises amid social and global crises. It happened in 1960s America and it’s happening today. 
• The IRS decides the difference between a religion and a cult. 
• A person who joins a so-called cult undergoes a transformative experience. Instead of calling them "crazy," we should listen.

Listen to the podcast and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

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UC Berkeley photo by Jen Siska.

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Key takeaways:

- Psychopathy exists on a spectrum

- Boldness is a key, yet largely overlooked, trait of psychopathy

- By changing the way we measure psychopathy, we could reduce the harms of the personality disorder

This year on Berkeley Voices, we're exploring the theme of transformation. In eight episodes, we’ll explore how transformation — of ideas, of research, of perspective — shows up in the work that happens every day at UC Berkeley. New episodes will come out on the last Monday of each month, from October through May.

See all episodes of the series.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

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Image via Unsplash+

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Now an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Davidson is part of a research team that has discovered where in the brain bilinguals process and store language-specific sounds and sound sequences. The research project is ongoing.

This is the final episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first two episodes: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish" and "A language divided."

Photo courtesy of Justin Davidson.

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu).

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"Standard academic English is most represented by affluent white males from the Midwest, specifically Ohio in the mid-20th century," says UC Berkeley sociolinguist Justin Davidson. "If you grow up in this country and your English is further away from that variety, then you may encounter instances where the way you speak is judged as less OK, less intelligent, less academically sound."

And this language bias and divide can have devastating consequences, as it did in the trial of George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012. 

This is the second episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first and third episode: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish" and "One brain, two languages."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

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"It’s groups in power — its discourses and collective communities — that sort of socially determine what kinds of words and what kinds of language are acceptable and unacceptable," says Davidson, an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.

But the U.S. is a Spanish-speaking country, he says, and it’s time for us as a nation to embrace U.S. Spanish as a legitimate language variety.

This is the first episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to other two episodes: "A language divided" and "One brain, two languages."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu).

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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To read medieval music, Saagar learned five languages — Latin, German, Italian, Catalan and Occitan — making 10 languages that he knows in total (for now, at least). 

In losing the history of pieces of music, Saagar says, we’ve lost languages and cultures that were present and important to the time period. 

And today, at a time when linguistic boundaries are crumbling before our eyes, he says, instead of judging someone who speaks differently from you, realize that “it's actually a way of speaking a language and that we should cherish that because it's beautiful in its own way."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

UC Berkeley photo by Brandon Sánchez Mejia.

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"It came from this idea that as men, we are not allowed to show skin as scars or emotions or weakness," said Sánchez, who will graduate from Berkeley this May with a bachelor’s degree in art practice.

Sánchez’s cohort is part of the Department of Art of Practice’s 100th year, a milestone that department chair Ronald Rael said is cause for celebration.

"There have been moments in art practice’s history when it was unclear that art should be at a university at all," said Rael, a professor of architecture and affiliated faculty in art. "And here we are, at 100 years, and it’s one of the most popular majors on campus."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

This is a companion podcast to a feature story about Sánchez, published earlier this month on UC Berkeley News. There, you can view more photos and read about about how Sánchez's mom made him stay inside for a year as a teenager in El Salvador out of fear he'd join a gang. And how, against his mom's wishes and without any money of his own, he decided to pursue an education — no matter what it took.

UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser.

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There's Ida Louise Jackson Graduate House, named in honor of the first African American woman to teach in Oakland public schools. Next is Barbara Christian Hall, named for the first Black woman to be granted tenure at Berkeley. Other stops include Wheeler Hall and Sproul Plaza, where Black visionaries, like James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr., gave famous speeches.

"Just knowing this history, walking around campus and knowing it, you really feel like you belong," said student Daniella Lake, who's on the Black Lives at Cal team that created the tour. "Black people have been here for the past 100 years, and if they were doing all these amazing things then, I can surely do it now."

You can find the self-guided Black history tour at Berkeley on Black Lives at Cal’s website. And soon, on the site, you’ll also be able to sign up for upcoming in-person walking tours.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

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"What we're showing here," said Berkeley comparative psychologist Laura Simone Lewis, "is that chimps and bonobos may be able to remember that long — or longer."

Berkeley News writer Jason Pohl first published a story about this study in December 2023. We used his interview with Lewis for this podcast episode.

Photo courtesy of Laura Simone Lewis.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

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This is an episode of Afterthoughts, a series that highlights moments from Berkeley Voices interviews that didn’t make it into the final episode. This excerpt is from an interview with Hirota featured in Berkeley Voices episode #115: "They built the railroad. But they were left out of the American story."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts).

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Listen to the podcast and read the transcript on Berkeley News.

Artwork by Emily Ehlen.

