ph d dissertation university of california berkeley

Dissertation Writing and Filing

The following guidelines are only for doctoral students. If you are pursuing a master’s degree, please see the Thesis Filing Guide .

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Research Protocols

Eligibility, fall and spring semesters, summer filing, formatting your manuscript, special page formats, organizing your manuscript, procedure for filing your dissertation, permission to include your own previously published or co-authored material, inclusion of your own publishable papers or article-length essays, copyright & your dissertation, copyright ownership and registration issues, inclusion of third-party content in your dissertation; copyright & fair use issues, publishing your dissertation; embargoes, publication requirement, embargo extensions, changes to a dissertation after filing, diploma, transcript, and certificate of completion, certificate of completion, appendix a: common mistakes, appendix b: mixed media guidelines, definitions and standards, electronic formats and risk categories, appendix c: frequently asked questions.

Filing your doctoral dissertation at the Graduate Division is one of the final steps leading to the award of your graduate degree. Your manuscript is a scholarly presentation of the results of the research you conducted. UC Berkeley upholds the tradition that you have an obligation to make your research available to other scholars. This is done when you submit your dissertation for publishing through the ProQuest online administration system and the Graduate Division forwards your manuscript to the University Library. Your dissertation is subsequently published online in the UC system’s scholarship repository ( eScholarship ) and made available within ProQuest/UMI after your doctoral degree is officially conferred by the Academic Senate.

Your faculty committee supervises the intellectual content of your manuscript and your committee chair will guide you on the arrangement within the text and reference sections of your manuscript. Consult with your committee chair early in the preparation of your manuscript.

The specifications in the following pages were developed in consultation with University Library. These standards assure uniformity in the degree candidates’ manuscripts to be archived in the University Library, and ensure as well the widest possible dissemination of student-authored knowledge.

If your research activities involve human or animal subjects, you must follow the guidelines and obtain an approved protocol  before you begin your research.  Visit our web page for more information  or contact the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects ( http://cphs.berkeley.edu/  or 642-7461) or the Animal Care and Use Committee ( http://www.acuc.berkeley.edu/  or 642-8855).

In addition to the considerations explained below, your Expected Graduation Term (EGT) must match the term for which you intend to file. EGT can be updated at any time using an eForm available in CalCentral.

To be eligible to file for your degree, you must be registered or on approved Filing Fee status for the semester in which you file. We encourage you to file your dissertation as early in the semester as you can and to come in person to our office to submit your supporting documents. If you cannot come to our office, it is helpful if you have a friend bring your documents. The deadline to file your dissertation in its final form is the last day of the semester for your degree to be awarded as of that semester.

Filing during the summer has a slightly different set of eligibility requirements. If you were fully registered during the immediately preceding Spring semester, and have not used Filing Fee already, you may file your dissertation during the summer with no additional cost or application required. Summer is defined as the period from the day after the Spring semester ends (mid-May) until the last day of the Summer Sessions (mid-August).

International students completing a degree in the Summer should consult Berkeley International Office before finalizing plans, as in some cases lack of Summer enrollment could impact visa status or post-completion employment.

If you have already used Filing Fee previously, or were not registered the preceding Spring semester, you will need to register in at least 1.0 unit in Summer Sessions in order to file.

Dissertations filed during the summer will result in a summer degree conferral.

You must be advanced to candidacy, and in good standing (not lapsed), in order to file.

All manuscripts must be submitted electronically in a traditional PDF format.

• Page Size : The standard for a document’s page size is 8.5 x 11 inches. If compelling reasons exist to use a larger page size, you must contact the Graduate Division for prior approval.
• Basic manuscript text must be a non-italic type font and at a size of 12-point or larger. Whatever typeface and size you choose for the basic text, use it consistently throughout your entire manuscript. For footnotes, figures, captions, tables, charts, and graphs, a font size of 8-point or larger is to be used.
• You may include color in your dissertation, but your basic manuscript text must be black.
• For quotations, words in a foreign language, occasional emphasis, book titles, captions, and footnotes, you may use italics. A font different from that used for your basic manuscript may be used for appendices, charts, drawings, graphs, and tables.
• Pagination:  Your manuscript is composed of preliminary pages and the main body of text and references. Page numbers must be positioned either in the upper right corner, lower right corner, or the bottom center and must be at least ¾ of an inch from the edges. The placement of the page numbers in your document must be consistent throughout.

Be Careful!  If you have any pages that are rotated to a landscape orientation, the page numbers still need to be in a consistent position throughout the document (as if it were printed and bound single-sided).

Do not count or number the title page or the copyright page. All other pages must have numbers. DO NOT SKIP PAGE ” 1 “. The remaining preliminary pages may include a table of contents, a dedication, a list of figures, tables, symbols, illustrations, or photographs, a preface, your introduction, acknowledgments, and curriculum vitae. You must number these preliminary pages using  lower case Roman numerals  beginning with the number “i” and continue in sequence to the end of the preliminary pages (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.). Your abstract must have  Arabic numeral  page numbers. Start numbering your abstract with the number “1” and continue in sequence (1, 2, 3, etc.) The main body of your text and your references also use Arabic numerals. Start the numbering of the main body with the number “1” and continue in sequence (1, 2, 3, etc.), numbering consecutively throughout the rest of the text, including illustrative materials, bibliography, and appendices.

Yes! The first page of your abstract and the first page of your main text both start with ‘1’

• Margins:  For the manuscript material, including headers, footers, tables, illustrations, and photographs, all margins must be at least 1 inch from the edges of the paper. Page numbers must be ¾ of an inch from the edge.
• Spacing:  Your manuscript must be single-spaced throughout, including the abstract, dedication, acknowledgments, and introduction.
• Tables, charts, and graphs  may be presented horizontally or vertically and must fit within the required margins. Labels or symbols are preferred rather than colors for identifying lines on a graph.

You may choose to reduce the size of a page to fit within the required margins, but be sure that the resulting page is clear and legible.

• Guidelines for Mixed Media:  please see Appendix B for details.

Certain pages need to be formatted in a very specific way. Links are included here for examples of these pages.

Do not deviate from the wording and spacing in the examples, except for details applicable to you (e.g. name, major, committee, etc.)

• As noted in the above section on pagination, the abstract must be numbered  separately with Arabic numerals starting with ‘1’
• If you have a Designated Emphasis, it must be listed on your abstract.
• IMPORTANT: A physical signature page should no longer be included with your dissertation. Approvals by your committee members will be provided electronically using an eForm.
• The title page does not contain page numbers.
• Do not bold any text on your title page.
• The term and year listed on the title page must be the term of your degree. If you filed during the summer, write  Summer .
• The yellow bubbles in the sample are included for explanatory purposes only. Do not include them in your submission.
• If you have a Designated Emphasis, it must be listed on your title page ( DE Title Page Sample )
• If you are receiving a joint degree, it must be listed on your title page ( Joint Title Page Sample )

The proper organization and page order for your manuscript is as follows:

• Copyright page or a blank page
• Dedication page
• Table of contents
• List of figures, list of tables, list of symbols
• Preface or introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Curriculum Vitae
• Bibliography

Please do not include an approval/signature page.

After you have written your dissertation, formatted it correctly, assembled the pages into the correct organization, and obtained verbal approval from your committee, you are ready to file it with UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division.

• Step 0: Confirm your eligibility to file. Your Expected Graduation Term (EGT) must be current term (i.e. the term in which you expect to file your dissertation). If you need to update your EGT you can use the eForm available in CalCentral. Once your EGT is correct, you will see a number of checklist items (“Tasks”) created for you in CalCentral. You use these checklist items to proceed with filing.
• Step 1: Convert your dissertation into a standard PDF file.
• Step 2:  Upload your PDF to ProQuest/UMI ( http://www.etdadmin.com ) Follow the instructions on the site. NOTE: DO NOT UPLOAD A DRAFT.  Once your dissertation has been submitted, you will not be allowed to make changes. Be sure that it is in its final form!
• Step 3:  When you have successfully submitted the document, a message will be sent to the Graduate Degrees Office to review it on-line.  After Degrees staff has reviewed it you will either receive a message that the manuscript has been accepted or that you need to make further changes. If you need to make more changes, you will need to edit your manuscript, create a new PDF, and resubmit it to ProQuest.  Degrees staff will then need to review it again. An email approval will be sent to you once the manuscript is accepted.
• Step 4: There are two surveys to be completed:the Survey of Earned Doctorates and the Graduate Division’s Survey of Doctoral Student Opinion. You will find these surveys as “Tasks”in your CalCentral dashboard (as long as you have a current-term EGT). Follow the instructions to complete the surveys and enter the verification codes. You should see the checklist items complete automatically.
• Review the your committee and email addresses listed — the form will route to each of your committee members for approval.
• If you chose to embargo your dissertation, you will not receive any copies you order from ProQuest until the embargo is lifted.
• Once the form has been filed, you may not make any changes to your embargo selections
• Attach a copy of the approval letter for your study protocol from the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects, or the Animal Care and Use Committee if your research involved human or animal subjects.

A Note on Deadlines

You must upload your electronic dissertation AND submit your final signature eform before 5 p.m. on the last day of the term. Both of these steps must be done before the deadline, regardless of whether your submission has been reviewed and approved. We can not provide a receipt of filing until your dissertation has been reviewed and accepted (which can take up to 4 business days), but you will get credit for the date of first submission.

If you plan use of your own previously published and/or co-authored material in your manuscript, your committee chair must attest that the resulting dissertation represents an original contribution of ideas to the field, even if previously published co – authored articles are included, and that major contributors of those articles have been informed.

Previously published material must be incorporated into a larger argument that binds together the whole dissertation. The common thread linking various parts of the research, represented by individual papers incorporated in the dissertation, must be made explicit, and you must join the papers into a coherent unit. You are required to prepare introductory, transitional, and concluding sections. Previously published material must be acknowledged appropriately, as established for your discipline or as requested in the original publication agreement (e.g. through a note in acknowledgments, a footnote, or the like).

If co-authored material is to be incorporated (whether published or unpublished), all major contributors should be informed of the inclusion in addition to being appropriately credited in the dissertation according to the norms of the field.

If you are incorporating co-authored material in your dissertation, it is your responsibility to inform major contributors. This documentation need not be submitted to the Graduate Division. The eform used by your committee chair to sign off on your dissertation will automatically include text indicating that by signing off they attest to the appropriateness and approval for inclusion of previously published and/or co-authored materials. No addition information or text needs to be added.

Publishable papers and article-length essays arising from your research project are acceptable only if you incorporate that text into a larger argument that binds together the whole dissertation or thesis. Include introductory, transitional, and concluding sections with the papers or essays.

You own copyright in your dissertation. Copyright is automatically created once your work is fixed in a tangible medium (such as saved on your computer hard drive or in cloud storage). Thus, you do not need to register copyright in your dissertation in order to be the copyright holder.

However, registering copyright in your dissertation has certain advantages: First, if your work is registered, you have evidence that you are indeed the author and owner. Second, registration allows greater enforcement of your copyright against an infringer or plagiarist, making available statutory damages set out in Title 17, Section 504 of the U.S. Code, which range from $750 – $150,000 plus attorney fees per copyright infraction. Accordingly, UC Berkeley recommends that you register copyright for your dissertation. You can register copyright through the Copyright Office’s website, www.copyright.gov , for a fee of $35, or through the ProQuest ETDAdmin system when you submit your PDF; doing so through ProQuest costs $55.

You continue to own copyright in your dissertation unless and until you transfer your copyright to another party. By complying with the UC Berkeley Graduate Division’s publishing policies, you are permitting the university to make available a copy of your dissertation online in eScholarship, but you are not transferring your copyright. You grant a similar permission to ProQuest/UMI, the exact terms of which are governed by the agreement with ProQuest you sign in the online submission process. You may request delays (i.e. embargoes) in the release of your dissertation both on eScholarship and in ProQuest. Please see “Publishing Your Dissertation; Embargoes”.

If you are including content in your dissertation not authored or created by you, be sure to consider copyright issues. The University Library can help guide you as you consider these questions. For more detail, please consult the Library’s helpful online guide, entitled Copyright and Publishing Your Dissertation .

