Berkeley Talks

What are some of the current challenges to maintaining social welfare programs for the nation's most vulnerable people in the Trump era?Tina Sacks, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley's School of Social Welfare, gave a lecture on this topic on Jan. 30, 2019, as part of a series of talks sponsored by UC Berkeley's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI).Sacks's fields of interest include racial disparities in health, social determinants of health, race, class and gender and poverty and inequality. Prior to joining Berkeley Social Welfare, Sacks spent nearly a decade in federal service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and has also served as legislative director at the Baltimore City Health Department as well as executive director of the Illinois Association of Free and Charitable Clinics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall is a design anthropologist, public intellectual and design advocate who works at the intersections of critical theory, culture and design. As dean of design at Ontario College of Art and Design University in Canada, she is the first black female dean of a faculty of design. She leads the Cultures-Based Innovation Initiative, focused on using old ways of knowing to drive innovation processes that directly benefit communities.Tunstall's talk, given on Jan. 25, 2019, is part of the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation's design conversations.Each semester, the institute invites a distinguished group of designers and thinkers to speak as part of Jacobs Design Conversations, Design Field Notes and its other public programs. This semester, these programs engage questions of inclusion, accessibility and justice under the title, For Whom? By Whom?: Designs for Belonging.Read a Q&A with Tunstall and the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation's Robert Kett.To learn more about upcomin

On Nov. 6, 2018, Ph.D. candidate in molecular and cell biology Rosalie Lawrence gave an interview on KALX's program, "The Graduates," about her research on how cells in our bodies make decisions. She studies mTORC1, a protein complex that interacts with cellular organelles called lysosomes and tells the cell when it has enough nutrients to grow. She is interested in the role mTORC1 plays in the development of cancer. "The Graduates," broadcast on the campus's community and student radio station KALX, features graduate student research at UC Berkeley. Listen or download past episodes on iTunes. This episode was hosted by Andrew Saintsing, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Integrative Biology. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jodi Kantor is a New York Times investigative reporter and a recipient of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for her reporting on the #MeToo movement. Her work has exposed abuses of power, from Harvey Weinstein to Amazon. Kantor joined UC Berkeley's 2018 graduation celebrations as the commencement speaker for journalism students. Afterwards, she sat down with former Mother Jones editor Deirdre English to discuss the reporting process and holding established systems accountable.This interview was recorded on May 24, 2018, for On Mic, a podcast by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. It was produced by Lee Mengistu and Cat Schuknecht. For more conversations with some of the world's best writers, journalists and documentarians, check out other On Mic episodes. Technical facilities for On Mic are underwritten by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Presidential power is always a hot topic, but never more so than today. This lecture, given by Berkeley Law Professor Daniel Farber on Sept. 25, 2018, explains the constitutional limits on the president and how individual rights are affected. Dan Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law at UC Berkeley and the faculty director of the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. Professor Farber serves on the editorial board of Foundation Press. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Life Member of the American Law Institute. He is the editor of Issues in Legal Scholarship. He is the author of 18 books including, Research Handbook on Public Choice and Public Law, Judgment Calls: Politics and Principle in Constitutional Law, and Retained by the People: The Silent 'Ninth' Amendment and the Rights Americans Don’t Know They Have. He is also the author of Presidential Administration Under Trump.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out inf

Twenty years ago, astronomers were astonished to learn from observations of exploding stars that cosmic expansion is speeding up. We attribute this to a mysterious “dark energy” that pervades the universe and makes up 70 percent of it. Scientists are working in many ways to learn more about the nature of dark energy, but our reservoir of ignorance is deep.On Oct. 24, astronomer Bob Kirshner gave the 2018 Distinguished Lecture in Astronomy, “From the Accelerating Universe to Accelerating Science,” for which he summarizes the present state of knowledge and looks ahead to new ways to use infrared observations of supernovae to improve our grip on dark energy.Kirshner leads the science program at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which makes over $100 million in grants for basic science each year, and served on the astronomy faculty at Harvard for 30 years.The Distinguished Lecture in Astronomy is an annual public lecture sponsored by the Department of Astronomy at UC Berkeley.Listen and read the tr