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But building the railroad was treacherous, brutal work. And the companies leading the railroad project had a hard time retaining American workers. So they began to recruit newly arrived immigrants for the job, mainly Chinese and Irish. And these immigrants, who risked their lives to construct the railroad, have largely been left out of the story.

In recent years, though, there has been a new emphasis on reframing the narrative to include the perspectives, contributions and struggles of railroad workers, not only in scholarship, but in the arts.

On Nov. 17, Cal Performances is presenting American Railroad by Silk Road Ensemble, as part of its 2023-24 season of Illuminations: Individual and Community. It's one of several notable works in recent years that explores the lives of the immigrants who built the U.S. transcontinental railroad.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu).

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Photo courtesy of San Francisco Public Library.

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"Trinidadian Carnival, it’s social justice theater in practice. Every moment, it’s all about emancipation, the subverting of the powerful narrative through humor, through performance, through doublespeak. And it just taught me so much about the possibilities of the art form."

Photo courtesy of Timmia Hearn DeRoy.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu): https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/10/17/social-justice-theater

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"I wasn't exactly sure who was a camper and who was a counselor," he said. "I think that's really indicative of one of the many things that made that camp special."

Over several years, the camp changed him in profound ways.

"I, for the first time, understood that I didn’t need to be embarrassed about being disabled, that I could have pride in who I was," he said. "And that it was possible to fight back against the system that was keeping us down."

Nearly five decades later, in 2020, LeBrecht and filmmaker Nicole Newnham released on Netflix the documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, about Camp Jened and the activism it inspired. 

"What did we used to say, it was like Wet Hot American Summer meets The Times of Harvey Milk?" said Newnham. "It’s an activist history story. It’s the origin story of a political and identity-based community, the disability community. But it’s also a coming-of-age story and a joyous sort of celebration of youth and disability culture coming together." 

All incoming undergraduate students at UC Berkeley watched Crip Camp over the summer as part of On the Same Page, a program of the College of Letters and Science. 

"We had a couple of goals with our film," said LeBrecht. "One of them was to reframe what disability meant to people with and without disabilities. We also wanted to start conversations. I hope that this plants a seed within all of these students that they do talk, they do think differently, and that this is something they hold for the rest of their lives that will make the world a better place."

Photo by Steve Honigsbaum/Netflix.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts): https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/09/05/crip-camp-on-the-same-page

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"That was a very common fate from this part of the world," says Kinstler, a Ph.D. candidate in rhetoric at UC Berkeley. "It didn't strike me as totally unusual. It was only later when I began looking into it more that I realized there was probably more to the story."

What she discovered was too big for her to walk away.

In 2022, she published her first book, Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends. It follows her family's story in Eastern Europe through the war and its aftermath, and queries all the ways we’ve been told that justice was conducted for those responsible for the genocide of European Jews during the war.

It then moves into the present, and asks: What position do we find ourselves in now? And how can we truly remember the Holocaust — a systematic murder that some are trying to erase — when the last living witnesses are dying? Is this how the Holocaust ends?

"It's not a prescription, but rather a warning: an effort to call attention to the fact that we are in this moment of endings, where survivors are no longer with us," she says. "Undeniably, we are entering a new period of memory. ... We need to think more seriously about what we do with this memory."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts): https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/05/18/linda-kinstler-come-to-this-court-and-cry

Photo by Pete Kiehart; UC Berkeley graphic by Neil Freese.

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"The belief was that you would get started on using an adaptive device right away and that would be easiest for you, rather than learning to adapt to your body the way that it is, rather than learning about how to navigate the world with the body you have," said Britt, who is graduating from UC Berkeley with a Ph.D. in geography on May 15.

Born missing part of her left arm, Britt never went to school without wearing her prosthesis. 

"But when I came home, I would take it off immediately," she said. "And in that way, I was spending countless hours practicing being in my body and learning how to do things my own way."

During graduate school, after nearly three decades of wearing a prosthesis every day, Britt decided to stop using it for good.

"The geography department at Berkeley, it sounds cliché to say it was a safe space, but it really felt like a welcoming space, and it really felt like a good space to be myself.

"It has been really interesting now going without a prosthesis and experiencing the world in a totally different way and seeing ... not just frustrating designs and inaccessible designs and hostile designs for disabled people or just for people with my body geometry, but for anybody."

After she graduates, Britt will be working on a book about techno-optimism, the pitfalls of so-called human-centered design, prosthetics and the future of the human body.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/05/10/graduating-phd-candidate-britt-h-young

Photo by Gabriela Hasbun.

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"Being that queer trans person completely owning herself I hope gives other people permission to be themselves, too," she says. 