To briefly summarize:

• If the content is in the public domain, then you need not get any permission to use the material. For questions about the public domain, see http://copyright.universityofcalifornia.edu/use/public-domain.html.
• If the content you wish to use is subject to a Creative Commons license of some form, you need simply abide by the term of that license. For instance, a CC-BY license means you can use the work without seeking the author’s permission, but must attribute the work to the author. For more on Creative Commons licenses, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.
• If the content you wish to use is protected by copyright and no Creative Commons license governs its use, then you must consider whether your use constitutes Fair Use under 17 USC § 107. If your use of the content is a fair use within copyright law, then you need not seek the author’s permission before using it. See http://copyright.universityofcalifornia.edu/use/fair-use.html.
• If your use of the content would exceed fair use under the Copyright Act, then you will need to seek the copyright holder’s permission in order to use the material. Be sure to request the copyright owner’s permission in writing so that you can keep track of permissions granted. Your letter to the copyright holder should make clear that you seek permission to preserve and publish the content in your dissertation through UC Berkeley’s institutional repository, eScholarship, and ProQuest/UMI. For help seeking permission, see http://copyright.universityofcalifornia.edu/use/obtaining-permission.html.

If you have additional questions about copyright and third party content in your dissertation, please contact the University Library .

UC Berkeley’s Graduate Council regulations stipulate that you have an obligation to make your research available to other scholars as part of the degree requirement.  This obligation is consistent with the long-standing principle that doctoral students share their significant scholarly contributions to advance knowledge. This requirement is fulfilled when you submit your dissertation for publishing through the ProQuest online administration system and the Graduate Division forwards your manuscript to the University Library. Your dissertation is subsequently published online in the UC system’s scholarship repository ( eScholarship ) and made available within ProQuest/UMI after your doctoral degree is officially conferred by the Academic Senate.

Making your work available to be read online immediately in eScholarship or ProQuest has many advantages. First, it clearly establishes when your work was created and published, which are powerful resources in preventing or combatting plagiarism. Others will be able to discover your prior publication. Second, it can help support your scholarly profile because people can read and begin citing your work. Citation of your dissertation by others can be offered as evidence of research significance in employment reviews. Further, research available through searches on the Internet can promote contacts that are international in scope and interdisciplinary in reach.

Occasionally, there are circumstances in which you prefer that your dissertation not be published immediately. Such circumstances may include the disclosure of patentable rights in the work before a patent can be granted, similar disclosures detrimental to the rights of the author, or disclosures of facts about persons, institutions, or locations before professional ethics would permit.

The Dean of the Graduate Division may permit the dissertation to be withheld from full-text publication in eScholarship for a specified and limited period of time. An embargo of up to 2 years can be selected on the Final Signature eForm. Once you make a selection regarding an embargo, it may not be changed. Discuss the pros and cons of withholding your dissertation with your faculty committee and departmental advisors. For more information, see the memo Advising doctoral candidates on dissertation embargoes and eScholarship repository  (PDF).

Embargoes beyond the initial 2-year option must be requested pursuant to a petition process using the E mbargo Extension Petition Form . Extensions are granted at the discretion of the Graduate Division, and are based on substantiated circumstances of the kind indicated above and with the endorsement of and an explanatory letter from the chair of the dissertation committee (or, if the dissertation chair is unavailable, the current department chair). Be sure to submit the petition form with sufficient time (at least three months) prior to the expiration of your original embargo to ensure adequate processing time prior to your dissertation’s scheduled release. If a renewal request is submitted less than three months from when the original embargo is set to expire, the Graduate Division cannot guarantee that the request will be processed and granted in time to preclude your dissertation from being made publicly available. Please note that it is your responsibility to request an extension beyond the two-year maximum from both the University and separately through ProQuest/UMI if you would like to extend your embargo both on eScholarship and on ProQuest/UMI.

Changes are normally not allowed after a manuscript has been filed.  In exceptional circumstances, changes may be requested by having the chair of your dissertation committee submit a memo to the Associate Dean and sent to Graduate Services: Degrees, 318 Sproul Hall.  The memo must describe in detail the specific changes requested and must justify the reason for the request. Such requests will not be approved for typographical errors, acknowledgments, or other minor revisions. It is your responsibility to ensure that your manuscript is in its final form before submitting it. If such a request is approved, the changes must be made prior to the official awarding of the degree. Once your degree has been awarded, you may not make changes to the manuscript.

After your dissertation is accepted by Graduate Services: Degrees, it is held here until the official awarding of the degree by the Academic Senate has occurred. This occurs approximately two months after the end of the term. After the degree has officially been awarded, the manuscripts transmitted to the University Library and to ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Posting the Degree to Your Transcript

Your degree will be posted to your transcript approximately 10 weeks after the conferral date of your degree. You can order a transcript from the Office of the Registrar (https://registrar.berkeley.edu/academic-records/transcripts-diplomas/).

Your diploma will be available from the Office of the Registrar approximately 4 months after the conferral date of your degree. For more information on obtaining your diploma, visit the Registrar’s website.  You can obtain your diploma in person at the Office of the Registrar, 120 Sproul Hall, or submit a form and pay the current mailing fees to have it mailed to you.

Unclaimed diplomas are retained for a period of five (5) years only, after which they are destroyed.

• The most common mistake is following a fellow (or previous) student’s example. Read the current guidelines carefully!
• An incorrect committee — the committee listed on your title page (and on the final signature eform you will submit) must match your currently approved committee. If you have made any changes to your committee since Advancement to Candidacy, you must request an official change from the Graduate Division. Consult your departmental adviser for details.
• Do not use a different name than that which appears in the system (i.e. the name on your transcript and Cal Central Profile ). Students are allowed to use a Lived Name, which can be updated by self-service in CalCentral.
• Page numbers — Read the section on pagination carefully. Many students do not paginate their document correctly.
• Page rotation — some pages may be rotated to a landscape orientation. However, page numbers must appear in the same place throughout the document (as if it were bound like a book).
• If you have an approved designated emphasis, it must be listed on your title page  and  your abstract.
• Do not include the signature/approval page in your dissertation. The abstract must be  unsigned .
• Do not include previous degrees on your title page.
• There should be no bold text on your title page.

In May 2005, the Graduate Council established new guidelines for the inclusion of mixed media content in dissertations. It was considered crucial that the guidelines allow dissertations to remain as accessible as possible and for the longest period possible while balancing the extraordinary academic potential of these new technologies.

The dissertation has three components: a core thesis, essential supporting material, and non-essential supplementary material.

Core Thesis.  The core thesis must be a self-contained, narrative description of the argument, methods, and evidence used in the dissertation project. Despite the ability to present evidence more directly and with greater sophistication using mixed media, the core thesis must provide an accessible textual description of the whole project.

The core thesis must stand alone and be printable on paper, meeting the formatting requirements described in this document. The electronic version of the thesis must be provided in the most stable and universal format available — currently Portable Document Format (PDF) for textual materials. These files may also include embedded visual images in TIFF (.tif) or JPEG (.jpg) format.

Essential Supporting Material.  Essential supporting material is defined as mixed media content that cannot be integrated into the core thesis, i.e., material that cannot be adequately expressed as text. Your faculty committee is responsible for deciding whether this material is essential to the thesis. Essential supporting material does  not include the actual project data. Supporting material is essential if it is necessary for the actual argument of the thesis, and cannot be integrated into a traditional textual narrative.

Essential supporting material  must  be submitted in the most stable and least risky format consistent with its representation (see below), so as to allow the widest accessibility and greatest chance of preservation into the future.

Non-essential Supplementary Material.  Supplementary material includes any supporting content that is useful for understanding the thesis, but is not essential to the argument. This might include, for example, electronic files of the works analyzed in the dissertation (films, musical works, etc.) or additional support for the argument (simulations, samples of experimental situations, etc.).

Supplementary material is to be submitted in the most stable and most accessible format, depending on the relative importance of the material (see below). Any supplemental material must be uploaded to the ProQuest website under the “Supplemental Files” section.

Note . ProQuest and the Library will require any necessary 3rd party software licenses and reprint permission letters for any copyrighted materials included in these electronic files.

The following is a list of file formats in descending order of stability and accessibility. This list is provisional, and will be updated as technologies change. Faculty and students should refer to the Graduate Division website for current information on formats and risk categories.

Category A:

• TIFF (.tif) image files
• WAV (.wav) audio files

Category B:

• JPEG, JPEG 2000 (.jpg) image files
• GIF (.gif) image files

Category C:

• device independent audio files (e.g., AIFF, MIDI, SND, MP3, WMA, QTA)
• note-based digital music composition files (e.g., XMA, SMF, RMID)

Category D:

• other device independent video formats (e.g., QuickTime, AVI, WMV)
• encoded animations (e.g., FLA or SWF Macromedia Flash, SVG)

For detailed guidelines on the use of these media, please refer to the Library of Congress website for digital formats at  http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/index.shtml .

Q1: Can I file my dissertation during the summer?

A1: Yes. There are 2 ways to file during the summer:

• Register for at least 1.0 unit through Berkeley Summer Sessions. With this option, you can file any time before the summer deadline .
• Register the preceding spring semester. As long as you were registered in the spring, and have not used filing fee before, you will be allowed to file during the summer without additional fees or applications.

Q2: If I chose that option, does it matter which session I register in during the summer session?

A2: No. You can register for any of the sessions (at least 1.0 unit). The deadline will always be the last day of the last session.

Q3: If I file during the summer, will I receive a summer degree?

A3: Yes. If you file before the end of the summer sessions, you will receive a summer degree. Remember to write “Summer” on your title page!

Q1: I’ve seen other dissertations from former students that were / that had  __________, should I follow that format?

A1: No. The formatting guidelines can be changed from time to time, so you should always consult the most current guidelines available on our website. This question is most frequently asked in regard to the issue of double vs. single spacing.

Q2: I want to make sure that my dissertation follows the formatting rules. What’s the best way to do this?

A2: If you’ve read and followed the current guidelines available on our website, there shouldn’t be any problems. You can upload your dissertation as soon as it is in its final form. If any changes are necessary, you will be given the opportunity to make them without penalties. If you’ve heard horror stories from other students about formatting changes in their manuscripts, you’ve likely been talking to past students who didn’t follow the directions and had to print out their dissertations on expensive, archival paper. Current students submit their dissertations electronically and, as such, it’s much easier and more painless to make changes!

You are also always welcome to bring sample pages into the Graduate Degrees Office at 318 Sproul Hall to have a staff member look over your manuscript.

Q3:  Does my signature page need to be printed on some special paper?

A3: Signatures are now an eForm process. A physical signature page is no longer required.

Q1: I’m away from Berkeley. Is there any way to file my dissertation remotely?

A1: Yes! The whole process is done remotely.

Q2: Can I have a friend bring my dissertation materials for me?

A2: Yes. Please see the answer above regarding filing remotely.

Q3: I read something about needing to allow 4 days to review my dissertation. So what is the actual deadline?

A3: Two things must happen before the end of the business day on the stated deadline: 1) you must have uploaded your dissertation to the ProQuest website and 2) you must have submitted the remaining forms to the Graduate Degrees Office at 318 Sproul Hall. Though it is not recommended, you can do both of these things on the very last day.

Q4: So what’s this thing about the 4 days?

A4: As you might expect, the Degrees Office receives hundreds of dissertations near the end of the term (in fact, half of all dissertations are submitted during the final week). This means that it may take several days for us to review your dissertation. Don’t worry. You’ll get credit for the date that you uploaded your dissertation. However, it may take up to 4 business days to review your submission and, if everything is acceptable, provide you a Receipt of Filing.

Q5: Can I do the Final Signature eForm before I upload my dissertation?

A5: Yes. We won’t be able to finalize your filing until everything has been reviewed and approved, but you are welcome to do those in any order.

Q6: What’s a Receipt of Filing? Do I need one?

A6: The Receipt of Filing is an official document that we produce that certifies that you have successfully filed your dissertation on the specified day and that, if all other requirements are met, the date of the degree conferral.

Some students may need the receipt in order to prove to an outside agency that they have officially filed their dissertation. Many students simply keep the receipt as a memento. Picking up your receipt is not required.

Q7: What’s the difference between a Receipt of Filing and a Certificate of Completion?

A7: A Receipt of Filing is automatically produced for all students upon successful filing of their dissertation. However, it only certifies that the dissertation has been accepted. The Certificate of Degree Completion  must be requested. It will state that all requirements  have  been met and notes the date that the degree will be conferred. This is a useful document for students who file early in the semester and need some verification of their degree in advance of its conferral (note: degrees are only conferred twice each year).

Q8: How do I know if I’m eligible for a Certificate of Completion?

A8: In order to be eligible to receive a Certificate of Completion, you must:

• Successfully file your dissertation (your online submission accepted as well as paperwork turned in)
• Have a fully satisfied Academic Progress Report (APR). The APR all the degree requirements as noted by your department. If there are requirements showing as “unmet” but you believe you have completed, please contact your GSAO.
• Pay all of your registration fees. While it may not necessarily hold up the production of your certificate, it is important that all fees are paid before the degree is conferred.

