UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science

The College of Letters & Science is proud to congratulate John Clarke, professor emeritus, on his 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. Clarke is the 27th UC Berkeley faculty member to win a Nobel Prize and the fourth winner in the past five years. All four recent winners, including Clarke, have roots in the College of Letters & Science. In 2021, David Card shared the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, while in 2020, Jennifer Doudna shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Reinhard Genzel shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. Read more about Clarke’s award and contributions at the link in bio. #nobel #nobelprize #nobelprizewinner #nobelprizephysics #ucberkeley #berkeleyls #berkeley #berkeleylife

“A liberal arts discipline is one that asks big, fundamental questions about the nature of the universe,” says Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, the Executive Dean of Letters and Science. The College of Letters and Science is the largest on Berkeley’s campus. Roughly 75 percent of all undergraduate students major in one of the college’s 79 majors. While the roots of the liberal arts practice may be centuries old, the college’s rigorous study and cross-disciplinary ethos sets students up to tackle both age old concerns and the thorniest questions of our time. Watch Johnson-Hanks explain the liberal arts in 101 seconds. 🔗 For more 101 in 101 videos, visit our YouTube: https://bit.ly/3FqOknf #UCBerkeley #101 #LiberalArts

Dwinelle Nav link in bio, thank me later 😅 #berkeleyls #ucberkeley #berkeleylife

Charles Long has been awarded the University Medal, given each year to UC Berkeley’s top graduating senior. At 43, Long is a double major in sociology and social welfare. Through his studies of policing and violence, he has harnessed his childhood struggle, time incarcerated and experience as a nontraditional student to positively impact those around him. In a letter of recommendation, Laleh Behbehanian, a continuing lecturer in the Department of Sociology, wrote that Long’s ability to blend theoretical, analytic and critical thinking placed him among the most outstanding students she’d encountered in her 23 years of teaching. Since his first days on campus, Long’s work as a mentor and teacher in juvenile halls and San Quentin State Prison has shaped his research and inspired him to improve the carceral system. “I once had my future taken from me by a system that called itself justice,” he wrote in his university medalist essay. “Berkeley gave me the credentials, credibility and restoration of spirit to return to those same systems — this time with tools, language and purpose.” 🔗 Full video linked in bio: https://bit.ly/490jHkO 
 [Video description: University Medalist Charles Long reflects on his educational journey — the challenges, the turning points and the community that carried him to graduation. Shot on the UC Berkeley campus, the video features iconic imagery of the campus and blends interview footage with campus life scenes, offering an inspiring look at second chances.] 
#UCBerkeley #CalGrad

Happy last day of the semester L&S Golden Bears! Before he closes the book on his journey at Berkeley, Jarrett Dean-Von Stultz shared a day in his life as a graduating senior in the Berkeley NROTC @nrotc_ucb . Jarrett is an Integrative Biology major who serves as the Midshipmen Commanding Officer at Berkeley. Check out a recap of one of his last days on campus and learn more about NROTC at Berkeley at nrotc.berkeley.edu. #dayinthelife #ucberkeley #gobears #nrotc #berkeleylife

As the academic year comes to a close, we want to take a moment to celebrate our graduating work-study students! These students are truly the backbone of our Operations team. Whether they are deep-cleaning centrifuges or providing a warm welcome at the front desk, they are essential to Bakar Bio Labs. They keep our programs running at the highest level and provide vital support to both our team and our companies. Thank you Ysabel, Haya, Nailie, and Darrence! We appreciate everything you’ve contributed and can’t wait to see the incredible things you’ll achieve next. ✨ Meet our graduates: 🎓 Ysabel Aguirre: MS, Chemical Engineering 🎓 Haya Ansari: BA, Molecular & Cell Biology & BA, Public Health 🎓 Darrence Tran: BA, Molecular & Cell Biology 🎓 Nailie Valencia: BA, Molecular & Cell Biology

For his honors thesis, Charles Long wanted to know about power and prisons: “What happens when people are placed in supportive roles instead of positions of power and domination?”  Drawing on both his own and others’ experiences, he concluded that empathy is a skill that must be practiced.  “Like any other muscle, if you don’t use it, it atrophies.” Long, 43, has overcome many obstacles that “could have soured him,” as one of his professors explained. He graduated from Milpitas High School, but an arrest right before he was supposed to leave for the Navy to study nuclear engineering changed the course of his life. Though he maintains his innocence, this triggered a multi-year cycle in and out of jail. Once his parole ended, Long wanted to start anew. He was “surviving,” he said. But after his daughter was born, he wanted to do more. This led him to Berkeley.  “Every day is a new opportunity. Every minute is a new opportunity. Every second is an opportunity,” Long said.  Inspired by his parents’ perseverance and motivated by the example he wanted to set for his daughter, Long sought to use his experience to improve the lives of others. He returned to the Bay Area and embraced Berkeley. Sociology and social welfare put into words many of the things Long had observed in his life. He came to see social systems in a new light — as well as the ways to change them.

“Through academia, I’ve learned to make sense of both the systems around me and the experiences that shaped me,” he said. “But more importantly, I’ve learned to affect them.” Today, Long works with Underground Scholars, a campus program supporting formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students. He also joined the Teach in Prison program, tutoring incarcerated men at San Quentin, and became a leader in Incarceration to College, mentoring justice-involved youth in Bay Area juvenile halls.

“It just makes me feel like I’m fulfilling my purpose,” Long said.