A master's student in UC Berkeley's Department of Art Practice, Gericault explores in her art Philippine mythology and her experience as a trans woman. One time, she dressed up like a manananggal — a kind of monster that detaches from her lower body at night to look for unborn babies to eat — and then slept in an art gallery for six hours. 

"I look at the manananggal as kind of a metaphor for how society sees trans women — how this is literally a woman detached from her reproductive organs. And what are you as a woman if you can’t reproduce?"

When Gericault came out to her parents as trans in her early 20s, they disowned her. For her thesis project, Gericault will unravel huge tapestries with images of her parents' stomachs on them. 

"It’s about disconnection and severance," she says. "I’m thinking about how much of myself is a part of them and how much of them are a part of me, and it’s kind of this final goodbye."

Gericault's final MFA piece is part of the Annual UC Berkeley Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, which opens on May 10 at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). 

Listen to the episode, see photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/05/08/graduating-mfa-student-gericault-de-la-rose

UC Berkeley photo by Sofia Liashcheva.

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/03/23/ali-bhatti-on-ramadan-and-his-faith

Photo courtesy of Ali Bhatti.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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Shah is the founder and executive director of Movement Law Lab and a civil rights litigator, policy advocate and law professor who has spent over a decade working at the intersection of law and grassroots social movements.

During their conversation, they talk about the nuts and bolts of founding a legal nonprofit in response to current events, and the intellectual and philosophical theory behind “movement lawyering,” a type of lawyering that aims to support and foment lasting social change.

"It’s not that we have to have all of this stuff, all of these virtues amassed, before we can engage in the work," Nolan says. "Doing the work actually helps us amass what we need in order to do it better."

"That, to me, is one of the biggest beauties of being in social justice work: If you’re doing it right, all you have to do is show up and be persistent and committed and have your words, like what you say you’re going to do, actually be what you do," says Shah. "But the work over the years will transform you. It will teach you. And that hope and that imagination, that sense of it’s possible, I think that’s such a powerful thing."

Shah and Nolan also talk about when it might be a good thing to loosen your grip on your power, how confidence is a process, and moments that give you chills — in a good way — as a lawyer.

This is the last episode of season two of Be the Change, a collaboration between UC Berkeley's Office of Communications and Public Affairs and Berkeley Law. In the series, Nolan interviews changemakers who embody the transformation they want to see in the world. You can find all episodes on the Berkeley Voices podcast.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/03/22/be-the-change-s2-ep3-purvi-shah

Photo courtesy of Purvi Shah; UC Berkeley design by Neil Freese.

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Menka is a lecturer at Berkeley Law and a supervising attorney for the campus’s Environmental Law Clinic. She is Denaakk’e from Alaska and Lumbee from North Carolina. In fall 2021, Menka designed and taught a new undergraduate legal studies course called Decolonizing UC Berkeley, and she taught Indigenous Peoples, Law and the United States at the law school in spring 2022.

During their conversation, they talk about how to bring a decolonial lens to education, and about the joys and challenges of being a trailblazer who is pushing against the inherited wisdom and mythology surrounding UC Berkeley — "a place we love deeply and, therefore, as James Baldwin said, claim the right to criticize and to call to higher levels of intellectual and moral honesty," Nolan says.

"This can be a unique space, right?" Menka says. "The university — it is a place of power. I know that. It's important that we are able to understand that if you have a voice, if you are in the room, you should use it."

They also get into how instinct can be a particularly powerful gift when you're part of a subordinated community, and storytelling as a portal to individual and communal healing.

Season two of Be the Change is a collaboration between Berkeley Law and Berkeley News. In the series, Nolan interviews three changemakers who embody the transformation they want to see in the world. New episodes will come out every week on Wednesday as a special series on the Berkeley Voices podcast.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/03/15/be-the-change-s2-ep2-nazune-menka/

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small; UC Berkeley design by Neil Freese.

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During their conversation, they talk about the process of Bridges claiming and using her voice as a prominent Black woman. And they discuss the complexities of presentation and adornment for members of marginalized communities — especially in academia — and about approaching work with a sense of liberation, creativity and hustle.

"Those things that I do to adorn myself, a lot of folks are going to read them in light of my identity as a Black woman," says Bridges. "So, my nails become read in a particular way and my tattoos will become read in a particular way. And the way that I wear my hair, you know, and my septum piercing, in a particular way. And I'm comfortable with that. I'm happy with that. And I feel that that affirms my identity as a Black woman."

Nolan and Bridges also talk about getting comfortable with the Socratic method, and what it feels like to start law school with no idea what's going on or what you've gotten yourself into, but ultimately finding your way.