There are a greater number of forcibly displaced people in the world today than at any time since the end of World War II, and the Bay Area has welcomed many of these individuals. Hear from clinicians, including Sita Patel, who received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UC Berkeley and is an associate professor in clinical psychology at Palo Alto University, who are working directly with Bay Area refugees and asylum seekers about how they are restoring health and awakening hope in response to human rights abuses.This Commonwealth Club of California program, called “A Global Perspective on Healing After Trauma: Where Health and Human Rights Meet,” took place on Nov. 15, 2018 and was supported by the Northern California Grantmakers Funder Network on Trauma and Resilience.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In May 2018, Michael Pollan, the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley and author of a multitude of best-sellers, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma, sat down with former Mother Jones editor Deirdre English to discuss his new book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.This interview was recorded for On Mic, a podcast by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. It was produced by Lee Mengistu and Cat Schuknecht. For more fascinating conversations with some of the world's best writers, journalists and documentarians, check out other On Mic episodes. Technical facilities for On Mic are underwritten by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna joins oncologist Siddartha Mukherjee to discuss unprecedented advancements in gene editing and the effect new technologies will have on the future of humanity.Dr. Doudna’s research has led to what is being called the biggest scientific discovery of our era: the development of the genetic editing tool, CRISPR-Cas9. This revolutionary technology has quickly transformed the landscape of genome engineering, creating limitless possibilities for impact within biomedicine, agriculture, climate and energy, and more, including treating — and possibly curing — genetic diseases.Dr. Mukherjee is a celebrated physician and researcher. His book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2011, was named one of the 100 most influential books written in English since 1923 by TIME magazine, and was listed as one of the 100 notable books of 2010 by the New York Times magazine.This conversation, which took place o

Myths symbolize ideas, values, history and other issues that are important to a people. They may be true or false, mundane or fantastic; their significance is their meaning, not their narrative content. Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. Its conclusions tentatively may be true or false, but its significance is its explanatory power: one has confidence in the process of science, even though some explanations change over time.Myth and science thus seem very different, but each has been utilized by proponents of both sides of the Christian creationism and evolution controversy.Anthropologist Eugenie Scott, founding executive director of the National Center for Science Education Understanding, explores how this role is essential in comprehending — much less mediating — this persistent conflict.Sponsored by the Graduate Division, this lecture, given on Oct. 4, 2018, is part of the Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Lecture Series.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/pr

Professor of Public Policy Robert B. Reich ignites a discussion of the good we have had in common, what happened to it and what we might do to restore it. His goal is not that we all agree on the common good. It is that we get into the habit of thinking and talking about it, listening to each other's views and providing a means for people with opposing views to debate these questions civilly.This lecture, given on Oct. 12, 2018, was presented by the Cal Class of 1968 and the Goldman School of Public Policy's Center on Civility and Democratic Engagement, which was founded by the Class of 1968.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For over 50 years, Cal Performances at UC Berkeley has fostered a strong partnership with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Since the company's debut performance at Wheeler Hall in March of 1968, it has played a central role in Cal Performances’ dance programming for half a century. To commemorate the milestone 50th anniversary, then-executive and artistic director of Cal Performances Matías Tarnopolsky sat down with Battle in March 2018 for a conversation about his experience as an African American choreographer, artistic influences and vision for the Ailey company.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Across America, low-income and minority communities are being hit hardest by the economic and health impacts of climate change. Van Jones — news commentator, author and founder of Dream Corps — discusses how we can seek environmental justice for the country’s most vulnerable communities.This talk, given on Nov. 13, 2018, is the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources Horace M. Albright Lecture in Conservation and also part of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s 75th Anniversary Speaker Series.Listen and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.