131: How new color 'olo' stretches the limits of human perception
26 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, UC Berkeley researchers published a study about how they tricked the eye into seeing a n...
130: AI helped this paralyzed woman speak again after 18 years
28 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Ann Johnson had a rare brainstem stroke at age 30, she lost control of all of her muscles. One ...
129: Fakes, replicas and forgeries: What counts as art?
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Winnie Wong first saw Dafen Oil Painting Village in 2006, it was nothing like she’d imagined....
128: An evolution of American friendship, from Victorian-era letters to Swiftie bracelets
24 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever seen letters from the 1800s? Aside from the pristine penmanship and grammar, the way f...
127: How fear is being weaponized against you (and how to respond)
27 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Against her mom’s warnings, UC Berkeley political scientist Marika Landau-Wells watched Arachnapho...
126: Think you know what dinosaurs were like? Think again.
30 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For UC Berkeley Professor Jack Tseng, the world of paleontology never gets old. With each new discov...
125: As crises escalate, so does our fascination with cults
25 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Like millions of other Americans, UC Berkeley Professor Poulomi Saha watched a lot of docuseries abo...
124: Psychopathy goes undetected in some people. Why?
28 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a June 2024 study, UC Berkeley psychology professor Keanan Joyner and his colleagues found that b...
123: One brain, two languages
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For the first three years of Justin Davidson's childhood in Chicago, his mom spoke only Spanish to h...
122: A language divided
05 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There are countless English varieties in the U.S. There's Boston English and California English and ...
121: A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Spanish speakers in the United States, among linguists and non-linguists, have been denigrated for t...
120: Medieval song holds clues to lost dialects
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In his research, UC Berkeley Ph.D. candidate Saagar Asnani looks at music manuscripts from between t...
119: Art student's photo series explores masculine vulnerability
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Brandon Sánchez Mejia stood at a giant wall in UC Berkeley’s Worth Ryder Art Gallery and couldn’...
118: Take the first Black history tour at UC Berkeley
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The self-guided Black history tour at UC Berkeley begins at Memorial Stadium, where student Walter G...
117: Bonobos and chimps show 'a rich recognition' for long-lost friends and family
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bonobos and chimpanzees — the closest extant relatives to humans — could have the longest-lastin...
Afterthoughts: The true origins of American immigration policy
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Historians have long assumed that immigration to the United States was free from regulation until th...
116: How WWII incarceration fueled generations of Japanese American activists
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we're sharing the first episode of the new season of the Berkeley Remix, a podcast ...
115: They built the railroad. But they were left out of the American story.
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. transcontinental railroad is considered one of the biggest accomplishments in American hist...
114: Theater as power: New professor brings Caribbean performance practice to Berkeley
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
UC Berkeley's first social justice theater professor, Timmia Hearn DeRoy, talks about how Trinidad a...
113: Funky and free-spirited: How a 1970s summer camp started a disability revolution
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It was summertime in the early 1970s in New York City. Fifteen-year-old Jim LeBrecht boarded a schoo...
112: How the Holocaust ends
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up, Linda Kinstler knew that her Latvian grandfather had mysteriously disappeared after Worl...
111: Britt H. Young on learning to navigate the world with the body she has
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At 6 months old, Britt H. Young was fitted with her first prosthetic arm. "The belief was that ...
110: Gericault De La Rose knows who she is and won't change for anyone
08 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gericault De La Rose is a queer trans Filipinx woman, and refuses to change for anyone."Being that q...
109: Ali Bhatti on Ramadan and how his faith guided him through deep loss
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yesterday at sunset marked the start of Ramadan, the ninth and holiest month of the Islamic calendar...
108: 'Be the Change': Purvi Shah on the moments of beauty as a civil rights lawyer
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Be the Change, host Savala Nolan, director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson...
107: 'Be the Change': Nazune Menka on creating the course, Decolonizing UC Berkeley
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Be the Change, host Savala Nolan, director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson...
106: 'Be the Change': Khiara M. Bridges on claiming her voice as a prominent Black woman
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Host Savala Nolan, director of Berkeley Law's Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, interv...
105: 'Be the Change': A podcast that aims 'to remove the mystery of making change'
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Embodying the change you want to see in the world can feel ... well, intimidating. Impossible, even....
104: Ty-Ron Douglas: Bridging the academic and athletic worlds
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve heard the acronym DEIBJ a lot on campus, especially in the past few years. For those who mig...
103: Law student Hoda Katebi: Iran's protests are about 'total liberation'
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Berkeley Law student Hoda Katebi discusses how, after she began ...
102: Exploring the sound of the American Indian occupation of Alcatraz
08 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On Nov. 20, 1969, a group of Indigenous Americans that called itself Indians of All Tribes, many of ...
101: 'Interior Chinatown' is about roles and how we play them
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Charles Yu discusses his 2020 book, Interior Chinatown, which g...
100: How Roe v. Wade radically changed American culture
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Roe v. Wade was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, which protected a woman’s righ...