Season two of Be the Change is a collaboration between Berkeley Law and Berkeley News. In the series, Nolan interviews three changemakers who have started something that wasn't there before, and that makes the world a better place. New episodes will come out every week on Wednesday as a special series on the Berkeley Voices podcast.

Listen to the episode and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/03/08/be-the-change-s2-ep1-khiara-m-bridges

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small; UC Berkeley design by Neil Freese.

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"We're talking about transforming the world and being the change and these very lofty concepts," says Nolan, director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice. "But I hope what they see is that big, lofty concepts really contain lots of little, teeny, tiny steps that are repeated and built upon over time."

In season two of Be the Change, a collaboration between Berkeley Law and Berkeley News, Nolan interviews three changemakers who have started something that wasn't there before, and that makes the world a better place. 

"I wanted to contribute something to the community that would help folks really be brave," says Nolan, "and think about their lives and their gifts and their work as things that are full of possibility and as things that are potentially really, really expansive and transformative."

New episodes come out every week on Wednesday. Savala's next interview is with Khiara M. Bridges, a professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Law and a powerful public intellectual who speaks and writes about race, class, reproductive justice and the intersection of the three.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/03/01/introducing-be-the-change-season-2

UC Berkeley photo design by Neil Freese; photo courtesy of Savala Nolan.

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But sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what DEIBJ means, what it actually looks like in practice — now, in our day-to-day lives, but also in the future, when initiatives and policies and other on-the-ground work has transformed our institution.

So, we talked with Ty-Ron Douglas. He's the associate athletic director of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice at Cal Athletics. Douglas, who joined Berkeley two years ago, explained the nuts and bolts of DEIBJ in his upbeat and clear-eyed way that he seems to apply to all things he does.

He also talked about growing up in Bermuda, a precocious kid feeling like he didn’t belong; why sport is a legitimate academic discipline; and how "justice is the juice" of DEIBJ.

"For us, for me, I really see this work as life and death," says Douglas. "Not just of human life or death, but also of potential, of that glow in a person's eyes when they know that they belong. You can see it, you can feel it. Belonging has a feeling, and you can feel the healthy space."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/02/09/ty-ron-douglas-bridging-the-academic-and-athletic-worlds/

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo courtesy of Ty-Ron Douglas.

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Since protests broke out in Iran nearly three months ago, sparked by the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini by Iran's so-called morality police, Katebi has been an outspoken supporter of the protesters. 

"The main demand that we're hearing is, 'Jin, Jiyan, Azadî,' or, 'Woman, Life, Freedom,' which is a Kurdish, anti-imperialist, feminist, anti-capitalist chant," she says. "I think that that's what is really hitting at the core and distinguishes these protests from others before — this is one that's calling for nothing short of the end of dictatorship, which means everything from women's rights to education to class, gender, everything."

Although a senior official in the Iranian government confirmed on Monday, Dec. 5, that the morality police had been shut down — the first concession by the government since the protests began — the mandatory dress code remains in place. It’s unclear how the government plans to enforce the laws moving forward.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/12/07/hoda-katebi-iran-protests/

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Everardo Reyes is a Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at Berkeley. After taking several classes with John-Carlos Perea, who last year was a visiting associate professor in Berkeley’s Department of Music, Reyes was inspired to research how radio and music were used during the Alcatraz takeover to capture mass attention and amplify the Red Power movement.

Listen to the episode and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/11/08/sound-and-music-of-alcatraz-occupation

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Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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"This is really a book about roles and how we play them," Yu said. "Sometimes they are fundamental to who we are, but they can also be very limiting or reductive. I hope that people can see that, in one way or another, all the characters in this book are wearing a mask and a costume, to some extent, and it doesn't fit them perfectly. And we, hopefully, see the ways in which the person underneath peeks out and can't be fully covered by what's there. In those moments, when the mask slips and you talk out of character, real connection can come about."

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/08/24/on-the-same-page-interior-chinatown

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Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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Last Friday, the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe, giving states broad power to curtail or end abortion. As of today, abortion is now banned in at least seven states, and about half of states across the country are expected to ban or severely restrict the procedure in the coming days.

In this Berkeley Voices episode, Luker talks about why doctors began writing anti-abortion laws in the 19th century, the experiences women had ending unwanted pregnancies in the decades before Roe v. Wade and how she doesn’t see us returning to the normative sexuality and reproduction of the 1950s.

Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/06/29/kristin-luker-on-roe-v-wade

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Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo by the Associated Press.

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/05/05/berkeley-law-student-indi-garcia-graduation-2022

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Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small.

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/04/15/berkeley-voices-fellow-earthlings/

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Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo courtesy of Hope Gale-Hendry.

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/04/01/roots-of-climate-despair

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Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/03/18/berkeley-voices-should-we-bring-back-woolly-mammoths

Photo by Timothy Neesam via Flickr.

