2018 to 2019

• Berkeley Black Geographies

  Contacts

  • Kerby Lynch

  

  The Berkeley Black Geographies (BBG) project will foster intellectual creative space and proposes an intervention into the colonial canon of academic disciplines.

• Causal Conversations

  Contacts

  • Samuel Lucas

  

  The proliferation of data sources and the advent of computationally intensive analytic algorithms have multiplied the possibilities for non-experimental (i.e., observational) research. Much of that research highlights prediction, yet remains agnostic about cause, a successful strategy as long as the causal structures undergirding the phenomena remain stable.

• Community Conversations on Sexual Violence and Harassment: Narratives of Activism, Inclusion, Confidentiality, Accountability, and Healing

  Contacts

  • Sharon Inkelas

  

  Incidents of sexual violence and sexual harassment (SVSH) have been a focus of national headlines this year as a social and political movement swept the country. SVSH is also a longstanding topic of interest among social science researchers nationally, and UC Berkeley administrators and practitioners are making efforts to improve SVSH support, procedure, and policy on campus.

• Comparing the Politics of Computer Vision in the United States, China, and Europe

  Contacts

  • Thomas Gilbert

  

  Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to visualize the social world, and computer vision technologies are being developed according to divergent standards in different countries. This Matrix Research Team will study, discuss, and provide perspective on the emerging comparative political economy of computer vision.

• Formation of interdisciplinary research group to study the socio-ecological impacts of cannabis production

  Contacts

  • Ted Grantham

  

  The recent legalization and regulation of cannabis production and consumption in California represent an unprecedented change in public policy that may have profound impacts on the environment and communities across the state. At this moment of change, there is a critical need for scholarship on cannabis-producing communities and their relation to the natural environment.

• Gender and Technology

  Contacts

  • Sigrid Luhr

  

  UC Berkeley is an ideal place from which to study the tech industry. The San Francisco Bay Area serves as the headquarters of most large tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple, LinkedIn, as well as countless startups. UC Berkeley also produces a large number of tech workers.

• I Regret to Inform You That Your Private Information Has Been Compromised

  Contacts

  • Naniette Coleman

  

  “Privacy is one of the central issues of importance of our time,” wrote the organizers of this Matrix Prospecting Team in their successful proposal.

• Masculinity and Capitalism

  Contacts

  • Raka Ray

  

  Recent decades have brought about a striking increase in inequality among men across many scales. Within the regime of globalized financialized capitalism, manufacturing has been relocated to low-wage regions, and many of the jobs have simply disappeared because of automation.

• Queer Ecologies: Constructions of Gender and Sexuality in Animal Behavior Science

  Contacts

  • Ashton Wesner

  

  The Queer Ecologies Prospecting Team will examine how historically exclusionary and hierarchical ideas of race, sex, and gender are both replicated and disrupted by contemporary laboratory and fieldwork practices, as well as theoretical innovations, in animal behavior sciences.

2018

• Child Marriage and Youth Empowerment: Directions for Future Research, Practice, and Training

  Contacts

  • Erin Murphy-Graham

  

  Child marriage refers to a union—formal or informal—in which one or both members of a couple marry before the age of 18. Annually, an estimated 15 million girls marry before their 18th birthdays. Evidence shows that marriage below the age of 18 increases risks related to health, education, opportunity and, well-being.