Q9: I’m supposed to bring in my approval letter for research with human subjects or vertebrate animals, but it turns out my research didn’t use this after all. What should I do?

A9: If your research protocol has changed since you advanced to candidacy for your degree, you’ll need to ask you dissertation chair to write a letter to the Graduate Division explaining the change. It would be best to submit this in advance of filing.

Q10: My dissertation uses copyrighted or previously published material. How do I get approval?

A10: The policy on this has recently changed. There is no need to for specific approval to be requested.

Q12: I uploaded my dissertation on the last day. What if I’m told I need to make changes?

A12: This won’t be a problem. If there are formatting issues that need to be resolved, you will be notified and be given the opportunity to make revisions – even if it is a few days after the deadline. As long as your dissertation was originally uploaded before the deadline. Obviously, we won’t be able to provide you a receipt (see Q above on Receipt of Filing) until everything has been finalized.

Q13: I found a typo in dissertation that has already been accepted! What do I do?

A13: Once a dissertation has been submitted and accepted, no further changes will be permitted. Proofread your document carefully. Do not upload a draft. In extreme circumstances, your dissertation chair may write a letter to the Graduate Division requesting additional changes to be made.

Q14: Oh no! A serious emergency has caused me to miss the filing deadline! What do I do? Are extensions ever granted?

A14: In general, no. In exceptional circumstances, the Head Graduate Advisor for your program may write to the Graduate Division requesting an extension. Requests of this type are considered on a case-by-case basis and, if granted, may allow you to file after the deadline. However, even if such an exception is granted you will receive the degree for the subsequent term. Your first step is to consult with your department if an emergency arises.

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Research by faculty members and doctoral students keeps the I School on the vanguard of contemporary information needs and solutions.

The I School is also home to several active centers and labs, including the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC) , the Center for Technology, Society & Policy , and the BioSENSE Lab .

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Completed Ph.D. Dissertations

Jeremy Gordon. Embodying the Future: Modeling Visually Guided Planning as Prospective Mental Simulation. Ph.D. dissertation. Advisors: John Chuang, Coye Cheshire, Steven Piantadosi, Giovanni Pezzulo. University of California, Berkeley. 2023.

Daniel Griffin.  Situating Web Searching in Data Engineering: Admissions, Extensions, Repairs, and Ownership . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisors: Deirdre K. Mulligan and Steven Weber. University of California, Berkeley. 2022.

Jonathan Gillick. Creating and Collecting Meaningful Musical Materials with Machine Learning . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: David Bamman. University of California, Berkeley. 2022.

Jonas, Anne. 2021. “Blank Slate: Freedom, Connection, and Accountability in U.S. Virtual Schools.” Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Nitin Kohli.  Leveraging Differential Privacy While Attending to Social and Political Commitments . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Deirdre Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2021.

Doris Jung-Lin Lee. Designing Automated Assistants for Visual Data Exploration . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Aditya G. Parameswaran. University of California, Berkeley. 2021.

Nick Doty. Enacting Privacy in Internet Standards . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Deirdre K. Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2020.

Max T. Curran.  Sensor-Mediated Empathy: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Social Biosensing . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: John Chuang. University of California, Berkeley. 2020.

Richmond Y. Wong.  Values by Design Imaginaries: Exploring Values Work in UX Practice . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Deirdre Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2020.

Howell, N. 2020. Emotional Meaning Making with Data. University of California, Berkeley.

Guanghua Chi. Migration and Social Networks: New Insights from Novel Data. Ph.D Dissertation. Advisor: Joshua E. Blumenstock. University of California, Berkeley. 2020.

Sarah Van Wart.  In search of a “fair explanation”: Helping young people to consider the possibilities, limitations, and risks of computer- and data-mediated systems . Ph.D. Dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. 2019.

Niall C. Keleher.  Economic Indicators and Social Networks: New approaches to measuring poverty, prices, and impacts of technology. Ph.D. Dissertation. Advisor: Joshua E. Blumenstock. University of California, Berkeley. 2019.

Sedenberg, Elaine. “Information-intensive innovation: the changing role of the private firm in the research ecosystem through the study of biosensed data.” PhD Diss. University of California, Berkeley, 2019.  https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1s60w39f#main

Nick Merrill.  Mind-Reading and Telepathy for Beginners and Intermediates: What People Think Machines Can Know About the Mind, and Why Their Beliefs Matter . Ph.D. Dissertation. Advisor: John Chuang. University of California, Berkeley. 2018.

Ishita Ghosh. Challenging the dominant narratives of a Digital Financial Inclusion. Ph.D Dissertation. Advisor: Jenna Burrell. University of California, Berkeley. 2018.

Khan, Muhammad Raza (2018). “Machine Learning for the Developing World using Mobile Communication Metadata” PhD dissertation., University of California, Berkeley

Jennifer King. Privacy, Disclosure, and Social Exchange Theory. Ph.D Dissertation. Advisor: Deirdre Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2018.

Sebastian Benthall.  Context, Causality, and Information Flow: Implications for Privacy Engineering, Security, and Data Economics . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisors: John Chuang and Deirdre Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2018.

Galen Thomas Panger.  Emotion in Social Media . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Steven Weber. University of California, Berkeley. 2017.

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Home » For Authors & Researchers » Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

1. Does UC require me to make my thesis/dissertation open access? 2. Can I delay open access to my thesis? 3. I’m working on my thesis/dissertation and I have copyright questions. Where can I find answers? 4. Where can I find UC Theses and Dissertations online?

1. Does UC require me to make my thesis/dissertation open access?

Several UC campuses have established policies requiring open access to the electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) written by their graduate students. As of March 25, 2020, there is now a systemwide Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations , indicating that UC “requires theses or dissertations prepared at the University to be (1) deposited into an open access repository, and (2) freely and openly available to the public, subject to a requested delay of access (’embargo’) obtained by the student.”

In accordance with these policies, campuses must ensure that student ETDs are available open access via eScholarship (UC’s open access repository and publishing platform), at no cost to students. By contrast, ProQuest, the world’s largest commercial publisher of ETDs, charges a $95 fee to make an ETD open access. Institutions worldwide have moved toward open access ETD publication because it dramatically increases the visibility and reach of their graduate research.

Policies and procedures for ETD filing, including how to delay public release of an ETD and how long such a delay can last, vary by campus. Learn more :

• UC Berkeley: Dissertation Filing Guidelines (for Doctoral Students) and Thesis Filing Guidelines (for Master’s Students)
• UC Davis: Preparing and Filing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• UC Irvine: Thesis/Dissertation Electronic Submission
• UCLA: File Your Thesis or Dissertation
• UC Merced: Dissertation/Thesis Submission
• UC Riverside: Dissertation and Thesis Submission
• UC San Diego:  Preparing to Graduate
• UCSF: Dissertation and Thesis Guidelines
• UC Santa Barbara:  Filing Your Thesis, Dissertation, or DMA Supporting Document
• UC Santa Cruz: Dissertation and Thesis Guidelines (PDF) from the Graduate Division’s Accessing Forms Online page

2. Can I delay open access to my thesis/dissertation?

Some campuses allow students to elect an embargo period before the public release of their thesis/dissertation; others require approval from graduate advisors or administrators. Visit your local graduate division’s website (linked above) for more information.

In 2013, the American Historical Association released a statement calling for graduate programs to adopt policies for up to a six year embargo for history dissertations. Many scholars found this extreme, and a variety of commentators weighed in (see, e.g., discussions in The Atlantic , The Chronicle of Higher Education , and Inside Higher Ed ).  In addition, a memo from Rosemary Joyce, the Associate Dean of the Graduate Division of UC Berkeley, listed several advantages of releasing a dissertation immediately and added that “the potential disadvantages… remain anecdotal.” In the years since the flurry of writing responding to the AHA statement, the discussion of dissertation embargoes has continued, but the issues have remained largely the same. Thus, this memo from the UC Berkeley graduate dean (2013) remains an excellent summary.

3. I’m working on my thesis/dissertation and I have copyright questions. Where can I find answers?

Students writing theses/dissertations most commonly have questions about their own copyright ownership or the use of other people’s copyrighted materials in their own work.

You automatically own the copyright in your thesis/dissertation   as soon as you create it , regardless of whether you register it or include a copyright page or copyright notice. Most students choose not to register their copyrights, though some choose to do so because they value having their copyright ownership officially and publicly recorded. Getting a copyright registered is required before you can sue someone for infringement.

If you decide to register your copyright, you can do so

• directly, through the Copyright Office website , for $35
• by having ProQuest/UMI contact the Copyright Office on your behalf, for $65.

It is common to incorporate 1) writing you have done for journal articles as part of your dissertation, and 2) parts of your dissertation into articles or books . See, for example, these articles from Wiley and Taylor & Francis giving authors tips on how to successfully turn dissertations into articles, or these pages at Sage , Springer , and Elsevier listing reuse in a thesis or dissertation as a common right of authors. Because this is a well-known practice, and often explicitly allowed in publishers’ contracts with authors, it rarely raises copyright concerns. eScholarship , which hosts over 55,000 UC ETDs, has never received a takedown notice from a publisher based on a complaint that the author’s ETD was too similar to the author’s published work.

Incorporating the works of others in your thesis/dissertation – such as quotations or illustrative images – is often allowed by copyright law. This is the case when the original work isn’t protected by copyright, or if the way you’re using the work would be considered fair use. In some circumstances, however, you will need permission from the copyright holder.  For more information, please consult the Berkeley Library’s guide to Copyright and Publishing Your Dissertation .

For more in depth information about copyright generally, visit the UC Copyright site.

4. Where can I find UC Dissertations and Theses online?

All ten UC campuses make their electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) openly accessible to readers around the world. You can view over 55,000 UC ETDs in eScholarship , UC’s open access repository. View ETDs from each campus:

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Industrial engineering and operations research: dissertations & theses.

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Dissertations and Theses

Dissertations Online

UC Berkeley Dissertations 

For online access to dissertations published since 1997, see Proquest link above. To locate dissertations from a specific UC Berkeley department, search  UC Library Search  for the keywords berkeley dissertations <department name>.

Example: berkeley dissertations molecular and cell biology

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• URL: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/industrial-engineering-and-operations-research

Department of Film & Media UC Berkeley

Dissertations and career paths.

Eliot Bessette Dissertation: “Thinking Through Fear in Film and Haunts”

Alexandra Bush Dissertation: “Cold Storage: A Media History of the Glacier”

Jennifer Blaylock Research Associate in Cinema Studies, Bowdoin College Dissertation: “Media/Fetish: A Postcolonial Archaeology of New Media and Africa”

Dolores McElroy Lecturer, UC Berkeley Department of Film & Media Dissertation: “Passionate Failures: The Diva Onscreen”

Justin Vaccaro

Dissertation: “Human Sciences, Human Monsters: the SF-Horror Film from the 1930s to 1960s”

Fareed Ben-Youssef

Global Perspectives on Society Teaching Fellow, NYU-Shanghai Dissertation: “Visions of Power: Violence, the Law and the Post-9/11 Genre Film”

Patrick Ellis

Brittain Fellow, Georgia Tech University  Dissertation: “Aeroscopics: Spectacles of the Bird’s-Eye View”

Jennifer Pranolo

Center for Humanistic Inquiry Fellow, Amherst College  Dissertation: “Studio/World: Photography’s Other Nature”

Robert Alford

Assistant Director, Donor Relations at UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture  Dissertation:“’To Know the Words to the Music’: Spatial Circulation, Queer Discourse and the Musical”

Christopher Goetz

Assistant Professor of Cinematic Arts, University of Iowa  Dissertation: “At Home Everywhere: Empowerment Fantasies in the Domestication of Videogames”

Kristen Loutensock

Dissertation: “Genre Disorder: Autism and Narrative in American Popular Culture”

Nicholas Baer

Assistant Professor of Film Studies, University of Groeningen Dissertation: “Absolute Relativity: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism”

Irene Chien

Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Muhlenberg College  Dissertation: “Programmed Moves: Race and Embodiment in Fighting and Dancing Videogames”

Jonathan Haynes

Dissertation : “The Mid-Atlantic : Fantasmatic Genealogies of the French and American New Waves”

George Larkin

Chair of Filmmaking, Associate Professor, Woodbury University, Burbank, CA Dissertation: “Post-Production: The Invisible Revolution of Filmmaking”