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/03/04/podcast-khiara-bridges-reproductive-justice

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UC Berkeley illustration by Neil Freese.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

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The week has been used as a timekeeping unit and calendar device to organize society for about 2,000 years, says David Henkin, a professor of history at Berkeley and author of the 2021 book, The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that Made Us Who We Are. But it's only for the past 200 years in America that the week has had a grip on our daily lives.

Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/02/18/the-week/

If you haven't already, follow Berkeley Voices and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

UC Berkeley illustration by Neil Freese.

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/02/04/music-of-the-great-migration/

If you haven't already, follow Berkeley Voices and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!

UC Berkeley illustration by Neil Freese.

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/01/21/water-recycling

If you haven't already, follow Berkeley Voices and review us on Apple Podcasts!

UC Berkeley illustration by Neil Freese; Music by Blue Dot Sessions

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/12/10/berkeley-voices-podcast-student-musician-joshua-kyan-aalampour

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Next week, we'll be back with our final Berkeley Voices episode of the season. 

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/11/26/science-of-happiness-michael-pollan

Artwork by Whitney Anderson.

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/11/10/cups-for-conversations-about-war/

This audio is from a video about Tool that was published with a feature story on UC Berkeley News in February 2020.

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/29/waste/

NurPhoto photo by Mamunur Rashid via AP

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/15/berkeley-voices-nobel-prize-economics-david-card

UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/10/01/berkeley-voices-podcast-mariana-soto-sanchez-disability

UC Berkeley photo by Neil Freese

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Listen to the episode, see photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/09/17/berkeley-voices-ballet-folklorico/

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/09/03/maryam-karimi-afghanistan/

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/20/berkeley-voices-wildfire

Photo by Emily Gonthier

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/08/06/berkeley-voices-podcast-savala-nolan-new-book

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Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/23/podcast-mushrooms-revisiting/

UC Berkeley photo by Elena Zhukova

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See photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/09/podcast-carol-christ-on-women-in-the-academy-revisiting

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/06/04/revisiting-ballet-erika-johnson/

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Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/21/podcast-philip-kan-gotanda-part-3/

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/14/podcast-philip-kan-gotanda-part-2/

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/07/podcast-philip-kan-gotanda-part-one

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Listen to the episode, read the transcript and see photos of DeWitt's artwork on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/04/20/podcast-artist-fred-dewitt/

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Listen to the episode and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/04/06/the-uncertainty-of-the-chauvin-trial-outcome

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(A podcast episode featuring this interview with Simon-Thomas was originally published on Berkeley News in 2017. This is a new version that has been rewritten and remixed.)

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/03/30/podcast-power-corrupts/

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Celebrities, one theory goes, act to unite imagined communities in a modern nation. When people used to know everyone in their villages, now we use celebrities to come together in a new kind of group. "I’m a fan of Beyoncé, and you’re a fan of Beyoncé, so now we’re a part of this imagined community," says Fawcett.

Listen to the episode and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/03/16/fiat-vox-podcast-celebrity/

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After Thoughts is a series that highlights moments from Fiat Vox interviews that didn’t make it into the final episode. This excerpt is from an interview with Wilkerson featured in Fiat Vox episode #69: “Language is more than how we speak — it's home.”

Listen and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/03/09/after-thoughts-rose-wilkerson/

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When they found papyri — paper's earliest ancestor — stuffed inside of the mummies with text written on it by Egyptians thousands of years before, they were suddenly interested. But instead of collecting the mummies, they began to break them open, remove the papyri and discard the crocodiles.

Now, more than 100 years later, 19 mummified crocodiles are part of the Egyptian collection at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. These mummies, along with a collection of papyri held by the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri at the Bancroft Library, give us clues about how everyday ancient Egyptians lived and how far they went to appease crocodiles, hoping their devotion would win them some good will toward humankind.

Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/03/02/crocodile-mummies/

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Listen and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/02/22/after-thoughts-dacher-keltner-on-awe-and-psychedelics

After Thoughts is a series that highlights moments from Fiat Vox interviews that didn’t make it into the final episode. This excerpt is from an interview with Keltner featured in Fiat Vox episode #68: “Building community one person at a time.”

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How we speak, says sociolinguist and Berkeley lecturer Rose Wilkerson, represents who we are— our culture, our family and our sense of place in the world. So, when a person is criticized for how they speak, she says, it cuts to the heart. 

Listen to the episode, see photos and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/02/16/language-is-home/

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For staffer Tyrone Wise, it starts with asking tough questions and then listening — really listening — to the answer. "When we take time to understand what people are saying to us,” he says, “then we can better understand who they are as people."