See his full story at the link in bio: https://bit.ly/42zrd2j  #UCBerkeley #CalGrad

“If I control everything, the poem is dead. The poem should shape me as I shape it.” UC Berkeley alum Arthur Sze (BA ’72, Individualized Major in Poetry) is the 25th U.S. Poet Laureate — and the first Asian American to hold this position. He began writing seriously on campus, drafting poems on a typewriter in a small building near a eucalyptus-lined creek. At Berkeley, he learned to trust attention, sound, and the natural world in his work. It was also where Sze found life-changing mentors like English professor Josephine Miles. After an overcrowded workshop left him needing more, Miles simply said, “Come to my house for tea, and I’ll go over your poems.” Those collaborative sessions later led her to sponsor his individualized major in poetry. A translation apprenticeship is how he learned his craft as a poet. Studying classical Chinese poems helped him understand how silence, structure, and implication carry meaning that exposition cannot. The practice shaped his cross-disciplinary spirit and sense of language as a meeting place. Over the last 50 years, his work has appeared in leading publications like The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review. And as a Pulitzer finalist and National Book Award winner, he’s earned major honors for the 12 books that now circulate in 15 languages.  Sze’s poems draw on ecology, scientific structures, and what he calls “the silence inside of sound.” He hopes new readers feel discovery without anxiety — experiencing a poem through a sound, an image, or a single striking moment. As the first Asian American Poet Laureate, he’s placed translation at the heart of a national initiative, nurturing exploration and translation of poetry in classrooms, libraries, and community spaces. “English is a composite tongue,” Sze says. “Translation acknowledges that our literature is a chorus.”  And for writers, he shares counsel that has guided him from Berkeley to the Library of Congress: “Write, and don’t stop. Keep your attention tuned to the world.” 🔗 Read Sze’s full story at the link in our bio: https://bit.ly/41RQog0  #UCBerkeley #CalAlumStory

How does your immune system learn to fight? Ask a UC Berkeley research fellow. Each year, Berkeley’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) empowers undergraduates across the College of Letters & Science to pursue an original research project for seven weeks. In addition to funding, SURF fellows are supported by a faculty mentor and a small research cohort. Jean Choi, a molecular and cell biology major, worked in the Robey Lab last summer to investigate T cells in the thymus gland. T cells help the body recognize and respond to infections and harmful cells. By using living tissue slices and flow cytometry, Jean tracked their development to better understand the roots of autoimmune disease and their decline with aging. “Thanks to SURF, I was able to fully immerse myself in research over the summer,” Jean said. “It was inspiring to work with such a passionate cohort of fellow scientists and to hear about the questions my peers were exploring. SURF gave me the opportunity to take something I was curious about and turn it into a tangible product that I could share with others.” Jean’s work illustrates how support from SURF transforms undergraduate talent into meaningful scientific and social contributions. Other recent projects from fellows include a study on how communities helped shape nuclear power developments for data centers, the impact of CA AB-12 and extended foster care on transitional-age foster youth, and using predictive mathematical models to improve cancer treatments. Learn more about SURF and their work at the link in our bio: research.berkeley.edu/surf 
#UCBerkeley #Fellowship #Research

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with one of our fantastic College of Letters & Science faculty members, Keanan Joyner, the principal investigator at Berkeley’s C.R.E.A.M. (Clinical Research on Externalizing and Addiction Mechanisms) Lab. Professor Joyner discussed his research, showed me around his lab facilities, and introduced me to his wonderful team of L&S undergraduate student researchers, who suited me up for an experiment and shared some of their interests and aspirations. They said the cap on my head is strictly for use in the lab, but do you think they’ll let me borrow it to swim a few laps up at Golden Bear Pool?

When the first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ dropped, it immediately sparked debate about accuracy, myth and why this ancient story keeps returning to us. As a professor in the Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies and director of the Archaeological Research Facility, Kim Shelton specializes in Bronze Age Greece, or 1600-1100 BCE. Her expertise allows her to approach the trailer not as a checklist of right or wrong but as a conversation between myth, history and cinema. Watch as Professor Shelton walks us through Nolan’s trailer, relaying both archaeological insight and commentary on the epic’s long history. For more, visit the link in our bio: https://bit.ly/4bZUo2C #UCBerkeley #Archaeology #TheOdyssey

“As a lifelong wheelchair user... I want to dedicate a big portion of my life to building new things that hopefully improve people’s lives in the future.” Filmmaker-turned-innovator Owen Kent (BA ’17, Film & Media Studies) met mechanical engineer Todd Roberts (MEng ’20, Mechanical Engineering) through a Craigslist housing ad. They became fast friends and, once classes started, realized they were both in Designing for the Human Body, a biomechanics course taught by mechanical engineering professor Grace O’Connell. Soon, a shared vision took shape: using robotics to make independence accessible for all. At Berkeley, their collaboration fused creativity and engineering in unexpected ways. Todd brought technical expertise, while Owen brought his lived experience as someone who has used and benefited from assistive technologies. That partnership grew into ATDev, the Berkeley-born startup behind Reflex — a lightweight, wearable robotic brace that helps people rebuild strength from home. The device straps onto the leg like a knee brace, gently guiding movement while recording data that physical therapists can monitor remotely. “Owen’s original idea was to make therapy low-cost, portable, and empowering,” Todd explains. Reflex is already reaching patients who once faced significant travel and cost barriers to access care. For Owen, the motivation is deeply personal. “It started with my own experience,” he says. “I wanted people to get back to living their lives — not just doing therapy.” With support from UC Berkeley’s SkyDeck Accelerator Program and FDA registration in hand, ATDev is now scaling its reach as part of a brand-new $41 million ARPA-H initiative to build the future of assistive technology. “If you’re passionate about something, you can spin it up and make an impact,” Roberts adds. “Just don’t expect it to happen overnight.” Read more at the link in our bio: bit.ly/4qrLFgk