99: Indi Garcia lives and breathes the 'abolitionist philosophy'
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In episode 99 of Berkeley Voices, Berkeley Law student Indi Garcia, who is graduating on May 13 with...
98: How one student finds hope in her 'fellow earthlings'
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Hope Gale-Hendry, a fourth-year student in ecosystem management ...
97: Biologist confronts deep roots of climate despair
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Bree Rosenblum, a professor of global change biology at UC Berke...
96: Should we bring back woolly mammoths?
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we are sharing an episode from The Edge, a podcast by California magazine and the Cal Alumni ...
95: 'The past will be present when Roe falls’
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Berkeley Law professor and anthropologist Khiara Bridges discusses the history of reproductive right...
94: How the seven-day week made us who we are
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As a kid growing up in New York City, Roqua Montez was interested in everything — comics, dinosaur...
93: How the Great Migration transformed American music
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1910 and 1970, about 6 million Black Americans moved from the rural South to cities in the N...
92: California needs a new water supply. Could wetlands be an answer?
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As drought and the effects of climate change continue to threaten the water supply that Californians...
91: From a $16 keyboard to a symphony
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Joshua Kyan Aalampour was 16, he taught himself to play the piano using a cheap 61-key keyboard...
90: Giving up Twitter with Michael Pollan
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we share an episode of The Science of Happiness, a podcast produced by our colleagues at...
89: Cups for conversations — about war
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ehren Tool is the ceramics studio manager in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley and a vet...
88: Recycling isn't what we thought it was. So, what now?
29 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2018, China enacted a policy that effectively banned the import of most plastics and other materi...
87: How Nobel winner David Card transformed economics
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The labor economist and UC Berkeley professor of economics, who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in economic...
86: Disabled and empowered: How Mariana Soto Sanchez found self-advocacy at Berkeley
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In January 2015, 15-year-old Mariana Soto Sanchez woke up one Saturday morning at her home in Ontari...
85: Ballet folklórico: Celebrating Mexican culture through dance
17 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in a Mexican household in San Diego, California, Berkeley student Alexa Carrillo Espinoza...
84: Maryam Karimi: This generation in Afghanistan will not give up
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Third-year UC Berkeley student Maryam Karimi was born in Afghanistan in September 2001. A month late...
83: How wildfire can create healthier forests
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Berkeley News writer Kara Manke discusses a new report from UC Berkeley that shows how allowing ligh...
82: When the personal, political and historical collide — in our bodies
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this interview, Savala Nolan, executive director of Berkeley's social justice center, talks about...
81: Nature's unsung superheroes? Mushrooms! (revisiting)
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over the summer, we have been revisiting some of our favorite episodes. In this episode, from 2018, ...
80: Chancellor Carol Christ: 'I always felt like a pioneer' (revisiting)
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
While Fiat Vox is on summer break, we have been revisiting some of our favorite episodes. Today’s ...
79: The Montgomery bus boycott and the women who made it possible (revisiting)
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
While Fiat Vox is on summer break, we have been revisiting some of our favorite episodes. Today's ep...
78: En pointe for her Ukrainian culture (revisiting)
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fiat Vox is going on summer break! We'll be back with new episodes in mid-August. In the meantime, w...
77: How do we talk about the Asian experience with Asians at the center?
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, in the final episode of a three-part series, playwright and UC Berkeley professor Philip Kan ...
76: How the Asian American movement began at Berkeley, sparked creativity and unity
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the second part of a three-part series, playwright and UC Berkeley professor Philip Kan Gotanda d...
75: Playwright Philip Kan Gotanda on growing up in California after World War II
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Philip Kan Gotanda is a professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance St...
74: Berkeley MFA student Fred DeWitt: George Floyd never wanted to be in my art
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fred DeWitt is a Master of Fine Arts student and the first artist-in-residence in the Department of ...
73: The uncertain outcome of the Chauvin trial
06 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Berkeley News writer Ed Lempinen talks about why Berkeley Law professor Jonathan Simon thinks a...
72: Power corrupts even the best of us. But there’s an antidote.
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Humans are a super-collective species that succeeds through cooperation and community, says Emiliana...
71: How we create ‘imagined communities’ with celebrity gossip
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"By gossiping about celebrities and by talking about what they've done that isn't so great, it allow...
After Thoughts: ‘I’m American, regardless of how my ancestors got here’
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rose Wilkerson, a sociolinguist and lecturer in the Department of African American Studies at Berkel...
70: What crocodile mummies can tell us about everyday life in ancient Egypt
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When archeologists, funded by University of California benefactor Phoebe A. Hearst, found hundreds o...
After Thoughts: Dacher Keltner on the science of awe and psychedelics
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dacher Keltner, faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center and a psychology professor at UC...
69: Language is more than how we speak — it's home
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Natalyn Daniels transferred to UC Berkeley as an undergraduate student in 2009, she felt like a...
68: Building community one person at a time
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a time when our nation is more ideologically divided than ever, it's crucial that we find ways to...
67: How state courts use disability to remove Native children from their homes
24 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is the second part of the two-part series about how disability has been and continues to be use...