Wise says that including a range of perspectives when making decisions creates a stronger community — something that he's working to build at Berkeley.

And a sense of community, says Keltner, which has been lost in our individualistic society, is essential to our survival. By searching for shared values, honoring differences and knowing when to use "tough compassion," he says, we can begin to build bridges and heal as a nation.

Listen and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/02/02/podcast-building-community-across-differences

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Last week, we heard from UC Berkeley's Ella Callow about how the U.S. government built a psychiatric institution in the early 1900s to imprison Native Americans.

Today, Callow discusses how Native communities are still forced to exist in societal systems that use disability to justify taking Native children away from their families, and to ultimately control, and make money from, their lives.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/11/24/podcast-how-state-courts-use-disability-to-remove-native-children-from-their-homes

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This is the first part of a two-part series about how disability has been and continues to be used as a way to control and profit from Native populations. In the next episode, we'll learn about how state courts today use disability as a reason to justify removing Native children from their parents' custody and cultural environment to place them in non-Native homes.

Listen to the episode and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/11/19/using-disability-to-imprison-native-americans

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"The fact of the charge is upsetting, disappointing, angering — all of those things," said Trepczynski. "And so, I felt the exhaustion of forbearance and abiding and feeling again and again that even when you get justice, it’s kind of a half step. It’s a measure of justice. It’s not the whole thing."

And she was reminded of a murder so similar to Taylor's that happened in her own family — to her great-great-grandmother.

Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/09/25/fiat-vox-savala-trepczynski-on-breonna-taylor-and-racial-justice

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"Even though these women were not in the limelight, they were engaging in a form of leadership," says Taylor. "But because we live in a country in a culture where we oftentimes identify leadership as a talking head, we don’t understand all of the thinking that goes behind a lot of the ideas that the talking head is even articulating."

Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/02/11/podcast-montgomery-bus-boycott-womens-political-council/

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See photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/01/21/podcast-jerry-brown-oral-history-center/

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After English, he had honors chemistry, followed by pre-calculus, then guitar class in the band room. At 2:18 p.m., he asked to use the restroom, but another classmate was out, so his teacher told Kai to wait. Two minutes later, the fire alarm went off. And what followed was a tragedy that his school would become known for — one that Kai would decide to speak out about, changing the narrative about the impact of gun violence on youth in the United States.

At Berkeley, in between classes and studying, Kai works to promote his nonprofit and mental health curriculum — something that he's become passionate about since he survived one of the deadliest school shootings in the country.

Read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/12/17/podcast-student-kai-koerber-on-gun-violence-and-mental-health/

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On Dec. 5, Woodson is staging a reading of Your Friend, Jay Silverheels in Durham Studio Theater in Dwinelle Hall on campus.

Listen, see photos and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/11/26/student-drew-woodson-play/

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Listen, see photos and read a transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/11/25/student-saida-dahir-slam-poet-activist/

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Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/10/08/teeter-totters-as-activism-ronald-rael/

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Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/07/09/gemma-givens-next-generation-guatemala/

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See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/06/11/fiat-vox-podcast-martha-olney/

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But she also noticed that many of the nurses were Filipino.

Her mom was an immigrant from the Philippines. And when they’d go to Filipino events, it was common to see a lot of nurses.

“I think when I was growing up, it was just part of the familiar landscape of home,” she says, “and what it was like to be in New York City. I didn’t really question it as a child. It just seemed natural or normal to me.”

Years later, as a graduate student at UCLA, Choy began to wonder: Why were there so many Filipino nurses in the U.S.? What she found took her back to the early 20th century after the Philippines became a U.S. colony.

Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/05/28/filipino-nurses-in-the-us-podcast/

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And now, nearly 100 years later, Heinrich's collection of crime materials from this case — and thousands of others he worked on throughout his career — are available for research in the Bancroft Library's archives at UC Berkeley. 

See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/04/30/heinrich-collection-at-the-bancroft-library/

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In this Fiat Vox podcast episode, Christ and her longtime friend and colleague Carol Clover, a professor emerita in Scandinavian studies and film studies, discuss what it was like for women in the academy 50 years ago and how it’s changed, what makes a strong leader — and offer advice to the next generation of Berkeley women.

See photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/04/16/chancellor-carol-christ-with-professor-emerita-carol-clover/

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Mouthpiece premiered in 2015, and four years later, Amy and Nora, who make up the Toronto-based company Quote Unquote Collective, are performing the play for the last time on March 22-24 in the Zellerbach Playhouse. It’s the last performance of Cal Performances’ 2018-19 Berkeley RADICAL Initiative’s strand “Women’s Work,” which takes a specific look at the extraordinary artistry of women who are expanding the definition of what it is to be an artist in the 21st century.

