Interview with Julia Sizek: Regulating Off-Roading in the California Desert
Release Date: 02/26/2025
Incommunicable: Toward Communicative Justice in Health and Medicine
Matrix Podcast
Recorded on April 9, 2026, this Authors Meet Critics panel features the book , by Charles Briggs, the Alan Dundes Distinguished Professor and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, co-director and graduate advisor of the UCB-UCSF Joint PhD Program in Medical Anthropology, and co-director of the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine. Professor Briggs was joined in conversation by Elinor Ochs, Distinguished Research Professor of Anthropology at UCLA, and Eric Snoey, Department of Emergency Medicine, Alameda Health System at Highland Hospital and Clinical Professor in Emergency...
info_outline
Authors Meet Critics: Trevor Jackson, "The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World"
Matrix Podcast
On April 7, 2026, Social Science Matrix hosted an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book , by Trevor Jackson, Associate Professor of History at UC Berkeley. Professor Jackson was joined in conversation by Chenzi Xu, Assistant Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley, and Dylan Riley, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley. Abhishek Kaicker, Associate Professor of History, moderated. The book series features lively discussions about recently published books authored by social scientists at UC Berkeley. For each event, the author discusses the key arguments of their book with fellow scholars. These...
info_outline
Matrix on Point: The U.S. Dollar Hegemony in Transition
Matrix Podcast
The global dominance of the U.S. dollar has long shaped international trade, financial markets, and geopolitical power. Amid shifting global dynamics and the rapid development of stablecoins and other digital assets, new questions are emerging around the structure and evolution of dollar hegemony. How are technological innovation and geopolitical change reshaping the international monetary system, and what possibilities lie ahead? Recorded on April 8, 2026, this panel brought together scholars and industry voices to examine the foundation of U.S. monetary influence and the role of financial...
info_outline
Julien Migozzi: "Algorithms of Distinction: Class, Credit Scores, and Property in South Africa"
Matrix Podcast
Recorded on March 18, 2026, this podcast features a lecture by Julien Migozzi, an economic geographer and Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge. Dr Migozzi’s lecture, “Algorithms of Distinction: Class, Credit Scores, and Property in South Africa,” examined how 21st-century class dynamics become connected with data-driven stratification systems, focusing on the digital transformation of property markets. This talk was part of a symposium series presented by the UC Berkeley Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System (CRELS) training program...
info_outline
California Spotlight: Higher Education Under Attack
Matrix Podcast
Higher education is facing mounting pressures, from political intervention and financial challenges to attacks on academic freedom. These tensions are visible in the University of California system, where debates over funding, governance, labor, and public mission are increasingly shaping the future of public universities. Recorded on February 9, 2026, this panel brought together leading scholars to examine the forces challenging public higher education today. Drawing on areas spanning finance, policy, and labor, the discussion explored how these dynamics are shaping the UC System, and what is...
info_outline
Matrix Teach-In: Ula Taylor, “The Making of Frances M. Beal’s Black Feminist House”
Matrix Podcast
Recorded on February 19, 2026, this video presents a lecture by , Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies & African Diaspora Studies. The talk centered on Professor Taylor’s current work in progress, an oral biography of Frances M. Beal. The talk was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Department of African American Studies and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. A transcript of this talk is available at . About Matrix Teach-Ins Matrix Teach-Ins are a new series designed to bring UC Berkeley’s most engaging social science lectures into a public...
info_outline
Matrix on Point: Corruption in America
Matrix Podcast
Corruption is a persistent challenge in America, shaping institutions, influencing policy, and eroding public trust. Understanding its roots, mechanisms, and consequences is essential for assessing the health of democratic governance. On February 3, 2026, Social Science Matrix brought together leading scholars from business, political science, and law to examine the many facets of corruption in the United States and the ways it is identified, constrained, and addressed. Co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Departments of Economics and Political Science, this Matrix on Point panel featured Sarah...
info_outline
“Some College” and the Social Function of Higher Education: An Interview with Sarah Payne
Matrix Podcast
What are the economic consequences of starting, but not completing college? On this episode of the Matrix Podcast, Sarah Harrington, Program Manager at Social Science Matrix, spoke with , a sociologist who recently published a in Sociology of Education that examined what happens when students begin college but fail to graduate. “Although non-completion yields higher income than never attending college, it also increases financial hardship among more-disadvantaged groups through the mechanism of student debt,” Payne wrote. “However, non-completers of most groups would have had greater...
info_outline
Alexis Madrigal: "To Know A Place"
Matrix Podcast
Recorded on December 4, 2025, this video features a Social Science Matrix Distinguished Lecture, “To Know a Place,” presented by journalist and author Alexis Madrigal. Madrigal has long explored how technology, culture, and environment shape our lives; from his work co-founding The COVID Tracking Project to his books Powering the Dream and The Pacific Circuit. In this talk, Madrigal turns his attention to the question of how we come to know a place. Drawing on his background as a reporter, writer, and thinker of cities, landscapes, and histories, he explores different ways of...
info_outline
Maximilian Kasy: “The Means of Prediction: How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits)”
Matrix Podcast
Recorded on December 2, 2025, this video features a talk by Maximilian Kasy, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford, presenting his book This talk was part of a symposium series presented by the (CRELS), which trains doctoral students representing a variety of degree programs and expertise areas in the social sciences, computer science and statistics. The talk was co-sponsored by Social Science Matrix, the (BESI) Tech Cluster, the (BIDS), and the . A transcript of this recording can be found at . About the Book AI is inescapable, from its mundane uses online to its...
info_outlineJulia Sizek is a writer and anthropologist who studies the California desert and rural land management more broadly. Her work focuses on the politics of land in the California desert, including: the cultural politics of conservation acquisition in the railroad checkerboard, the rhetoric of environmental impact reporting, and the legal geographies of off-highway vehicle use. In addition to this work, Julia has also led the qualitative portion of the 30-year social and economic monitoring for the Northwest Forest Plan. Previously, Julia was a postdoctoral scholar at Berkeley’s Social Science Matrix, running programs, planning events, and interviewing social scientists about their research. Julia also hosted the Matrix Podcast.
In this interview, recorded in Spring 2024, Sizek talked with Marion Fourcade, Director of Social Science Matrix, about her paper “Impossible evidence: The legal dismal cycle of regulating off-roading in the California desert,” published in Geoforum. The paper traces a 40-year battle over off-road vehicle use in the California desert through the concept of "impossible evidence," evidence that is legally demanded but cannot or does not exist. In a forthcoming summer 2025 article in Environmental History, Julia builds on this story by detailing the rise of the “Bureau of Livestock and Motorcycles” in California.
A transcript of this episode can be found at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/sizek-interview.