Matrix Podcast

Monica Ellwood-Lowe is a PhD candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology whose research focuses on differences between outcomes for students of different socioeconomic status, as well as the societal barriers that might hinder student success. Ellwood-Lowe tries to answer such questions as, what skills do children develop when they come from socioeconomically disadvantaged homes, even in the face of societal barriers to success? Do children’s brains simply adapt to their respective environments? Ellwood-Lowe is co-mentored by Professors Mahesh Srinivasan and Silvia Bunge. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University. Her work is supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship, and the Greater Good Science Center. For this episode of the Matrix podcast, Matrix Content Curator Julia Sizek spoke with Ellwood-Lowe about her recent research on the topic of children’s cognitive performance, and how we might think about removing barriers to children’s success.  A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/reconsidering-the-achievement-gap-an-interview-with-monica-ellwood-lowe/.

On this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek spoke with two scholars whose work focuses on explaining how mass incarceration has changed over the last 30 years. Alex Roehrkasse is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Butler University. He studies the production of racial class and gender inequality in the United States through violence and social control. He was previously a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Sociology at Duke University and at the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect at Cornell University. Christopher Muller is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies the political economy of incarceration in the United States from Reconstruction to the present. He is particularly interested in how agricultural labor markets, migration, and struggles over land and labor have affected incarceration and racial and class inequality in incarceration. His work has been published in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology, Demography, Social Forces, and Science.  A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/the-rise-of-mass-incarceration-interview-with-chris-muller-and-alex-roehrkasse/

Why do people choose to go to college (or not)? What impact do race-based or financial aid policies have on higher education and the broader economy? In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek spoke with two UC Berkeley-trained economists whose research focuses on higher education and its impact on the broader economy. Maximilian Müller completed his PhD in Economics at UC Berkeley this year and is now starting a position as Postdoctoral Fellow at the briq Institute on Behavior & Inequality in Bonn. In Fall 2023 he will join the Toulouse School of Economics as an Assistant Professor. Maximilian is a behavioral economist studying questions in fields such as education, development, and family economics. In his research, he examines social influences on individual behavior around big life decisions, such as career choices, and their potential consequences for society-wide outcomes, such as social mobility. Prior to his PhD, he obtained an M.Phil. in Economics from the University of Oxford and a B.Sc. in Economics from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Zach Bleemer is an Assistant Professor of economics at the Yale School of Management and a research associate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education. His current research uses natural experiments to examine the net efficiency and equity ramifications of educational meritocracy, with recent studies on race-based affirmative action, race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action, and university policies that restrict access to high-demand college majors. Zach holds a BA in philosophy, economics, and mathematics from Amherst College and a PhD in economics from UC Berkeley. A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/economic-benefits-of-higher-education-zach-bleemer-and-maximilian-muller/

In countries around the world, the "Green Revolution" has changed the scale and economy of growing crops, as pesticides, fertilizers, and new kinds of hybrid seeds have transformed the agricultural production process. In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek spoke with two UC Berkeley scholars who study agrarian life in India, where farmers have been forced to adapt in the face of new technologies, as well as environmental and social change. Tanya Matthan is a S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow in Berkeley’s Department of Geography. An economic anthropologist and political ecologist, she finished her PhD in Anthropology at UCLA in 2021. Her current book project, tentatively titled, The Monsoon and the Market: Economies of Risk in Rural India, examines experiences of and responses to agrarian uncertainty among farmers in central India.  Aarti Sethi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Berkeley. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist with primary interests in agrarian anthropology, political-economy, and the study of South Asia. Her book manuscript, Cotton Fever in Central India, examines cash-crop economies to understand how monetary debt undertaken for transgenic cotton-cultivation transforms intimate, social, and productive relations in rural society. A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/a-changing-landscape-for-farmers-in-india-an-interview-with-aarti-sethi-and-tanya-matthan/

How do American child welfare and obstetric healthcare converge? Matty Lichtenstein, a recent PhD from Berkeley’s Sociology Department, studies how state and professional organizations shape social and health inequalities in maternal and child welfare. Her current book project focuses on evolving conceptions of risk in social work and medicine, illustrated by a study of the intertwined development of American child and perinatal protective policies. She is working on several collaborations related to this theme, including studies of maltreatment-related fatality rates, the racialization of medical reporting of substance exposed infants, and risk assessment in child welfare. In another stream of research, she has written on social policy change, with a focus on educational regulation and political advocacy, and she has conducted research on culture, religion, and politics. Dr. Lichtenstein’s work has been published in American Journal of Sociology, Qualitative Methods, and Sociological Methods and Research. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. In this interview, Matrix content curator Julia Sizek asks Lichtenstein about her research on the transformation of American child welfare and the impact of that transformation on contemporary maternal and infant health practices. A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/institutionalizing-child-welfare-an-interview-with-matty-lichtenstein/

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was insulted on the Capitol steps in July 2020, it was a brief media sensation. But what does being called an “effing bitch” mean for how we think about political speech?  This episode of the Matrix Podcast features an interview with Gabriella Licata, a PhD candidate in Romance Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley, who discusses how the standard language ideologies of political speech come to shape perceptions of language and people in Congress. Gabriella utilizes mixed methodologies to assess language behavior and linguistic bias in sociolinguistic experiments, social media, and political discourse. She tells us about her paper, recently published in Journal of Language and Discrimination, which discusses the aftermath of an insult on the Capitol steps, and how it reveals the norms of American political speech. A transcript of this is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/race-gender-and-political-speech-an-interview-with-gabriella-licata/.

