Brilliance of Berkeley (Spring 2026)

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L&S 110 001 - LEC 001: Brilliance of Berkeley

In Person: VLSB 2040, Fridays 12:00 - 2:00 p.m. | Online | 1 Unit (P/NP)

What is Brilliance of Berkeley?

Brilliance of Berkeley is a course that is open to all UC Berkeley students. The course is designed to engage in a celebration of the exceptional instruction, research, and knowledge of UC Berkeley’s diverse faculty. Each week, participants will engage in guest lectures from luminary faculty representing Berkeley’s wide range of colleges and schools, including Nobel Laureates, MacArthur "genius' fellows, UC Berkeley Distinguished Professors, and more.

Goals of the course include inspiring participants to: 

  • Explore the extraordinary instructors, their learning, and their teaching at UC Berkeley across a diverse range of topics  

  • Celebrate participation in the UC Berkeley community

  • Explore areas of academic interest - and open the door to new ones

  • Learn more about research and learning opportunities on the UC Berkeley campus

  • Identify what kinds of learning experiences, resources, and class structures might best support academic engagement at UC Berkeley and beyond, as lifelong learners

You get to hear straight from the best sources out there! What an amazing experience just to hear the stories of these amazing people. I'm already making a 'fun classes to take because the professor is cool' list.
Spring 2024 student

Spring 2026 Instructors of Record

Rich Lyons

Chancellor

Oliver O'Reilly

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education

Jennifer Johnson-Hanks

Executive Dean, College of Letters & Science

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Chrystal Chern

Chrystal Chern is the weekly lecturer and moderator for Brilliance of Berkeley Spring 2026.

Spring 2026 Speakers

Week 1 | Friday, January 23 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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Omar Yaghi

James and Neeltje Tretter Chair; Professor of Chemistry; 2025 Nobel Laureate

Carbon Capture, Water Harvesting from Air, and AI for Materials

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Nicole Starosielski

Professor of Film & Media
How to Build a Sustainable Internet: Lessons from Subsea

Week 2 | Friday, January 30 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

Professor Ted Miguel

Ted Miguel

Distinguished Professor of Economics; Oxfam Professor in Environmental and Resource Economics; Faculty co-Director, Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA)

Do Cash Transfers Save Lives?

Portrait of a smiling older man with fair skin, wearing glasses, a burgundy sweater over a light blue collared shirt, and against a blurry background of a window looking out to green trees.

Randy Schekman

Professor of Cell Biology, Development and Physicology, 2013 Nobel Laureate

Cells, Genes and Discovery in Basic Science and Disease

Week 3 | Friday, February 6 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

Britt Glaunsinger

Professor of Plant & Microbial Biology

Viruses reveal the secrets of biology

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Alex Filippenko

Distinguished Professor of Astronomy

Exciting Results from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

Week 4 | Friday, February 13 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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Carlos J. Bustamante

Professor of Chemistry, Physics and Molecular and Cell Biology; The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Professor in Biophysics

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Erwin Chemerinsky

13th Dean; Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law

Campus Speech and Academic Freedom

Week 5 | Friday, February 20 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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Dacher Keltner

Professor of Psychology

AWE

Lindy Elkins-Tanton and a second engineer in cleanroom working under a spacecraft, examining the structure and components.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton

Professor of Earth and Planetary Science

No One Sits by Silently: How I Came to Lead a NASA Space Mission

Week 6 | Friday, February 27 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

Caroline Reid

Carolina Reid

Associate Professor of City & Regional Planning, I. Donald Terner Distinguished Professor

Housing Costs and the Rise of Affordability Politics

Professor Arlie Hochschild

Arlie Hochschild

Professor Emerita of Sociology, UC Berkeley, author of STOLEN PRIDE

The Politics of Pride and Shame

Week 7 | Friday, March 6 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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Jovan Scott Lewis

Professor and Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities

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Stuart Russell

Michael H. Smith and Lotfi A. Zadeh Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Cognitive Science, and Computational Precision Health

Artificial Intelligence: Some Thoughts?

Week 8 | Friday, March 13 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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Alanna Schepartz

The T.Z. and Irmgard Chu Distinguished Chair in Chemistry

New molecules from nature’s most sophisticated catalyst

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Hany Farid

Professor in the School of Information

Reality in the Era of Deepfakes

Week 9 | Friday, March 20 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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David Barstow

Chair of the Investigative Reporting Program at Berkeley Journalism

Walter Hood

Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Urban Design

Hybrid Landscapes

Week 10 | Friday, April 3 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

A woman with red-brown hair, wearing a black blazer, smiles while holding a molecule model made of red and black spheres. Other molecule models in various colors sit on the table. In the background, there are screens with charts.

Kristin Persson

Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor in Materials Science and Engineering

Why Materials Matter — and Why Data Changes Everything

Jennifer Doudna

HHMI Investigator; Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences; Professor, Depts. of Molecular & Cell Biology and Chemistry; 2020 Nobel Laureate

The Chemistry of CRISPR: Origins and Opportunities of RNA-guided Genome Editing

Week 11 | Friday, April 10 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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Saul Perlmutter

Franklin W. and Karen Weber Dabby Professor, 2011 Nobel Laureate

What We Learn When We Learn that the Universe is Accelerating

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Marika Landau-Wells

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Perceived Threats, Imagined Solutions

Week 12 | Friday, April 17 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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Alva Noë

Professor of Philosophy

Love and Consciousness

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Pieter Abbeel

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Success Stories of Some of My Most Storied Students

Week 13 | Friday, April 24 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

Doris Tsao

Professor of Biology

How the Brain Represents the Visual World

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Meredith Fowlie

Professor; Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor in Energy; Dept of Agricultural & Resource Economics

The Price of Power: How Energy Markets Shape the Costs and Consequences of Climate Change

Week 14 | Friday, May 1 | 12:00-2:00 p.m.

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Alison Gopnik

Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School

Three Ages and Three Intelligences: Exploit, Explore, Empower

Peter Jenks

Peter Jenks

Associate Professor, Linguistics

What is Language?

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