2020 Winter Archives - Cal Alumni Association

CRISPR Will Change the World. Here’s What’s Already In the Works

From diagnostics to warfare, a sampling of how gene-editing is being used to rewrite the world’s DNA. In October, UC Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of CRISPR/Cas9, a gene-slicing tool that can be programmed to make precise edits to DNA. Since its discovery, CRISPR has captured the […]

“Equal Parts Pain and Joy:” Fred Moten’s Life in Verse

The modernist verse of poet and 2020 MacArthur Fellow Fred Moten is like jazz on the page. When Fred Moten reflects on his childhood, he thinks of music. His mother once slipped a coat over his pajamas, so he could accompany her to a late-night concert by the jazz singer Joe Williams on the Las […]

In An Original Cartoon, Darrin Bell Spotlights Racism in Police Behavior

Darrin Bell won a 2019 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. We asked him to draw one for us. IN 2019, DARRIN BELL BECAME THE FIRST BLACK artist to win a Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning. The prize committee recognized the freelancer for his “beautiful and daring editorial cartoons that took on issues affecting disenfranchised communities, calling […]

A Social Media Celebrity Talks Leaving Twitter, Finding Joy

By Anthony James Williams

Friends have called me “Twitter famous,” but you’ve probably never heard of me. One night in 2015 I fell down an internet rabbit hole.

Editors’ Picks: What To Read, Watch, and Listen To This Winter

Some of our favorite new books, films, and podcasts, for your entertainment Our editors have curated a list of entertainment to indulge in this autumn. Here are their top picks of web series, podcasts, films, and more, all produced by UC Berkeley faculty and alumni. Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast Co-hosted by Matt Levin […]

Turns Out Nice Folks Don’t Finish Last After All

Turns out nice folks don’t finish last, after all. A UC Berkeley-led study published in August in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science found that “disagreeable individuals,” defined as those with combative, selfish, and manipulative traits, don’t achieve greater career success than their kinder counterparts.

_{Image source: Brandon Ruffin}

How to Make Black Lives Matter at Berkeley

Students, staff, and faculty discuss where we are and the way forward.

Black Cultural History at Cal: Sun Ra, James Baldwin, and More

UC Berkeley has historically been a magnet for African American activists, artists, and thinkers but never more so than during the tumultuous ’60s and ’70s. And with a little googling, many of these historical appearances can still be seen, heard, and savored online. In honor of the upcoming 45th annual Black History Month (February 2021), here’s a selection of Black speakers and cultural events that the Cal campus has played host to over the years.

Editor’s Note: Confronting Challenges Head-On

“If 2021 and the coming years and decades are going to bring better, it won’t be because we ignored difficult issues.” After we put a Black woman on the cover of this magazine (Alysia Montaño, Fall 2019), a reader wrote to say that he could think of many more inspiring cover subjects and that ours […]

Chancellor’s Letter: Striving for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Forging an institution that is anti-racist in both words and deeds Berkeley is blessed with a unique set of aspirations and responsibilities. We are the product of Abraham Lincoln’s vision for “people’s colleges”—an accessible system of public higher education for all, without regard to inherited privilege. We are an engine of socioeconomic mobility, a center […]

Snapp Chats: Ethical Hackers, A Real-Life Renaissance Man, and the Class of ’54

The latest news from our quarterly columnist Two Berkeley Sophomores Take on the Fight Against Misinformation According to a 2018 Pew Research analysis, two-thirds of political links shared on Twitter are actually written by bots. But in 2017, two UC Berkeley sophomores, Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte, launched a counterattack: NewsBot, an app that identifies the political […]

From ESPN to the NBA, Black Alumni Have Made Their Mark in Athletics

For these athletes, Berkeley was just the beginning.

Forging Pathways On and Off the Court

A conversation with G League president Shareef Abdur-Rahim Former Cal basketball star Shareef Abdur-Rahim was named president of the G League, the official minor league of the National Basketball Association, in 2018. Per its website, the G League operates as a research and development laboratory to prepare players, coaches, and staff for an NBA career. Under […]

The Search for Unisex Contraceptive Drugs Gets a Major Boost

A MacArthur “genius” awardee says women and men deserve better options. When Polina Lishko received a call in September informing her that she had won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, she almost hung up. The physiologist had had so many grant applications turned down in recent years that several mentees had switched fields out of […]

New Research Suggests Sleep Is Good Medicine for the Aging Brain

Scientists explain how sleeping better can prevent Alzheimer’s. Sleep is good medicine. As UC Berkeley neuroscientist Matthew Walker wrote in his 2017 book, Why We Sleep, “There does not seem to be one major organ within the body, or process within the brain, that isn’t optimally enhanced by sleep (and detrimentally impaired when we don’t get […]

Deworming Reaps Long-Term Health and Economic Rewards For Young Kenyans

A cheap pill improves education and career outcomes among students. The findings of the 2004 study were startling: A campaign to treat thousands of children in western Kenya for parasitic worms yielded significant, long-term health and educational benefits. Across the 75 primary schools involved, rates of intestinal worms and student absenteeism decreased—the latter by around […]

Letter-Writers Call Confronting Racism in STEM an “Important First Step”

A public letter addresses the false dichotomy of “excellence or diversity.” “The false dichotomy of ‘excellence or diversity’ must end,” four UC Berkeley alumni wrote in a letter published in the journal Science in September. “Diversity results in better, more impactful, and more innovative science,” the letter continued, “and it is essential to building novel […]

From the Galaxy to the Genome: Berkeley Scores Two More Nobel Prizes

Scientists Jennifer Doudna and Reinhard Genzel are awarded for breakthroughs in both the microscopic and the supermassive. Two new Nobel laureates will receive free lifetime parking spots on the UC Berkeley campus this year. And for the first time in Cal’s history, a woman will enjoy this perk. Reinhard Genzel and Jennifer Doudna received back-to-back […]

As the Pandemic Rages on, a Conversation about Stress and Coping

California Surgeon General and Berkeley alumna, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, talks long-term health impacts of the pandemic. As California’s first-ever surgeon general, how do you hope to shape the position? Dr. Nadine Burke Harris: Governor Newsom established the position of California Surgeon General with the understanding that some of the most pernicious, but least-addressed health […]