Irina Leimbacher

Assistant Professor of Film Studies, Keene State College  Dissertation: “More Than Talking Heads: Nonfiction Testimony and Cinematic Form”

Erica Levin

Assistant Professor of History of Art, Ohio State University  Dissertation: “Social Media: The News in Experimental Film, Video Art, and Performance after 1960”

Kevin Wynter

Assistant Professor of Media Studies, Pomona College  Dissertation : “Feeling Absence: Horror in Cinema from Post War to Post-Wall”

Kris Fallon

Assistant Professor of Cinema and Digital Media, University of California, Davis  Dissertation: “Where Truth Lies: Political Documentary Film & Digital Media, 2000-2010”

Dissertation: “The Initimacy of Distance: South Korean Cinema and the Conditions of Capitalist Individuation”

Rielle Navitski

Assistant Professor of Theatre and Film Studies, University of Georgia  Dissertation: “Sensationalism, Cinema and the Popular Press in Mexico and Brazil, 1905-1930”

Damon Young

Assistant Professor of Film and Media and French, University of California, Berkeley  Dissertation: “Making Sex Public: Cinema and the Liberal Social Body”

Laura Horak

Associate Professor of Film Studies, Carleton University  Dissertation: “Girls Will Be Boys: Cross-Dressed Women and the Legitimation of American Silent Cinema”

Jennifer Malkowski

Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies, Smith College  Dissertation: “‘Dying in Full Detail’: Mortality and Duration in Digital Documentary”

Scott Ferguson

Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Cultural Studies, University of South Florida  Research Scholar, Binzagr Institute for Sustainable Prosperity  Dissertation: “Recapitulation in close-up: Ontogeny, phylogeny, and the face of evolutionary time”

Meredith Hoy

Assistant Professor of Art History and Theory, Arizona State University  Dissertation: “From Point to Pixel: A Genealogy of Digital Aesthetics”

Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Cultural Studies, University of South Florida  Dissertation: “‘Passionate Detachment’: Technologies of Vision and Violence in American Cinema, 1967 – 1974”

Associate Professor, Media and Communications, Muhlenberg College  Dissertation: “Traveling spectators: Cinema, geography, and multiculturalism in late twentieth-century America”

Douglas Cunningham

Adjunct Professor, Professor of Humanities, BYU  Adjunct Professor of Film and Media, University of Utah  Dissertation: “Imagining Air Force identity: Masculinity, aeriality, and the films of the U.S. Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit”

Tung-hui Hu

Associate Professor of English, University of Michigan Postdoctoral Scholar in the Michigan Society of Fellows, and Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Michigan, 2009-2012  Dissertation: “Seeing Emptiness: Berlin, Nevada, and the Space of New Media”

Anupama Kapse

Associate Professor of Film Studies, Loyola Marymount University  Film and Media Studies, Queens College, City University of New York  Dissertation: “The moving image: melodrama and early Indian cinema 1913-1939”

Associate Professor of Critical Studies, School of Cinema, San Francisco State University Dissertation: “Life and death in the cinema of Weimar Germany, 1919-1924”

Hoang Tan Nguyen

Associate Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies, UC San Diego  Dissertation: “A view from the bottom: Asian American masculinity and sexual representation”

Scott Combs

Associate Professor of English, St. John’s University in Queens, New York City  Dissertation: “Final touches: Registering death in American cinema”

Minette Hillyer

Lecturer, Department of English, Film, Theatre, and Media Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand  Dissertation : “Making home: Film and the modern American everyday”

Ara Osterweil

Assistant Professor, Department of English, McGill University  Dissertation: “Flesh cinema: The corporeal avant-garde 1959-1979”

Guo-Juin Hong

Associate Professor, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; Director, Program in the Arts of the Moving Image; Academic Director, Duke in LA Program; Duke University Dissertation: “Cinematograph of history: Post/colonial modernity in 1930s Shanghai and new Taiwanese cinema since 1982”

Maria St John

Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UC San Francisco; Chair, Feminist Psychology Program, New College Graduate Psychiatry Program  Dissertation: “The mammy fantasy: Psychoanalysis, race, and the ideology of absolute maternity”

Frank Wilderson

Professor, African-American Studies and Drama, UC Irvine  Dissertation: “Settler, ‘savage’, slave : cinema and the structure of U.S. antagonisms”

Dissertation: “Acoustic graffiti: The rock soundtrack in contemporary American cinema”

Domietta Torlasco

Associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, Northwestern University  Dissertation: “Undoing the scene of the crime: Time and vision in Italian cinema”

Lecturer, Writing Program, University of California, Santa Barbara  Dissertation: “Beowulf in Hollywood: Popular Film as Folktale and Legend”

Catherine Zimmer

Associate Professor of English, Pace University  Dissertation : “Film on film: Self-reflexivity and moving image technology”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Designated Emphasis

Juan Ospina Leon (Spanish and Portuguese, 2015)

Asst. Professor of Hispanic Studies, Dept. of Modern Languages and Literatures, The Catholic University of America

Todd Barnes (Rhetoric, 2010)

Associate Professor of Literature, Ramapo College of New Jersey

Mona El-Sherif (Political Science, 2010)

Assistant Professor of Arabic, Colorado College

David Pettersen (French, 2008)

Associate Professor of Film Studies, and French Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh

Elisabeth Anker (Political Science, 2007)

Associate Professor, American Studies, George Washington University

Zeynep Gürsel (Anthropology, 2007)

Associate Professor of Anthropology, Macalester College

June Hwang (German, 2007)

Associate Professor of German, University of Rochester

Rani Neutill (Ethnic Studies, 2007)

Harvard University, Committee on Degrees in History and Literature

Polina Barskova (Slavic, 2006)

Associate Professor of Russian Literature; Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty, Hampshire College

Jane McGonigal (Performance Studies, 2006)

Games designer and researcher, lecturer, consultant

Christopher Oscarson (Scandinavian, 2006)

Associate Professor, Department of Humanities, Classics and Comparative Literature, Brigham Young University

Minh-ha T. Pham (Ethnic Studies, 2006)

Associate Professor/Faculty Fellow of Social and Cultural Analysis, Pratt institute

Andrey Shcherbenok (Rhetoric, 2006)

Three-year post-doc, Columbia University, Society of Fellows; since 2010, Fellow, Russian and Slavonic Studies, The University of Sheffield

Reid Davis (Performance Studies, 2005)

Adjunct Professor, Department of Performing Arts, Saint Mary’s College, Moraga; also works extensively as a theater director.

Deborah Shamoon (Japanese, 2005)

Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Notre Dame

Andrew Uroskie (Rhetoric, 2005)

Associate Professor, Art Department, Stony Brook University (fields of specialization: Late Modern and Contemporary Art, Photography and the Moving Image)

Christopher Caes (Slavic, 2004)

Lecturer in Polish/Acting Director, East Central European Center, Columbia University

Kirsten Cather (Japanese, 2004)

Associate Professor, Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin

José Alaniz (Comparative Literature, 2003)

Associate Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Washington

Jennifer Kapczynski (German, 2003)

Assistant Professor, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Washington University, St Louis

Arne Lunde (Scandinavian, 2003)

Associate Professor, The Scandinavian Section, University of California, Los Angeles

Lucia Galleno (Spanish and Portuguese, 2002)

Associate Professor, Queens University, Charlotte, North Carolina

Jared Sexton (Ethnic Studies, 2002)

Associate Professor, African American Studies and Film and Media Studies, School of Humanities, University of California, Irvine

Cari Borja (Anthropology, 2001)

Clothes designer. See Cariborja.com

Lilya Kaganovsky (Comparative Literature, 2000)

Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Philosophy Ph.D. Program

Approved by Graduate Council and Graduate Division, Nov. 10, 2008. These requirements apply prospectively beginning with those admitted for Fall 2009. Students who entered the program under the old requirements may choose either to continue under that regime or to adopt the requirements below.

The Ph.D. program is designed to provide students with a broad knowledge of the field of philosophy, while giving them opportunities to work intensively on the issues that interest them the most. During the first stage of their graduate education, students meet the Department's course distribution requirements and prepare to take the qualifying examination. This examination assesses the student's strengths in areas chosen by the student in consultation with supervising faculty. After passing the exam, students advance to candidacy and begin writing the Ph.D. thesis. A detailed explanation of the requirements for the Ph.D. in Philosophy follows.

Before Advancing to Candidacy

During the first stage of the program, students are expected to acquire a broad background in philosophy and develop their philosophical abilities by fulfilling the following requirements:

First Year Seminar

A one-semester seminar for first-year graduate students only, conducted by two faculty members, on some central area of philosophy.

Logic Requirement

The Logic Requirement has two components:

• Completion of Philosophy 12A or its equivalent, with a grade of B+ or better.
• Completion of 140A or 140B with a grade of B+ or better. Courses with a comparable formal component including, in most cases, courses in the 140 series may satisfy this requirement, with the approval of the Graduate Advisor.

Both parts of the requirement may be fulfilled by successful completion of equivalent logic courses before arriving at Berkeley. Whether taken at Berkeley or elsewhere, courses taken in fulfillment of the logic requirement do not count towards the eight-course distribution requirement.

Course Distribution Requirement

Before taking the Qualifying Exam the student must complete eight courses at the 100- or 200-level completed with a grade of A- or higher. At least four of the eight courses must be graduate seminars. The eight courses must satisfy the following distribution requirements:

Two of the eight courses must be in the history of philosophy: one in ancient philosophy and one in modern philosophy. The courses may be on any individual philosopher or group of philosophers drawn from the following lists:

• Ancient: Plato, Aristotle
• Modern: Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel

Four of the eight courses must be in the following areas, with at least one course from each area:

• Area 1: Philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mathematics.
• Area 2: Metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of action
• Area 3: Ethics, political, social and legal philosophy, and aesthetics

A seventh course may be any Philosophy course in the 100 or 200 series except for 100, 195-199, 200, 250, 251 and 299.

An eighth course may be either any Philosophy course as specified above or a course from another Department which has been approved by the Graduate Advisor.

In exceptional cases, students may, at the discretion of the Graduate Advisor, meet one distribution requirement by presenting work done as a graduate student elsewhere: typically a graduate thesis or work done in a graduate-level course. Meeting a distribution requirement in this way will not count as meeting any part of the four-seminar requirement.

Language Requirement

Revised requirement approved April 4, 2022 by Graduate Council, for all graduate students who have not already passed the foreign language requirement.

Before taking the Qualifying Examination, the candidate must pass a departmental examination in a foreign language requiring the translation of 300 words in 90 minutes with the use of a dictionary. The language can be any foreign language containing a significant philosophical literature, provided that a faculty member qualified to administer the examination is available. An examination in an approved language may be waived upon approval of the Graduate Division if native ability in the language can be demonstrated through secondary school or university transcripts. A course sequence of four semesters (or six quarters), whether taken at UC or elsewhere, will be accepted in lieu of the language examination if the sequence was completed within four years of admission to Berkeley and the student earned an average grade of C or better.

The Qualifying Examination

Students should aim to take the qualifying examination by the end of the fifth enrolled semester and they must take it by the end of the sixth enrolled semester.

In order to take the examination the student must have fulfilled the department's course requirements and must have passed the language requirement.

The qualifying examination is administered by a committee of three faculty members from the department and one faculty member of another department. The members of this committee are nominated to the Graduate Division by the Graduate Advisor in consultation with the candidate.

Soon after assembling an examination committee, the candidate should, in consultation with this committee, write a 300-word description and compile a list of readings for each of three proposed topics for examination. Each topic should be centered on a major philosophical problem or question. Together the topics should reflect a balance of breadth and depth, and the Graduate Advisor must approve that they meet these criteria.

A week before the qualifying examination, the candidate should submit an overview essay of 1500-3000 words for each topic, which expands on the initial description. The essay should aim to lay out the central problem or question, to explain its importance, and to evaluate critically the attempts to resolve or answer it, with an eye to forming a view within, or about, the debate.

The qualifying examination itself will be a three-hour oral exam administered by the committee. The candidate's essays are meant to serve as a springboard for discussion in the exam. The purpose of the examination is to test the student's general mastery of philosophy. Students are expected to draw on the information, skills and understanding acquired in their graduate study and to demonstrate sufficient breadth and depth of philosophical comprehension and ability to provide a basis for proceeding toward a Ph.D.

If a student fails the qualifying examination, the examining committee may or may not recommend that a second examination be administered by the same committee. The second examination must be administered no sooner than three months and no later than six months following the first attempt. Failure on the second attempt will result in the student being automatically dismissed from the graduate program. (See Section F2.7 of the Guide to Graduate Policy .)

