Announcements

In a new opinion essay in The New York Times, Julie Klinger (PhD '15) takes on one of today’s most urgent geopolitical questions: Who really controls the world’s rare earth elements?

In this timely piece, Klinger challenges the dominant narrative that the United States is helplessly dependent on China for the critical minerals that power everything from electric vehicles to defense technologies. She argues that China’s dominance is not inevitable — nor purely geological — but the result of decades of policy, industrial strategy, and global supply chain decisions.

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In an interview with UC Berkeley's Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarships, Shreya Chaudhuri (BA '25), Stronach Prize recipient and founder of Project Planet, shared how her interdisciplinary research in environmental science and geography—rooted in her family’s tea-farming heritage in Assam—has driven her work to advance ecological and economic justice through her “Chai for Change” initiative and community-centered climate action. Read the whole interview...

“Not enough hands, rather than too many mouths, is the bigger challenge to food security in the future.”

Clark University recently spotlighted the impactful work of Geography alum Gustavo Oliveira (PhD ’17) in the latest edition of Questa, the university’s annual research publication. Oliveira, now a professor of Geography at Clark, is featured in the article “How to Feed a Hungry World,” which...

We are proud to announce that Andrea Lara-García has been named a recipient of the 2026 Mike Synar Graduate Research Fellowship, awarded by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.

The Synar Fellowship recognizes distinguished UC Berkeley graduate students conducting innovative scholarship that deepens understanding of political institutions, public policy, and civic life. Lara-García's project, "Who Owns...