“This continuum of women’s voices and their work — the work that drives them — is important to put a spotlight on,” says Sabrina Klein, director of artistic literacy at Cal Performances. “Every single one is unique. Every single one is different. But it’s not incidental that they’re connected as women across this continuum of making work — live work, new work, fresh work, continually meaningful work.” 

Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/18/quote-unquote-mouthpiece-cal-performances-podcast/

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But she couldn't do it alone. She needed to find and nurture a community of thinkers who could aid in the development of her research and her personal journey of discovery. So, she — along with Miyuki Baker, a Ph.D. candidate in theater, dance and performances — started the Church of Black Feminist Thought.

Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/11/church-of-black-feminist-thought-podcast/

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Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/04/karen-denton-assistant-registrar-podcast/

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On Saturday, Feb. 23, Berkeley staffer Gia White, who volunteers as a docent at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, will give a tour about notable African Americans — including Holland, and Berkeley alumni Ida Louise Jackson and Walter Gordon — who are buried in the cemetery. 

“It’s a privilege to talk about their life stories, because when are they going to be heard?" says Gia. "I feel like, you’re just doing them a little honor by talking about them again.”

See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/02/19/black-history-cemetery-tour/

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Some people move to San Francisco for its jobs. Or its nightlife. Or its natural beauty.

But Clothilde Hewlett moved for Rice-A-Roni. Hewlett was 14 years old waiting at the Canadian border with her mom and two younger sisters. They’d been there for two weeks, but things weren’t looking promising. “And at one point, my mother, out of despair, looked at me and she said, ‘Where do you wanna go?’ says Hewlett. “And all I could think of is I had a seen a commercial called Rice-A-Roni and it didn’t look like people in San Francisco were suffering. So I said, ‘San Francisco.'”

Listen to Hewlett’s story — how she pulled herself out of poverty, found salvation as a student at UC Berkeley, climbed the ranks in the government and corporate America and returned to the campus, where she giving back to students who need it most.

Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/02/12/fiat-vox-podcast-clothilde-hewlett/

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Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/01/22/erika-johnson-ballet-podcast

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See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/12/11/marco-lindsey-berkeley-haas-chief-of-staff/

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See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/11/20/podcast-antikoni/

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See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/11/06/podcast-quame-on-standing-out-dreaming-big-and-letting-go

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While the class talks about the generational differences of sound — no one today really speaks like movie stars of the 40s — they also discuss how today’s filmmakers, like Boots Riley in “Sorry to Bother You,” are pushing back against the racial norms concealed in what we might say sounds American. McEnaney says the film, about a young black telemarketer who uses his “white voice” to be successful at sales, takes the sense that many people have — that whiteness is a kind of invisible standard against which all other cultures are judged in the U.S. — and makes the audience think about how whiteness is audible, and is another kind of difference.

Listen to the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/10/16/white-voice-and-the-american-sound/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/10/09/podcast-sounding-american-gender-and-politics/

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See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/09/25/podcast-carla-cicero-staff-curator-of-birds/

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A few years ago, I interviewed Art Simmons — an electrician on campus whose job it was to keep the clocks going. Now, a machinist who worked with Art is looking after the clocks. But I thought it’d be a good time to share a story that Art told me about how he saved the day with a light bulb and a little common sense.

See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/09/18/podcast-from-the-archive-campanile-clocks/

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Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/09/04/podcast-ailey-camp-at-cal-performances/

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As part of On the Same Page, a program of UC Berkeley's College of Letter and Science, all 8,800 incoming students got a copy of the novel to read over the summer, so when they arrived on campus, they would have something in common to talk about — socially, in classes and at events designed to explore the book's themes.

Berkeley News sat down with Margaret Atwood for a few minutes before her appearance on campus last week to talk about her book's recent revival and how — in her view, and that of many of the book's fans — the Trump presidency is bringing the U.S. a step closer to becoming her fictional Republic of Gilead.

See photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/08/28/podcast-margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-on-the-same-page

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/07/25/podcast-the-power-of-puppets/

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Read the transcript, see photos and find more disability resources on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/07/17/podcast-derek-coates-disability-on-campus/

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See photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/07/10/podcast-campanile-peregrines-here-to-stay/

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See photos and read a Q&A with Noah Whiteman on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/07/03/podcast-growing-up-gay-in-rural-minnesota

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Five years later on June 26, 2015, same-sex marriage was made legal in the U.S.

Martin Meeker, the director of the Bancroft Library's Oral History Center at UC Berkeley, interviewed Zepatos and nearly a dozen others about the Freedom to Marry campaign for the center's Freedom to Marry Oral History Project. Listen to Meeker talk about how a single message can help change a nation's opinion.