Students should advance to candidacy as soon as possible and they must do so no later than a year after passing the qualifying examination or the end of their sixth semester in the program, whichever comes first, to maintain satisfactory progress in the program. (An exception to the above policy will be made for those students who, having failed the qualifying exam in their sixth semester, may be granted the possibility to take it a second time in their seventh semester. In the case of a successful retake, the student must advance to candidacy by the end of the seventh semester.)

Before advancement to candidacy the student must constitute a dissertation committee consisting of two faculty members from the department and an outside faculty member from another department.

Prospectus Stage

In the semester after passing the qualifying examination the student must take two individual study courses of 4 units each with the two inside members of his or her dissertation committee for the purpose of preparing a dissertation prospectus.

The dissertation prospectus should be submitted both to the inside members of the committee and to the Graduate Advisor by the end of that semester. It should consist of about fifteen pages and outline plans for the dissertation. Alternatively, the prospectus may consist of parts of a possible chapter of the dissertation together with a short sketch of the dissertation project.

Following submission of the prospectus, the candidate will meet with the inside members of the committee for an informal discussion of the candidate's proposed research.

The Doctoral Completion Fellowship

The Doctoral Completion Fellowship (DCF) is a one-year fellowship available to graduate students who have advanced to candidacy and meet several additional conditions. Students are advised to review the eligibility requirements for the DCF .

Additional Requirements

Each student for the Ph.D. degree is expected to serve as a graduate student instructor for at least two semesters.

Dissertation seminar

Students in the first two years after declaring candidacy must register for the dissertation seminar (Philosophy 295) for at least one semester each year, during which they must present a piece of work in progress, and are expected to attend the seminar all year. (The seminar meets every other week.) All students working on dissertations are encouraged to attend the seminar.

Annual Meetings

At the end of each academic year, there will be a meeting of the student and both co-chairs of his or her dissertation committee to discuss the student’s progress over the year and his or her plans for the following year.

Ph.D. Dissertation

Once students advance to candidacy, they come under the jurisdiction of the Graduate Council , rather than that of the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Ph.D. program, and are governed by a variety of policies intended to ensure their completion of the doctoral degree.

JSP INFORMATION ON FILING YOUR DISSERTATION AND PREPARING FOR GRADUATION

Ph.D. Program

Degree requirements.

In outline, to earn the PhD in either Mathematics or Applied Mathematics, the candidate must meet the following requirements.

• Take at least 4 courses, 2 or more of which are graduate courses offered by the Department of Mathematics
• Pass the six-hour written Preliminary Examination covering calculus, real analysis, complex analysis, linear algebra, and abstract algebra; students must pass the prelim before the start of their second year in the program (within three semesters of starting the program)
• Pass a three-hour, oral Qualifying Examination emphasizing, but not exclusively restricted to, the area of specialization. The Qualifying Examination must be attempted within two years of entering the program
• Complete a seminar, giving a talk of at least one-hour duration
• Write a dissertation embodying the results of original research and acceptable to a properly constituted dissertation committee
• Meet the University residence requirement of two years or four semesters

Detailed Regulations

The detailed regulations of the Ph.D. program are the following:

Course Requirements

During the first year of the Ph.D. program, the student must enroll in at least 4 courses. At least 2 of these must be graduate courses offered by the Department of Mathematics. Exceptions can be granted by the Vice-Chair for Graduate Studies.

Preliminary Examination

The Preliminary Examination consists of 6 hours (total) of written work given over a two-day period (3 hours/day). Exam questions are given in calculus, real analysis, complex analysis, linear algebra, and abstract algebra. The Preliminary Examination is offered twice a year during the first week of the fall and spring semesters.

Qualifying Examination

To arrange the Qualifying Examination, a student must first settle on an area of concentration, and a prospective Dissertation Advisor (Dissertation Chair), someone who agrees to supervise the dissertation if the examination is passed. With the aid of the prospective advisor, the student forms an examination committee of 4 members.  All committee members can be faculty in the Mathematics Department and the chair must be in the Mathematics Department. The QE chair and Dissertation Chair cannot be the same person; therefore, t he Math member least likely to serve as the dissertation advisor should be selected as chair of the qualifying exam committee . The syllabus of the examination is to be worked out jointly by the committee and the student, but before final approval, it is to be circulated to all faculty members of the appropriate research sections. The Qualifying Examination must cover material falling in at least 3 subject areas and these must be listed on the application to take the examination. Moreover, the material covered must fall within more than one section of the department. Sample syllabi can be reviewed online or in 910 Evans Hall. The student must attempt the Qualifying Examination within twenty-five months of entering the PhD program. If a student does not pass on the first attempt, then, on the recommendation of the student's examining committee, and subject to the approval of the Graduate Division, the student may repeat the examination once. The examining committee must be the same, and the re-examination must be held within thirty months of the student's entrance into the PhD program. For a student to pass the Qualifying Examination, at least one identified member of the subject area group must be willing to accept the candidate as a dissertation student.

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PhD in City & Regional Planning

The program

Berkeley's PhD in City & Regional Planning provides training in urban and planning theory, advanced research, and the practice of planning. Established in 1968, the program has granted more than 160 doctorates. Alums of the program have established national and international reputations as planning educators, social science researchers and theorists, policy makers, and practitioners. Today, the program is served by nearly 20 city and regional planning faculty with expertise in community and economic development, transportation planning, urban design, international development, environmental planning, and global urbanism. With close ties to numerous research centers and initiatives, the program encourages its students to develop specializations within the field of urban studies and planning and to expand their intellectual horizons through training in the related fields of architecture, landscape architecture and environmental planning, civil engineering, anthropology, geography, sociology, public policy, public health, and political science.

Completing a PhD in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley usually takes five years. The university requires all doctoral students to fulfill a minimum residency requirement of two years and 48 units of coursework. Full-time students are expected to take four courses, or 12 units, per semester. For the PhD in City & Regional Planning, students must complete various program requirements, including courses in planning and urban theory; research methods courses; and preparation and completion of two fields of specialization. They must also successfully complete an oral qualifying examination, which allows them to advance to candidacy and undertake dissertation research. A PhD is awarded upon completion of a written dissertation approved by the faculty supervisors of the dissertation.

The PhD program encourages its students to build intellectual community and to participate in national and international venues of scholarship. Doctoral candidates regularly present their research at the annual conferences of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, Association of American Geographers, Association of European Schools of Planning, World Planning Schools Congress, Urban Affairs Association, and American Anthropological Association. They organize and participate in a weekly research colloquium and manage the Berkeley Planning Journal , a peer-reviewed academic publication. Such activities utilize the incredible intellectual resources available to doctoral students at UC Berkeley, both within their departments and programs and across the campus.

Financial Aid + Admissions

Admission to the PhD program is highly competitive. Applicants are required to have completed a master's degree in planning or a related field. They are expected to demonstrate capacity for advanced research and to present a compelling research topic as part of their application. Once admitted to the program, students are eligible to compete for various university fellowships, including the Berkeley Fellowship, Cota-Robles Fellowship, and the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship. Students of the program have also been successful in securing funding for dissertation research from the National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and the Fulbright scholarships.

The Department of City & Regional Planning and UC Berkeley offer multiple types of financial support to its graduate students.

Please note that admission decisions are not made by individual faculty, but rather an admissions committee. Our PhD admissions process begins with three initial reviews of your application: the two faculty members you list as preferred advisors and one member of the PhD admission committee. The admission committee then meets to review all applications as a cohort and make admission/denial decisions. More information can be found on the department admissions page .

The principal admission requirements to the doctoral program in City & Regional Planning are overall excellence in past academic work and research, demonstrated creativity and intellectual leadership in professional activity, and the strong promise of sustained intellectual achievement, originality, and scholarship. The emphasis in the doctoral program is upon scholarship and research. At the same time, because the doctorate is offered in the context of a professional school, doctoral students are challenged to undertake applied research relevant to city and regional planning and policy problems. If you do not want to teach in planning or a related field, or to do advanced research, please reconsider applying to this program. Most doctoral students enter the program with a master’s degree in planning or a related field. The Master of City Planning is regarded as a terminal professional degree, and is not comparable to mid-study Master of Arts or Master of Science degrees offered in anticipation of the doctorate.

Admission to the doctoral program is very competitive. Only six to eight students are admitted each year, sometimes from a pool of as many as 80 applicants. For all applicants to the doctoral program (even those required to take an English-language competency exam (TOEFL, TOEFL CBT, iBT TOEFL, or IELTS) the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is optional; although prospective students who choose to take the GRE should do so before December to ensure timely receipt of scores. Applicants must also secure at least three letters of recommendation that can explicitly evaluate their intellectual capability and past research and academic work.

Please note that admission decisions are not made by individual faculty, but rather an admissions committee. DCRP’s PhD admissions process begins with three initial reviews of your application: the two faculty members you list as preferred advisors and one member of the PhD admission committee. The admission committee then meets to review all applications as a cohort and make admission/denial decisions.

Many PhD students choose to pursue one or more of the designated emphases (DEs) offered through programs across campus. These DEs are unrelated to the outside field required by the City & Regional Planning PhD, and can be thought of instead as elective “minors” which provide opportunities for focused interdisciplinary work, mentorship, conference funding, research fellowships and an extra credential along with the doctoral degree. Common DEs pursued by DCRP PhD students include:

• Global Metropolitan Studies (GMS)
• Science and Technology Studies (STS)
• Development Engineering (DevEng)
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGS)
• Political Economy
• Film & Media
• Critical Theory

For more information on the PhD in City & Regional Planning program, contact [email protected] .

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Dissertations and theses.

D12-001 Death or Tobacco Taxes: The United States Cigarette Tax Policy and Some International Evidence . by Natasha Avenda?o Garcia, Fall 2011. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley.

D11-001 Subsidized Housing and Neighborhood Change . by Florence Louise Wilson, Spring 2011. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley.

D10-002 The Impact of Political Institutions on Fiscal Decisions in the United States . by Colleen Marie Donovan, Fall 2010. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D10-001 Immigrant and Minority Entrepreneurship in Federal Community Development Programs . by Richard John Smith, June 2010. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley.

D09-004 Designed by Zoning: Evaluating the Spatial Effects of Land Use Regulations . by Charles Reuben Warren, Fall 2009. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley.

D09-003 Land Market Impacts and Firm Geography in a Green and Transit-Oriented City: The Case of Seoul, Korea. by Chang Deok Kang, Fall 2009. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley.

D09-002 Essays in Urban Economics. by Daniel Aaron Hartley, Fall 2009. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D09-001 The Housing Transition in Mexico: Local Impacts of National Policy. by Paavo Monkkonen, Fall 2009. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley.

D08-001 Determinants of Foreclosure: A Chicago Case Study. by Olga Malkova, Summer 2008. Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D07-003 The Conditional Nature of Rail Transit Capitalization in San Diego, California. by Michael D. Duncan, Fall 2007. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley.

D07-002 Modeling Residential Mortgage Performance with Random Utility Models. by Carolina Marquez, Spring 2007. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D07-001 Essays on Equilibrium Asset Pricing and Investments. by Jiro Yoshida, Spring 2007. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

D05-004 Metropolitan Area Housing Premiums and Quality of Life. by Erica Greulich, October 2005. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D05-003 Children's Travel: Patterns and Influences. by Noreen McDonald, May 2005. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley.

D05-002 Essays on Land-Use Regulation and the Urban Economy. by Aaron Swoboda, May 2005. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D05-001 Community Capitalism: How Housing Advocates, the Private Business Sector and Government Forged New Low-Income Housing Policy, 1964-1996. by David Erickson, 2006. Journal Of Policy History 18(2)

D04-001 Housing Prices and Single-Family Permits: The Case of California Cities in the 1990s. by Robert Habans, May 2004. Undergraduate Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D02-001 Modeling Residential Mortgage Termination and Severity Using Loan Level Data. by Ralph DeFranco, May 2002. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D01-004 The Making of Garden Cities: Milton Keynes, Irvine and Tsukuba. by Hiroshi Nishimaki, August 2001. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley.

D01-003 Hedonic Estimation and Economic Geography. by H. Peter Hess, Jr., August 2001. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D01-002 Natural Hazard Policy and the Land Market: An Assessment of the Effects of the California Natural Hazard Disclosure Law. by Austin Troy, May 2001. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Environmental Science,

D01-001 Welfare Migration and the Duration of Welfare Spells . by Brendan Cushing-Daniels, May 2001. Ph.D. Dissertation Submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D00-002 Long Division: California's Land-Use Reform Policy and the Pursuit of Residential Integration. by Larry A. Rosenthal, July 2000. Ph.D. Dissertation submitted to the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley.