66: How the U.S. government created an ‘insane asylum’ to imprison Native Americans
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1800s, two South Dakota congressmen were looking for ways to build an economy in their n...
65: Savala Trepczynski on Breonna Taylor and the elusive nature of racial justice
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Savala Trepczynski, the director of the social justice center at UC Berkeley, first heard the d...
64: The Montgomery bus boycott and the women who made it possible
11 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"People know about Rosa Parks. People know about Martin Luther King Jr. — and they should. And the...
63: Oral history project reveals '20 shades of Jerry Brown'
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
UC Berkeley's Oral History Center and KQED teamed up to record the longest interview that Jerry Brow...
62: After Parkland shooting, student fights for mental health resources in schools
17 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Feb. 14, 2018, began like any other day for Kai Koerber. He was running late for his early morning A...
61: What does it mean to be a Native artist today?
26 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After student Drew Woodson took a playwriting course with Philip Gotanda, a professor in the Departm...
60: Fighting injustice with poetry
25 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Saida Dahir grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. At first, she thought she was like everyone else. But b...
59: Teeter totters as activism: How the border wall became a playground
08 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When UC Berkeley architect Ronald Rael took his bright pink teeter totters to the U.S.-Mexico border...
57: Staffer's search for birth mom reveals dark history of Guatemalan adoption
09 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Gemma Givens, who works at UC Berkeley's International House, was adopted from Guatemala in 1990 whe...
56: The ministry of being out
11 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For Martha Olney, a teaching professor of economics at UC Berkeley, coming out didn’t happen all a...
55: Why are there so many Filipino nurses in the U.S.?
28 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in New York City, UC Berkeley ethnic studies professor Catherine Ceniza Choy remembers se...
54: How a botched train robbery led to the birth of modern American criminology
30 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On October 11, 1923, three brothers — Hugh, Ray and Roy DeAutremont — boarded a Southern Pacific...
53: Chancellor Carol Christ and Professor Emerita Carol Clover on women in the academy, then and now
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1970, when Chancellor Carol Christ joined UC Berkeley's English department as an assistant profes...
52: 'Mouthpiece' says what many women never say
18 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Amy Nostbakken and Nora Sadava started writing Mouthpiece six years ago, they reveale...
51: For Malika Imhotep, devotion to black feminist study is a life practice
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Malika Imhotep grew up in West Atlanta, rooted in a community that she calls an "Afrocentric bubble,...
50: In campus records 49 years and still loving it
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Karen Denton got a job in UC Berkeley's registrar's office at 20, she had one job: to remove in...
49: Black history cemetery tour: Abraham Holland and the Sweet Vengeance Mine
19 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1849, a man named Abraham Holland packed up his things and left his life on the East Coast for Ca...
48: Cal alumni leader gives hope to students who need it most
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For Black History Month, we are resharing Fiat Vox episode #23, first published in 2018, about Cloth...
47: For international relations staffer, ballet kept her family’s Ukrainian culture alive
22 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Erika Johnson was 7, her Ukrainian mom put her in ballet class. Although Erika didn’t have th...
46: Berkeley Haas Chief of Staff Marco Lindsey lives like his 80-year-old self is watching
11 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Every morning, Marco Lindsey wakes up in East Oakland, where he was born and raised. He puts on a su...
45: Native American 'Antigone' explores universal values of honoring the dead
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1996, Will Thomas and Dave Deacy were wading in the Columbia River in Kennewick, Wa...
44: Academic counselor Quamé on standing out, dreaming big—and letting go
05 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When John Patton was in high school, he changed his name to Quamé. When he got to UC Berkeley as a ...
43: 'White voice' and hearing whiteness as difference, not the standard
16 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1940s and 50s, actors in major American films, like Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart, spok...
42: The history of why some say women sound shrill, immature
09 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Tom McEnaney, who teaches a class called “Sounding American,” says the U.S. has a long...
41: At Berkeley, nobody stuffs a bird like Carla Cicero
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
After Lux — one of the peregrine falcons born on the Campanile — died last year after striking a...
40: From the archive: On Berkeley time? He keeps Campanile's clocks ticking
18 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, Berkeley students noticed that one of the Campanile’s four clocks stopped. While the no...
39: AileyCamp — so much more than a dance camp
04 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As a kid, Makayla Bozeman could not stop dancing. She'd go to bed late because she was dancing. She'...
38: Margaret Atwood: 'Things can change a lot faster than you think'
28 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Canadian author Margaret Atwood doesn't like being called a soothsayer. "Anyone who says they can pr...
37: Bringing people together, one puppet at a time
25 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
After seeing Handspring Puppet Company — the creators of the puppets in Broadway's " War Horse" —...
36: For disability advocate, helping students navigate campus is personal
18 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When Derek Coates was 10, he found out he had a degenerative eye disease and was going to gradually ...
35: Peregrine falcons, zipping through campus at top speeds, are here to stay
10 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The peregrine falcons that first made a home on UC Berkeley's Campanile last year get a lot of atten...
34: A biology prof on growing up gay in rural Minnesota
03 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Noah Whiteman, an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, has a...