Fiat Vox

As drought and the effects of climate change continue to threaten the water supply that Californians rely on, experts at UC Berkeley are looking for new ways to generate an ongoing, stable water supply in its cities that is not as reliant on the weather. "Californians are leaders worldwide in the recycling of water," says David Sedlak, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of the Berkeley Water Center. There's just one problem that needs to be solved — and if it is, it could open up water recycling opportunities in many parts of the world.Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News.If you haven't already, follow Berkeley Voices and review us on Apple Podcasts!(UC Berkeley illustration by Neil Freese; Music by Blue Dot Sessions) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Joshua Kyan Aalampour was 16, he taught himself to play the piano using a cheap 61-key keyboard and videos on YouTube. Four years later, Joshua is a music student at UC Berkeley. He has performed his work at Lincoln Center, written a symphony and composed a score for a feature-length film. He teaches music to students around the world. He performs a new piece for TikTok every day. All while taking at least 26 credits each semester so that he can graduate this May — two years early.Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News. (The page will go live Friday afternoon.) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today, we share an episode of The Science of Happiness, a podcast produced by our colleagues at the Greater Good Science Center. Host and UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner talks with Berkeley Journalism professor and bestselling author Michael Pollan about what it was like for Pollan to give up Twitter — something that he found was becoming a somewhat unproductive compulsion.Next week, we'll be back with our final Berkeley Voices episode of the season. Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News.(Artwork by Whitney Anderson) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ehren Tool is the ceramics studio manager in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley and a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War. In his off-time, he makes brutal-looking clay cups to start conversations about war. Since 2001, he has made and given away more than 21,000 of them. Here he is — in his own words — talking about his cups. Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News.This audio is from a video about Tool that was published with a feature story on Berkeley News in February 2020.If you have a moment, please give Berkeley Voices a rating and a short review on Apple Podcasts. (Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 2018, China enacted a policy that effectively banned the import of most plastics and other materials. "That really, I think, was the Chinese government drawing a line in the sand and saying, 'Look, we don’t want to be seen as the world’s garbage dump anymore,'" said Kate O'Neill, a professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and author of the 2019 book Waste. The United States, which had been shipping some 700,000 tons of recyclable waste to China each year, faced a crisis. Since then, communities across the U.S. have curtailed collections or put an end to their recycling programs altogether. Waste has been piling up, leaving many wondering: What now? At UC Berkeley, the Cal Zero Waste team has been hard at work answering this question. "We’re really talking about not just recycling, but reducing, reusing and composting," said Lin King, manager of Cal Zero Waste. "Really, it comes down to what you purchase and that mentality of how you get to zero waste." Listen to

The labor economist and UC Berkeley professor of economics, who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in economics, talks about why his research on the economics of the minimum wage, immigration and education was so controversial — and how it continues to be today. Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. (UC Berkeley photo by Keegan Houser) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In January 2015, 15-year-old Mariana Soto Sanchez woke up one Saturday morning at her home in Ontario, California, with weakness in her hand. Within minutes, the feeling had spread throughout her body. Her parents rushed her to the hospital. By the time they got there, she had total paralysis. Later that night, they found out she had a rare disorder called transverse myelitis. From that point on, Mariana had to adjust to an entirely new way of living. Six years later, Mariana has regained some mobility and will graduate from UC Berkeley this December with a degree in media studies and a minor in journalism. She says she continues to learn how to advocate for herself in a world that isn’t built for her. “I felt like I would place limitations on myself,” says Mariana. “But it’s really just limitations imposed by society that prevent me from achieving what I want to achieve.” And she has done things she never thought she could — including going to her first Cal football game, a dream she had since she