D00-001 Essays on Housing Market Dynamics. by Christian L. Redfearn, May 2000. Ph.D. Dissertation submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

D98-001 Housing the Poor. by Scott J. Susin, May 1999. Ph.D. Dissertation submitted to the Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley.

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Last updated Wednesday, December 21, 2011

UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations

• UC Berkeley Previously Published Works
• UC Berkeley Recent Work

Digital Twins as Testbeds for Iterative Simulated Neutronics Feedback Controller Development

• Ong, Theodore Kay Chen
• Advisor(s): Peterson, Per F

Before a new nuclear reactor design can be constructed and operated, its safety must bedemonstrated using models that are validated with integral effects test (IET) data. However, because scaled integral effects tests are electrically heated, they do not exhibit nuclear reactor feedback phenomena. To replicate the nuclear transient response in electrically heated IETs, we require simulated neutronics feedback (SNF) controllers. Such SNF controllers can then be used to provide SNF capabilities for IET facilities such as the Compact Integral Effects Test (CIET) at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). However, developing SNF controllers for IET facilities is non-trivial. To expedite development, we present the use of Digital Twins as testbeds for iterative SNF controller development. In particular, we use a Digital Twin of the Heater within CIET as a testbed for SNF Controller Development. This Digital Twin with SNF Capabilty is run as an OPC-UA server and client written almost entirely in Rust using Free and Open Source (FOSS) code. We then validate the Digital Twin with experimental data in literature. We also verify the transfer function simulation and Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID) controllers written in Rust using Scilab. Moreover, we demonstrate use of data driven surrogate models (transfer functions) to construct SNF controllers in contrast to using the traditional Point Reactor Kinetics Equations (PRKE) models with the hope that they can account for the effect of spatially dependent neutron flux on reactor feedback. To construct the first surrogate models in this work, we use transient data from a representative arbitrary Fluoride Salt Cooled High Temperature Reactor (FHR) model constructed using OpenMC and GeN-Foam. Using the Digital Twin as a testbed, two design iterations of the SNF controller were developed using the data driven surrogate model. Compared to the potential development time taken in using physical experiments, using the digital twin testbed for SNF controller development resulted in a significant time saving. We hope that the approaches used in this dissertation can expedite testing and reduce expenditure for licensing novel Gen IV nuclear reactor designs.

Adaptive cellular strategies to improve commodity chemical production in Escherichia coli

• Koleski, Edward Jon
• Advisor(s): Chang, Michelle C.Y.

Biology holds an amazing propensity for chemistry. Living systems continuously carry out a vast plethora of chemical reactions within a complex network, known as metabolism, to sustain growth and improve evolutionary fitness. Metabolic engineers seek to utilize this aptitude for chemistry by creating biological catalysts for chemical production from renewable feedstocks. Biological catalysts offer an eco-friendly, and in some cases, superior, alternative to petrochemical-based chemical production.In this work, we examine biological catalysts designed for the production of two C4 commodity chemicals, n-butanol and (R)-1,3-butanediol. These catalysts are strains of Escherichia coli containing constructed biosynthetic pathways. Leveraging an anaerobic growth selection, laboratory adaptive evolution identified several mutant strains with improved phenotypes. We set out to understand the mechanism by which these adaptive mutations confer improved production. Through detailed analysis of n-butanol fermentation, we discovered that the parent strain for our evolution was unable to support sustained anaerobic growth via n-butanol fermentation, potentially due to metabolic burden associated with overexpression of the pathway enzymes. Further experimentation suggested that the mutations arose as a strategy to relieve metabolic burden through decreased expression of our biosynthetic pathway. The results of this study highlight the importance of balanced pathway expression when designing biological catalysts. We then shifted our focus to design a microbial catalyst for production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) containing unsaturated monomers. Sites of unsaturation provide functional handles for downstream chemical modification. We devised a metabolic strategy to convert two non-canonical amino acids with unsaturated functional groups to their respective 2-hydroxy acids and activate these acids as coenzyme A thioesters for polymerization within E. coli. We identified and tested candidate enzymes for the appropriate activities in vitro and successfully showed that our identified enzymes can form a functional biosynthetic pathway. These experiments lay the groundwork for creation of a microbial catalyst capable of generating PHAs with unsaturated functional groups using glucose as a carbon source.

Understanding implicit sensorimotor adaptation as a process of kinesthetic re-alignment

• Tsay, Jonathan S
• Advisor(s): Ivry, Richard B

From elementary skills such as walking and talking, to complex ones such as playing tennis or music, humans are remarkably adept at learning to use their bodies in a coordinated manner. However, these abilities can be fragile: Many neurological conditions can compromise motor performance and learning. Understanding how the brain produces skilled movement will not only elucidate principles of learning but can also optimize rehabilitation interventions for individuals with movement disorders.

Motor learning is not a unitary operation but relies on multiple learning processes (Kim, Avraham, and Ivry 2020; Krakauer et al. 2019). For example, reinforcement learning helps us select rewarding actions (Dayan and Daw 2008), use-dependent learning helps us rapidly execute well-practiced actions (Verstynen and Sabes 2011; Classen et al. 1998), and sensorimotor adaptation keeps our movements well-calibrated in response to changes in the body and environment (Helmholtz 1924; Stratton 1896). In addition, recent work has highlighted how these implicit processes may be complemented by explicit processes (Codol, Holland, and Galea 2018; Collins and Frank 2012; Marinovic et al. 2017; Jonathan S. Tsay, Kim, Saxena, et al. 2022). For example, when asked to move in a novel environment in which the visual feedback is altered (e.g., prism glasses), participants may adopt a re-aiming strategy to nullify the perturbation. Unlike implicit forms of learning, explicit processes allow for rapid changes in performance (Kim, Avraham, and Ivry 2020; Krakauer et al. 2019; Inoue et al. 2015; Smith, Ghazizadeh, and Shadmehr 2006; Schween et al. 2020; Daniel M. Wolpert and Flanagan 2016; Facchin et al. 2019). The joint operation of multiple learning processes has made it difficult to characterize features inherent to each process. To address this, new analytical methods have been recently developed to isolate individual components (Brudner et al. 2016; Jonathan S. Tsay, Haith, Ivry, et al. 2022; Marinovic et al. 2017; Yang, Cowan, and Haith 2021), providing new opportunities to revisit classic problems in sensorimotor learning: What is the critical signal driving learning for different processes? Are there limits to plasticity, and does this vary between processes? How does the quality of sensory feedback impact different components of motor learning?

I exploit these methods in this dissertation to revisit the mechanisms at play in sensorimotor adaptation. Implicit adaptation has been framed as an iterative process designed to minimize sensory prediction error, the mismatch between a desired and experienced sensory outcome (Donchin, Francis, and Shadmehr 2003; R. Morehead and Smith 2017; Albert et al. 2022, 2021; Herzfeld et al. 2014; Kim et al. 2018; Thoroughman and Shadmehr 2000). Traditionally, the focus has been on how visual sensory prediction errors are used to modify a visuomotor map, ensuring that future movements are more accurate. According to this visuo-centric view, the upper bound of implicit adaptation represents a point of equilibrium, one at which the trial-by-trial change in hand position in response to a visual error is counterbalanced by a trial-by-trial decay (‘forgetting’) of this modified visuomotor map back to its baseline, default state.

Despite its appeal, the visuo-centric view is an oversimplification. The brain exploits information from all of our senses, not only from vision (Ernst and Banks 2002; Van Beers, Sittig, and Gon 1999; Chancel, Ehrsson, and Ma 2022; Sober and Sabes 2005, 2003). This insight, paired with the empirical data outlined in this dissertation, have inspired a new, ‘kinesthetic re-alignment’ model of implicit adaptation (Jonathan S. Tsay, Kim, Haith, et al. 2022). By this view, implicit adaptation is an iterative process designed to minimize a ‘kinesthetic’ sensory prediction error, the misalignment between the perceived heading angle and the movement goal. The perceived hand position is a composite signal, reflecting the seen hand position (via visual afferents), the felt hand position (via peripheral proprioceptive afferents based on mechanoreceptors from muscles, joints, and skin), the predicted hand position (via the efferent motor command), and the movement goal (via a prior belief that the movement will be successful). Implicit adaptation will cease when the kinesthetic error is nullified, that is, when the perceived hand position and the movement goal are re-aligned. (Footnote: Whereas we had used ‘proprioception' in our published work featured in this dissertation, we will adopt the term “kinesthesia” here in the Abstract given that the perceived hand is a composite kinesthetic representation that encompasses both central beliefs and peripheral senses (Proske and Gandevia 2012)).

In Chapter 1, I tested a core assumption held by studies of implicit sensorimotor adaptation, namely that the perceived hand position is at the target (subject to random noise). Specifically, we used a novel visuomotor task that isolated implicit adaptation and probed kinesthesia in a fine-grain manner (i.e., the participant’s perceived heading position on each trial). Whereas participants exhibited robust implicit adaptation (i.e., changes in hand position away from the target in the opposite direction of the visual error), their perceived hand position remained near the target. However, to our surprise, the position reports exhibited a non-monotonic function over the course of adaptation: The participants initially perceived their hand to be biased towards the perturbed visual feedback, mis-aligned with the movement goal. However, over time the reports shifted away from the perturbed visual feedback, re-aligning back to the target. Together, these data not only revealed unappreciated kinesthetic changes that arise during learning but also seeded the idea for a kinesthetic re-alignment perspective of implicit adaptation.

In Chapter 2, I evaluate whether there is the relationship between kinesthetic perception and implicit adaptation, one that would not be predicted by visuocentric models. By using two visuomotor tasks that isolated implicit adaptation and probed kinesthesia, we discovered that participants who have greater kinesthetic biases towards the perturbed visual feedback and greater baseline kinesthetic uncertainty exhibited greater implicit adaptation. As such, these data provided evidence for new, unexplained kinesthetic constraints on the extent of implicit adaptation, supporting the notion that kinesthetic perception plays a critical role in implicit adaptation. The empirical results from the previous chapters led us to develop a new, kinesthetic re-alignment model of implicit adaptation. I will formalize this model in Chapter 3, demonstrating how it readily explains the non-monotonic time course of perceived hand position during implicit adaptation (Chapter 1 and the relationship between kinesthetic biases/uncertainty with the extent of implicit adaptation (Chapter 2). Moreover, I will demonstrate how the kinesthetic re-alignment model is also able to capture a myriad of observations not accounted for by a visuo-centric view of adaptation. Taken together, the kinesthetic re-alignment model brings us one step closer to a more holistic view of motor adaptation, a perspective that formalizes how our high-level beliefs and low-level senses inform where we are positioned and how we are to adapt.

Photorealistic Reconstruction from First Principles

• Fridovich-Keil, Sara
• Advisor(s): Recht, Benjamin

In computational imaging, inverse problems describe the general process of turning measurements into images using algorithms: images from sound waves in sonar, spin orientations in magnetic resonance imaging, or X-ray absorption in computed tomography.Today, the two dominant algorithmic approaches for solving inverse problems are compressed sensing and deep learning. Compressed sensing leverages convex optimization and comes with strong theoretical guarantees of correct reconstruction, but requires linear measurements and substantial processor memory, both of which limit its applicability to many imaging modalities. In contrast, deep learning methods leverage nonconvex optimization and neural networks, allowing them to use nonlinear measurements and limited memory. However, they can be unreliable, and are difficult to inspect, analyze, and predict when they will produce correct reconstructions.

In this dissertation, we focus on an inverse problem central to computer vision and graphics: given calibrated photographs of a scene, recover the optical density and view-dependent color of every point in the scene. For this problem, we take steps to bridge the best aspects of compressed sensing and deep learning: (i) combining an explicit, non-neural scene representation with optimization through a nonlinear forward model, (ii) reducing memory requirements through a compressed representation that retains aspects of interpretability, and extends to dynamic scenes, and (iii) presenting a preliminary convergence analysis that suggests faithful reconstruction under our modeling.