This episode features an interview with Victoria Netanus Grubbs, Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow with the Black Studies Collaboratory. Grubbs is a black feminist abolitionist educator committed to developing radical leadership in underserved communities in the U.S. and abroad. She completed her PhD in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University in May 2021. Her current book project, Kumva Meze Neza: Sounding Blackness in Rwanda, examines how popular Rwandan music works in the aftermath of genocide to produce a collective social body. Drawing on five years of participant observation amongst Rwandan music industry professionals and their audiences, her work demonstrates how shared investments in the sensory experience of blackness produce formations of togetherness that defy traditional organizing categories. Grubbs was interviewed by Julia Sizek, Matrix Content Curator and a PhD Candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology. A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/listening-to-rwandan-popular-music-with-victoria-netanus-grubbs/.

In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek interviews David M. Henkin, the Margaret Byrne Professor of History at UC Berkeley, about his new book, The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that Make Us Who We Are. Henkin’s primary field of research is US history, and his interests include 19-century urban history, the history of reading and writing, and popular culture. He lives in San Francisco, California, and Bozeman, Montana. A transcript of this interview is available at: https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/what-happened-to-the-week-an-interview-with-david-henkin/  

In this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Julia Sizek interviews Biz Herman, a PhD candidate in the UC Berkeley Department of Political Science, a Visiting Scholar at The New School for Social Research’s Trauma and Global Mental Health Lab, and a Predoctoral Research Fellow with the Human Trafficking Vulnerability Lab. Her dissertation, Individual Trauma, Collective Security: The Consequences of Conflict and Forced Migration on Social Stability, investigates the psychological effects of living through conflict and forced displacement, and how these individual traumas shape social life.  In the podcast, we talk about Biz’s research on mental health and social stability at the Za’atri Refugee Camp in Jordan.  A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/individual-trauma-social-outcomes-an-interview-with-biz-herman/. About Biz Herman Biz Herman is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley, a Visiting Scholar at The New School for Social Research’s Trauma and Global Mental Health Lab, and a Predoctoral Research Fellow with the Human Trafficking Vulnerability Lab. Her research examines the ways in which experiencing trauma and violence — both at the individual level (personal traumas) and collective level (national tragedies) — shape sociopolitical outcomes relevant to peace and security. Her book project, Individual Trauma, Collective Security: The Consequences of Conflict and Forced Migration on Social Stability, investigates how the psychological consequences of living through conflict and forced displacement shape intergroup dynamics, prosocial behavior, and support for peace and reconciliation efforts. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the University of California Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation (IGCC) Dissertation Fellowship, the Simpson Memorial Research Fellowship in International & Comparative Studies, the Malini Chowdhury Fellowship on Bangladesh Studies, and the Georg Eckert Institute Research Fellowship. Along with collaborators Justine M. Davis & Cecilia H. Mo, she received the IGCC Academic Conference Grant to convene the inaugural Human Security, Violence, and Trauma Conference in May 2021. This multidisciplinary meeting brought together over 170 policymakers, practitioners, and researchers from political science, behavioral economics, psychology, and public health for a two-day seminar on the implications of conflict and forced migration. She has served as an Innovation Fellow at Beyond Conflict’s Innovation Lab, which applies research findings from cognitive and behavioral science to the study of social conflict and belief formation. In addition to her academic work, Biz is an Emmy-nominated photojournalist and a regular contributor to The New York Times. In 2019, she pitched and co-photographed The Women of the 116th Congress, which included portraits of 130 out of 131 women members of Congress, shot in the style of historical portrait paintings. The story ran as a special section featuring 27 different covers, and was subsequently published as a book, with a foreword by Roxane Gay.

In this episode of the Matrix podcast, Julia Sizek (a PhD candidate in anthropology at UC Berkeley) interviews Clare Ibarra, a PhD candidate in history at UC Berkeley, and Naomi Schoenfeld, a public health nurse practitioner and recent PhD from the joint UC San Francisco/UC Berkeley medical anthropology program. Both Ibarra and Schoenfeld study the history and present of socialist science and medicine in Cuba. Ibarra examines the scientific exchange between Cuba and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, whereas Shoenfeld researches the Cuban cancer vaccine and its history. On the podcast, Sizek, Ibarra, and Schoenfeld discuss the history of science and medicine in Cuba and its relationship to the socialist project, as well as how Cuba has developed vaccines during the current pandemic. A transcript of this interview is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/science-and-socialism-in-cuba/.