Growing up in a Mexican household in San Diego, California, Berkeley student Alexa Carrillo Espinoza says there was always dancing in her home. She'd always wanted to try ballet folklórico, a traditional Mexican dance, but never had the chance. So, when she saw Ballet Folklórico Reflejos de Mexico tabling on Sproul Plaza as a first-year student in 2019, she signed up right away. "As I dance, I have this overwhelming sense of pride," she says. Listen to the episode, see photos and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Third-year UC Berkeley student Maryam Karimi was born in Afghanistan in September 2001. A month later, the United States invaded Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. The Taliban was ousted from power, but everyday violence remained. Her family applied for asylum and eventually settled in Fremont, California, when Maryam was 12. Now, she and her family watch as the Taliban once again takes control of their home country. But Maryam knows that Afghans — especially her generation — won't give up. “The fire of revolution and freedom is lit in their hearts. And with a little breeze, it's going to burn brighter than ever before," she said. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. (Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Berkeley News writer Kara Manke discusses a new report from UC Berkeley that shows how allowing lightning fires to burn in Yosemite’s Illilouette Creek Basin recreated a lost — and more resilient — forest ecosystem. Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. (Photo by Emily Gonthier) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this interview, Savala Nolan, executive director of Berkeley's social justice center, talks about the "deeply corporeal nature" of her new memoir, Don't Let It Get You Down. "The body is where it all happens," she says. "It's where we experience life. It’s where we experience the world — the joys and the frictions. It’s where we experience the categories and the divisions in the world. They’re very often about our bodies and how other people see our bodies. And so, I think that our bodies become, over time, the site of so much knowledge and epiphany and humor and insight and also lies — we all probably believe lies about our bodies." Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Over the summer, we have been revisiting some of our favorite episodes. In this episode, from 2018, then-Ph.D. candidate Sonia Travaglini talks about how we could use fungi, of which there are more than 5 million species, to mitigate a wide range of environmental and social crises — just by letting them eat our waste. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. (UC Berkeley photo by Elena Zhukova) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

While Fiat Vox is on summer break, we have been revisiting some of our favorite episodes. Today’s episode, originally released in April 2019, is a conversation between UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and Professor Emerita Carol Clover about what it was like for women in the academy 50 years ago and how it has changed. They also discuss what it takes to be a strong leader and offer advice to the next generation of Berkeley women. See photos and read a transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

While Fiat Vox is on summer break, we have been revisiting some of our favorite episodes. Today's episode, originally released in February 2020, is about how the 1955-56 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, which lasted for more than a year, was led by a group of Black women activists working behind the scenes: the Women's Political Council. In June, this episode received a gold award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), as part of the 2021 CASE Circle of Excellence Awards. Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fiat Vox is going on summer break! We'll be back with new episodes in mid-August. In the meantime, we'll be revisiting some of our favorite episodes. Here's one from 2019 about UC Berkeley staffer Erika Johnson, who talks about why her family fled Ukraine after World War II and how ballet connects her to her culture like nothing else does. (Today, Erika is a development coordinator on the major gifts team with University Development and Alumni Relations (UDAR) at UC Berkeley. When this episode first came out, she had a different position with UDAR.)Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today, in the final episode of a three-part series, playwright and UC Berkeley professor Philip Kan Gotanda discusses how, in his Asian American theater workshop, he encourages students to approach issues, like anti-Asian violence, from an "inside-out" point of view, where they look at the world with Asians at the center. We also hear from a student, Wesley Tam, about how Gotanda’s workshop inspired Tam to start the ARC Repertory Theatre on campus.Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the second part of a three-part series, playwright and UC Berkeley professor Philip Kan Gotanda discusses how he began to write music during the emerging Asian American movement, which began at Berkeley in the late 1960s. And how, after his music career didn’t take off as he’d hoped, he went to law school, where he wrote his first play. Now, he’s one of the most prolific playwrights of Asian American-themed work in the United States.Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Philip Kan Gotanda is a professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies and one of the most prolific playwrights of Asian American-themed work in the United States. In the first episode of a three-part series, Gotanda talks about growing up in Stockton, California, after World War II and the anti-Japanese racism that he couldn’t name as a child, but that he’d go on to write about as an adult.Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fred DeWitt is a Master of Fine Arts student and the first artist-in-residence in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley. DeWitt, 61, shares in his own words what the Black Panthers meant to him as a young boy growing up in the Bay Area, how Barack Obama’s election as president inspired him to go back to school to study art, and the complicated nature of honoring the lives of people who never wanted to be remembered for their deaths. His MFA show will be at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) in June.Listen to the episode, read a transcript and see photos of DeWitt's artwork on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Berkeley News writer Ed Lempinen talks about why Berkeley Law professor Jonathan Simon thinks an acquittal of former police officer Derek Chauvin, on trial for the death of George Floyd, is more likely than not.Listen to the episode and read a transcript on Berkeley News. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.