Solar Flux: Remaking landscapes, labor, and environmental politics in California

• Brown, Keith Brower
• Advisor(s): Chari, Sharad ;
• Sayre, Nathan

From 2015-2020, massive booms in solar power and high speed rail reconstructed landscapes across California's San Joaquin Valley. Globally rare alliances of construction unions with environmental justice and immigrant movements won breakthroughs in regional politics. How did construction workers reshape their power in response to the booms–and what formed their politics in this extraordinary direction? This dissertation argues that construction worker power hinged on unions' capacity to reproduce the workforce for urgent landscape transformations, while labor alliances were driven by shared political exclusion and common household struggles over social reproduction of the region's working class, Mexican-American majority. Drawing on five years of ethnographic and archival research, I compare the Fresno-Madera region, where these construction labor-immigrant-environmental justice alliances prevailed at crucial moments, to the Bakersfield region just to the south, where limited household ties, unstable overall employment, and conflicts over oil fractured potential coalitions. In conversation with environmental justice, Marxist feminist, and Marxist geography approaches–including Gramscian interpretations of Clyde Woods, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Matthew Huber–I develop a theory of environmental leverage, explaining how landscape transformation and the labor involved can challenge or entrench hegemony. The breakthroughs made by San Joaquin alliances in winning municipal office, jobsite power, and infrastructure redistribution help show how working and oppressed people can build pressing climate transitions by their own blueprints.

Inferring species distributions from semi-structured biodiversity observations

• Goldstein, Benjamin R
• Advisor(s): de Valpine, Perry

Estimating the spatiotemporal distributions of species and understanding how variation in those distributions is explained by the environment are central goals in ecology. Observations of animals generated by participatory science (or "citizen science") are an increasingly important resource for ecologists interested in estimating species distributions because they are high-volume and high-resolution. However, statistical inference with these data is more challenging than inference with data collected under standardized sampling, because participatory science observations contain substantial unmeasured variation in sampling effort and observer behavior. Ecologists need tools and methodological guidance that support the estimation of computationally efficient, flexible statistical models useful for robust inference with participatory science data. In this dissertation, I advance the field of species distribution modeling with participatory science data via contributions across three chapters. First, I present a new software tool, nimbleEcology, that supports the efficient and flexible estimation of hierarchical ecological models, alongside a brief review of the use of such models in ecology and three worked examples of model estimation. Second, I undertake a comparison of two modeling approaches useful for estimating relative abundance from participatory science data, making practical recommendations for model selection. Finally, I apply these methodological developments to data obtained from an important participatory science dataset, eBird, to investigate how common birds respond to drought in California's Central Valley ecoregion. This project demonstrates the application of modeling principles to an important ecological case study and produces new evidence to characterize critical dimensions of birds' drought responses.

Chemistry and Physics of Graphite in Fluoride Salt Reactors

• Vergari, Lorenzo
• Advisor(s): Scarlat, Raluca O

Graphite is a ubiquitous material in nuclear engineering. Within Generation IV designs, graphite serves as a reflector or fuel element material in Fluoride-Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs), Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), and High-Temperature Gas Reactors (HTGRs). Graphite versatility in nuclear systems stems from its unique combination of mechanical, thermal, chemical, and neutronic properties. These properties are influenced by operational parameters like temperature, radiation, and chemical environment. In FHRs and MSRs, graphite can interact with the salt through multiple mechanisms, including salt-infiltration in graphite pores, chemical reactions with salt constituents, and tribo-chemical wear. The goal of this Ph.D. dissertation is to investigate mechanisms of interaction of fluoride salts with graphite in FHRs and assess their impact on salt reactor engineering. Chemical interactions between the salt and graphite are studied by exposing a graphite sample to 2LiF-BeF2 (FLiBe) salt and to the cover gas above the salt at 700°C for 240 hours. Chemical and microstructural characterization of the samples highlights formation of two types of C-F bonds upon exposure, with different degrees and mechanisms of fluorination upon salt and gas exposure. Infiltration of salt in graphite pores is examined by reviewing literature on infiltration and its effect and by studying salt wetting on graphite. Contact angles for salt on graphite are measured under variable conditions of graphite surface finish and salt chemistry, and used to predict salt infiltration. Wear and friction of graphite-graphite contacts at conditions relevant to pebble-bed FHR operation is studied through tribology experiments in argon and in FLiBe. Characterization via SEM/EDS, polarized light microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy is employed to seek a mechanistic understanding. Different mechanisms of lubrication are observed in the tests: in argon, graphite is observed to self-lubricate by forming a tribo-film that remains stable at high temperature in argon; in FLiBe, boundary lubrication is observed and postulated to be associated with C-F bond formation at graphite crystallite edges.

The interactions between graphite and tritium are studied. Tritium production rates in FHRs are quantified to be three orders of magnitude larger compared to light water reactors. A literature review is performed to investigate the thermodynamics and kinetics of the hydrogen-graphite interaction; the findings are employed to develop an improved model for hydrogen uptake and transport in graphite, which is used to extract tritium transport parameters from experimental studies.The experiments conducted in this dissertation indicate that the presence of the salt impacts graphite engineering performance in the reactor and after discharge in multiple ways, from providing increased lubrication to impacting graphite surface chemistry. As a further development, exploration of other areas where the salt could have an effect, including evolution of oxidation and graphite reactive sites upon neutron irradiation, in the presence of salt-exposure, is recommended.

Statistical Machine Learning for Reliable Hypothesis Generation in Biomedical Problems

• Tang, Tiffany
• Advisor(s): Yu, Bin

Given the ever-growing volume and variety of biomedical data, principled analyses of these rich datasets offer an exciting opportunity to accelerate the scientific discovery process. Here, we advance our goal of extracting reliable scientific hypotheses from such data through (I) the in-context development of interpretable statistical machine learning methods, (II) the demonstration of responsible data science in practice, and (III) the dissemination of open-source software and data for reliable data science.

Throughout this dissertation, we build heavily upon the Predictability, Computability, and Stability (PCS) framework and documentation for veridical (trustworthy) data science (Yu and Kumbier, 2020) to improve the reliability of our scientific conclusions. This framework advocates for the use of predictability as a reality check, computability as an important consideration in algorithmic design and data collection, and stability as a minimum requirement for reproducibility and interpretability in knowledge-seeking and decision-making. Moreover, it calls on the need for transparent documentation of decisions made throughout the data science pipeline.

In Part I, we highlight two statistical machine learning methods, developed within the context of grounded biomedical problems and guided by the PCS framework. First, in Chapter 2, we investigate genetic and epistatic drivers of cardiac hypertrophy in hope of obtaining a more complete understanding of the disease architecture. To this end, we develop a data-driven recommendation system, named the low-signal signed iterative random forest (lo-siRF), to identify candidate genes and gene-gene interactions that are both predictive and stable across various model and data perturbations. We then phenotypically validate these genes and gene-gene interactions via gene-silencing experiments and investigate potential mechanistic explanations for the demonstrated epistases. This leads to a hypothesis in which the identified genes interact through mediating the variable binding of transcription factors that are essential for cardiac contractile function and metabolism. Second, the practical utility of random forests and interpretability tools, not only in the search for epistasis but in a wide range of scientific problems, motivates the need for reliable tree-based feature importance measures. In Chapter 3, we demonstrate that the mean decrease in impurity (MDI), arguably the most popular random forest feature importance measure, suffers from well-known biases including against highly-correlated and low-entropy features. To overcome these drawbacks, we develop a novel feature importance framework, MDI+, which leverages a connection between MDI and the R-squared value from linear regression. We show that MDI+ improves the reliability and stability of feature importance rankings across an extensive range of data-inspired simulations and two real-data case studies on drug response prediction and breast cancer subtype prediction.

In Part II, we further expand on the theme of reliable data science and demonstrate it in practice through two collaborative projects in cancer -omics. In Chapters 4 and 5, we incorporate principles from the PCS framework while working in close collaboration with scientists and clinicians to identify stable and predictive biomarkers in drug response prediction and the early detection of pancreatic cancer, respectively.

Finally, in Part III, we introduce open-source software and data to promote and facilitate the broader adoption of reliable, transparent data science for statisticians and substantive researchers. In particular, we highlight three tools that support our goals: (1) simChef, an R package to simplify the creation of tidy, high-quality simulation studies (Chapter 6); (2) vdocs, an interactive virtual lab notebook in R to seamlessly implement, document, and justify human judgment calls throughout the data science pipeline in accordance with the PCS framework (Chapter 7); and (3) a COVID-19 data repository that aided community-wide data science efforts during the height of the pandemic (Chapter 8).

Politics of Belonging: Families and Communities Building Power to Transform Schools

• Casanova, Cassandra Diana
• Advisor(s): Fuller, Bruce

The past decade of California’s education policy landscape has been shaped by two significant events and the interaction between them. First, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), signed into law in 2013, shifted the way that the state distributes money to local school districts and implemented mandatory stakeholder engagement in allocating the funds. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic was a shock to the public school system, and though there is ample research underscoring how difficult it is to change institutions, this crisis may have created the necessary conditions for enacting consequential change. The LCFF created the potential to restructure relationships between multiple stakeholders—district leadership, school site-level administrators, families, and communities—and we can examine how groups navigated a landscape of nascent education finance reform and implemented a new process of state-mandated stakeholder engagement. The COVID-19 crisis represented a much deeper and more destabilizing shock to the relationships between families and schools. During the initial onset of emergency stay-at-home orders, the global pandemic blurred the division between home and school—living rooms became classrooms with many parents and caregivers acting as de facto teaching assistants and school coordinators. These two events offer the opportunity to study ways that the relationships between families and educators may have changed and to evaluate the extent to which these changes have allowed families to influence local education policy discussions and share in decision-making.

This dissertation project consists of three substantive chapters and uses qualitative methods to examine how, if at all, a process of state-mandated stakeholder engagement in district-wide decision-making builds power for families to influence local education policy. Additionally, I illustrate how engaging in this process impacts both the micro-level experience of the individual and the organizational level of the district. Drawing on theories that examine institutional stability and change, collective action, and the role of families in schools, the overarching questions guiding my research are the following: (a) In what ways, if any, have school finance and accountability reform changed the balance of power between families and district administrators?; (b) In what ways, if any, has state-mandated stakeholder engagement expanded participation in decision-making and the process by which decisions are made?; and (c) How has participating in mandatory stakeholder engagement during various crises and shocks shifted the role and influence of families and communities in district-wide planning and decision-making?

In Chapter 1, I conduct a research synthesis that analyzes the literature on family and community engagement, with a focus on the policies and practices that empower diverse stakeholders to participate in discussions and decision-making related to education policy. The synthesis is guided by a framework used to map school-community literature along two dimensions—social stance and power and control. These dimensions help identify the extent to which families claim ownership of physical or symbolic spaces of engagement, author and control the agenda for engagement, and co-construct or shift the norms and beliefs of the education system. Based on a review of the literature, I conclude that conflict, not collaboration, is the status quo and that rather than mitigating conflict, family engagement may create structures and support venues for open negotiation of power. Additionally, although when families own engagement spaces and author agendas, they build political power to challenge status quo policies, there is minimal evidence to suggest they shift the norms and values of the existing education system.

The case study in Chapter 2 is a micro-level analysis of the parents who participated in a district-wide advisory committee; the chapter presents the motivations that drove parents to act collectively as they sought to impact the planning process. Drawing from interview data and parents’ reports, I investigate how parents conceptualized and framed what it means to build power to influence change and to engage in the process and how this framing contributed to the collective identity and shared understandings of the parent members of the advisory committee. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews conducted in a diverse urban school district in California, this study shows how families engage in local-level decision-making and build power to influence the policies and institutions that structure their lives; the findings speak to the limitations and affordances of state-mandated stakeholder engagement.

Finally, in Chapter 3, I conduct a field-level analysis of a diverse urban school district in California to explore the implementation of school finance and accountability reform and the influence of democratic participation in expanding inclusion within policy discussions and to identify potential shifts in the balance of power between stakeholder groups seeking to impact district-wide planning. Based on participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis, my findings describe how school reform created and protected a relatively vague structure and process of mandated stakeholder engagement. It is because this engagement was codified into law that when conditions were ripe, the community could push and exert force. Therefore, while the law did not guarantee community power, it codified a process and created potential for collective action to push back against the status quo.

Understanding the Relationship between Correctional Officer Job Demands, Job Resources, & Decision-Making: Embracing Public Management Perspectives to Improve the Administration of Justice

• Harney, Jessie
• Advisor(s): Lerman, Amy E

This dissertation includes four essays, each of which speak to the importance of embracing a public management perspective in understanding the ways in which correctional officers play a critical role in the administration of justice.