Read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/06/26/podcast-freedom-to-marry/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/06/14/podcast-geneq-leader-billy-curtis-grand-marshal-sf-pride/

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See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/05/10/grad-profile-joshua-ahazie-podcast/

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Read the story and see photos on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/05/01/worthy-wage-day/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/03/29/what-cant-mushrooms-do/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/03/12/podcast-interview-w-grad-student-derrika-hunt/

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In the last of a four-part series that highlights a different African American leader on campus for our podcast, Fiat Vox, Taylor talks about the women activists that brought Martin Luther King Jr. to prominence and how she encourages her students to harness the leader within themselves to create the world they want to live in.

Read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/02/28/podcast-black-history-month-interview-ula-taylor/

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See photos and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/02/21/staff-diversity-leader-our-differences-make-us-stronger/

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Read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/02/14/the-life-changing-power-of-black-panther/

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Read the transcript and see photos on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/02/12/black-history-month-interview-with-graduate-student-kenly-brown/

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Read the story and see photos of Hewlett on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/02/05/podcast-black-history-month-series-interview-cloey-hewlett/

This is part of a 2018 series for Black History Month, featuring interviews with African American leaders at UC Berkeley.

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Listen and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/01/16/podcast-science-of-cannabis-lecture-series-uc-botanical-garden/

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Read more about the lecture series on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/01/16/podcast-science-of-cannabis-lecture-series-uc-botanical-garden/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/12/11/student-pianist-christopher-richardson-podcast

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Story and photos on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/11/21/growing-up-without-free-speech/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/10/18/master-class-with-riccardo-muti-podcast/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/09/28/power-of-generosity/

Texas National Guard photo by Zachary West via Flickr

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/09/15/benatberkeley-sights-sounds-and-students-sounding-off/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/08/30/roaya-and-nissma-reunited-at-berkeley/

Photo by Anne Brice

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2017/08/22/on-the-same-page-hamilton/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/06/23/freedom-to-marry-oral-history-center-tyler-deaton/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/05/09/sayah-bogor-masters-in-public-health/

Photo by Anne Brice

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Story and 360-degree video on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/04/07/harry-potter-cal-quidditch-podcast/

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Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/04/05/borderwall-as-architecture-ronald-rael-podcast/

Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small

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Constellation allows you to digitally create multiple environments in one space by changing the length of reverberation, strength or loudness. It can even change the perceived height and width of a room. 

So, if you close your eyes, it can transport you to a big, open space like a cathedral. Turn off the reverb and it becomes a normal stage.

Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/12/23/constellation-acoustic-system-in-zellerbach-hall/

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But the bell isn’t actually here. It’s at the Moscow Kremlin. A UC Berkeley team, along with researchers at Stanford and the University of Michigan, worked together to digitally create the sound they believed the bell would make.

Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/04/21/russian-tsar-bell-podcast/

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Photo by Frédéric Poirot via Flickr.

Story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/02/18/is-cdc-alcohol-warning-paternalistic/

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Liz Klinger is the CEO and co-founder of Lioness. She and her team work out of SkyDeck, UC Berkeley’s incubator for startups. She says her upbringing inspired her to pursue a career in sexual health.

Photos, video and story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/02/11/lioness-smart-vibrator/

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Murray teaches family law at UC Berkeley. She says the marriage equality movement has built up the idea that marriage is this wonderful thing that everyone should want. And there are a lot of benefits to being married in the United States. People who are married have better financial outcomes than people who aren’t. They are often healthier (especially men), and they have access to a range of public and private benefits, like Social Security and shared employee health and other benefit plans.

But she says there’s a darker side to marriage that’s been overlooked.

Photo by Blyth Scott Photography via Flickr. See photos and read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/11/10/the-darker-side-of-marriage/

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He knew he wanted to do something about climate change. But instead of lobbying for the state or the federal government to adopt carbon cap laws, as a lot of environmentalists were doing at the time, he decided to start right where he was — with the campus.

Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/10/01/cal-climate-action-partnership-big-idea/

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“Everybody in Berkeley watches those clocks,” says Simmons. “Not just the people on campus. So when the clocks stop, the whole city knows about it and it doesn’t look good.”

Read the story on UC Berkeley News: https://news.berkeley.edu/2015/07/29/campanile-clocks/

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Garden director Paul Licht stands at the front, talking to one of the many groups to visit during the latest Trudy mania. “It goes in waves, doesn’t it?” he asks. “None have ever smelled as much the day after it opened.”

Trudy is a tropical plant called a Titan Arum, known best for the putrid odor it emits when it blooms.

Read the story on UC Berkeley News: http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/07/27/trudys-bloom-raises-a-stink/

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