Chapter 1 includes a systematic review of the literature on factors associated with violence in carceral settings, calling for greater inclusion of public management perspectives. While there are several prominent theories on what is associated with or causes violence in carceral settings, much of this work is dominated by importation theory and has been driven by analyses on limited sets of data in specific geographic contexts and with mainly individual-level factors situated largely within importation theory. This paper focuses especially on the lack of incorporation of management perspectives in the study of carceral violence. Through scraping Google Scholar results, I find that much of the literature is driven by individual-level data only, which cannot fully account for the context in which individuals are incarcerated, studies from the geographic context of the United States, largely published in criminal justice journals, and seldomly controls for staff-specific factors (i.e., disregards many crucial factors related to institutional management.) Implications for the future study of carceral violence and the limitations of the current body of evidence and our ability to develop effective solutions to carceral violence are discussed.

Chapter 2 includes co-authored work, analyzing survey data from correctional officers, focusing on how the coping mechanisms correctional officers employ to manage work-related stress, or how coping mechanisms affect workplace outcomes. To address these questions, we utilize original survey data about California correctional officers. We draw on the Stress Process Paradigm to model the relationship between exposure to violence and mental health, the impact of occupational stress on the development of coping mechanisms, and whether differential coping mechanism utilization impacts officers’ levels of cynicism and desire to leave corrections. Our findings suggest that emotion-focused coping (e.g., having someone to talk to) is associated with lower intentions to leave correctional employment, while the opposite is true for avoidant coping (i.e., alcohol abuse). These insights shed light on the problem of officer turnover and retention and provide potential direction to policymakers and practitioners seeking to create an effective, healthy workforce.

Chapter 3 includes co-authored work, focusing on the role of hierarchy in correctional officer decision-making. Hierarchy exists within bureaucratic agencies for several reasons, including to foster employee accountability. However, with hierarchy comes rigidity, and in times of emergency, this can stymie effective, expedient organizational response. Existing literature has examined the implications of hierarchy in emergency management, but limited work exists to understand hierarchy’s impacts on frontline worker decision-making during crises. In this paper, we contribute to this literature through an exploratory examination of the role of hierarchy on officer decision-making in a state prison system during the COVID-19 pandemic. As bureaucrats with the most direct interaction with incarcerated individuals, the decisions officers make have profound consequences for well-being of incarcerated people. Drawing on 50 interviews conducted amongst prison staff and incarcerated people, we utilize an expanded definition of hierarchy, one that reflects the ways in which power is granted and imposed both formally and informally. We find that correctional hierarchy is pervasive and complex, influencing officer decision-making through varying their perceived level of autonomy, despite the reality that, as street-level bureaucrats, they themselves are policymakers. Our results suggest that, to some extent, in contexts within which the imposition of hierarchy is reduced, officers autonomy may be bolstered, and this may improve their decision-making, particularly in ways that may leave incarcerated individuals under their care better-off.

Finally, Chapter 4, also including co-authored work, focuses on burnout among officers. Though correlational evidence links predictors of burnout to service delivery, limited causal evidence exists on how to improve officer well-being and how that impacts interactions with incarcerated individuals. In collaboration with a mid-sized U.S. Sheriff Department, we report results from a large-scale field experiment aimed at reducing burnout (n = 712). In an eight-week intervention, the treatment group was nudged to anonymously share experiences with others on a common platform (peer support), whereas the control was nudged to reflect on their experiences individually on a solo-access platform. Our findings suggest that peer support not only improved well-being and belonging amongst correctional officers, but also significantly improved their perceptions of incarcerated individuals. We fail to find significant differences in turnover or incident involvement, the latter of which is measured as both direct and indirect involvement in incidents within the jail or detention center. Thus, this study contributes to a burgeoning literature on how investments in public servants can causally improve well-being and perceptions of those they serve.

Meet the faculty: Eight new professors join Berkeley Haas

Berkeley Haas is welcoming eight new professors this fall to the academic faculty.  They bring expertise ranging from urban economics to consumer judgment to social influence, with research interests that include alternative work arrangements, pricing of risky assets, and ESG disclosure. 

The new tenure-track faculty will be joined by 20 new professional faculty members, with five additional lecturers starting in spring. The academic faculty also welcomes four new post-doctoral researchers and three visiting faculty members: Jillian Grennan, David Hart, and Benjamin Hébert.

We checked in with our new faculty members to learn more about their background, research, and what they’re looking forward to as a part of the Berkeley Haas community.

Meet the faculty

Erica Bailey 

Assistant Professor, Management of Organizations (MORS)

Pronouns: she/her

Hometown : Pittsburgh, Pa.

Education: PhD, Management, Columbia University BS/BA (specialization in economics), The Ohio State University

Research focus: Authenticity and self-perception

Introduction: I am originally from Pittsburgh, born into a big, loud Italian/Irish family of die-hard Steelers fans. Before I became an academic, I had a weird assortment of jobs including being a dishwasher, pizza maker, waitress, consultant, podcaster, and legislative aide. I love a good book (usually fiction), running a fun experiment, and eating Thai food.

Teaching: Leading People (MBA)

Most excited about: I’m excited to be in a place that is so research-active and at the center of so many important initiatives in making science more reliable, replicable, and inclusive.

Fun fact: I have 13 tattoos (and counting!)

Rachel Gershon

Assistant Professor, Marketing

Hometown : Wilmette, Il.

Education: PhD, Marketing, Washington University BA, Philosophy, Neuroscience, and Psychology, Washington University

Research focus: Consumer judgments and decision making, social influence, prosocial behaviors, health-related judgments and behaviors

Introduction: I study social and psychological influences of consumer judgments and behavior across a wide range of topics including polarization, vaccine hesitancy, word-of-mouth, mental health, and voting decisions. I collaborate with businesses and nonprofits to translate laboratory findings into practical applications in real-world settings.  

Teaching: Social Influence and Word of Mouth

Most excited about: I’m most excited about the research being done at Haas, and to learn from and work with my new colleagues.

Fun fact: I love backpacking and rafting and I’m rafting the Copper River in Alaska later this year. I also enjoy hiking around the Bay Area (send me recommendations please!). Some of my favorites so far are the Dipsea trail and Purisima Creek.

Samuel Kapon  

Assistant Professor, Business & Public Policy (BPP)

Pronouns: he/him

Hometown : Fair Lawn, NJ

Education: PhD, Economics, New York University BA, Economics and Mathematics, Brandeis University

Research focus: Mechanism design

Introduction: My work primarily focuses on mechanism design applied to public policy enforcement and regulation. In recent work, my co-authors and I partnered with a municipality in Peru to apply insights from mechanism design to the collection of property taxes. In a series of ongoing projects, I study the design of leniency and amnesty policies in a variety of contexts, including antitrust and tax collection.

Teaching: Political Economy – Frameworks (MBA)

Most excited about: I am excited to join a remarkable research community, and to work with the amazing faculty in the BPP group.

Fun fact: After failing to grow tomatoes for years in New York, I am excited to have a chance to succeed in California.

Assistant Professor, Accounting

Hometown : Gyeonggi, South Korea

Education: PhD, Accounting, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania BSc in Economics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Research focus: ESG disclosure and corporate governance

Introduction: I’m excited to be a new assistant professor of accounting at the Haas School of Business. My research interests are focused on ESG (environmental, social, governance) disclosure, governance and incentives, and voluntary disclosure. In my dissertation, I examine how investors with heterogeneous preferences respond differently to companies’ carbon net-zero pledges and to the credibility of these pledges. I show that while some green funds seem to carefully examine the credibility of companies’ net-zero commitments and respond accordingly, there exist other green funds that seem to focus on the label, rewarding companies for simply announcing these pledges.

When I’m not working, I enjoy playing and watching tennis.

Teaching: Managerial Accounting (Undergraduate)

Most excited about: The people at Haas! (and perfect weather)

Fun fact: I have begun to learn and hone my skills in the art of Texas-style barbecue.

Eben Lazarus  

Assistant Professor, Finance

Hometown : Washington, DC

Education: PhD, Economics, Harvard University BA, Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Research focus: Asset prices and financial markets, macroeconomics, behavioral economics, and econometric methodology

Introduction: My research uses financial markets to answer questions about the underlying structure of the economy, with a particular focus on people’s beliefs and preferences about future risks. For example, why are risky asset prices so volatile, and what can we learn from this volatility about how people update their beliefs when they receive new information? How are shorter-term risks perceived relative to longer-term risks? While these projects are all related to asset pricing, they also reflect my interests in macroeconomics, behavioral economics, and econometrics. I’m really excited to continue this work—and branch out into new areas—with the exceptionally talented and diverse community of students and researchers at Haas.

Teaching: Introduction to Finance (Undergraduate), Investments and Derivatives (MFE)

Most excited about: I’m really excited to engage with both the Haas community and the Department of Economics, where a ton of exciting work is being done in all of my areas of research interest. I’m also thrilled to be at a university with such a rich history and tradition of faculty engagement with the world around them. And on a personal level, I’ve lived on the East Coast nearly my whole life and am excited to explore the Bay Area.

Fun fact: I have a dog named Pluto—named after the Greek god of the underworld, not the non-planet or cartoon dog—who’s also excited to explore the trails around Berkeley. Otherwise, I love reading (and very occasionally writing) short fiction.

Antoine Levy  

Assistant Professor, Real Estate

Hometown : Paris, France

Education: PhD, Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) MA, Economics, Paris School of Economics MSc, Management, HEC Paris BA, Economics, Paris-Sorbonne University École Normale Supérieure Ulm, Élève normalien

Research focus: Urban economics and public finance

Introduction: I am a French economist, specializing in public finance and urban economics. I would describe my research as being about “places and policies, and the way they interact.” That means understanding the role that economic geography plays in the differential impact of public policies across cities and regions. In recent research, I’ve applied this investigation of the feedback loops between government interventions and the geography of an economy to the impact of housing subsidies and taxation, to retirement policies, and to international trade patterns.

Teaching: Urban and Real Estate Economics (Undergraduate and MBA)

Most excited about: Haas is a world-class institution, harboring many of the top experts in the type of work I’ve been doing: combining large-scale datasets to better understand people’s geographic mobility and financial decisions. Berkeley as a whole is also a fantastic beehive of economists, not only at Haas but throughout the university’s various schools, and that makes it a stimulating environment to work in and produce high-quality research.

Fun fact: When quite young, I appeared on a French reality TV show called “Who wants to be the President?”, a version of American idol for politics.

Alexandre Mas

Professor, Economic Analysis & Policy 

Hometown : Boston, MA

Education: PhD, Economics, Princeton BA, Macalester College

Research focus: Labor market topics including; alternative work arrangements, fairness considerations and norms in the labor market, unemployment, social interactions, neighborhood segregation, the labor market effects of credit market disruptions, and unions.

Introduction: I am returning this year to Haas after a 14-year detour at Princeton University. From 2009 to 2011, I served as the associate director for economic policy and chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget in the Executive Office of the President, and as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. 

Teaching: Data Analytics (MBA)

Most excited about: The intellectual energy.

Fun fact: My first job in high school was playing the toy soldier at FAO Schwarz. I was the only applicant who fit in the costume .

Cailin Slattery

Hometown : Nyack, NY

Education: PhD, Economics, University of Virginia BA, Economics and Math, Washington and Lee University

Research focus: I am an economist working at the intersection of public finance, industrial organization, and political economy.

Introduction: My research centers on the relationship between local governments and firms.  My current projects in the U.S. setting involve state and local economic development policy, state procurement policy, and state regulation of automobile dealers. Before joining Haas, I worked at Columbia Business School as an assistant professor.

Teaching: Strategy (EWMBA)

Most excited about: I am excited for the amazing colleagues in the BPP group at Haas, and the broader economics community in Berkeley. I’m lucky to already be working with two co-authors who are at Berkeley, and finally we can have our meetings in person! I am also looking forward to taking advantage of the local amenities, and have many weekend trips planned: Yosemite, Sonoma, Point Reyes, etc.!

Fun fact: In my free time I enjoy running, playing tennis, and spending time with my husband and daughter.

Meet the post-docs

Luisa Cefala

PhD institution: UC Berkeley

Area of study: Development and behavioral economics

Hometown: Treviglio, Italy

Felix Owusu

PhD institution: Harvard University

Area of study: Public policy (economics track)

Hometown: Techiman, Ghana

Antonia Paredes

PhD institution: Yale University

Area of study: Political economy and development

Hometown: Santiago, Chile

Paul Vicinanza

PhD institution: Stanford Graduate School of Business

Area of study: Macro-organizational behavior

Hometown: Marietta, GA

The post Meet the faculty: Eight new professors join Berkeley Haas appeared first on Haas News | Berkeley Haas .

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