Science & Society Videos

Status: Available for screenings. A global exploration of the centrality of observation to science and the human experience. The film crosses multiple disciplines, as well as oceans and continents, to give audiences insight into the drive to expand knowledge and see our planet and universe from new perspectives.

Chronicles the groundswell of researchers who are writing a new chapter for women scientists. Along the way, we encounter scientific luminaries - including social scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists - who provide new perspectives on how to make science itself more diverse, equitable, and open to all.

The scientific revolution called CRISPR gives humans the power to edit DNA, including our own. The implications are profound and infinite. Scientists are already curing diseases like sickle cell anemia. But how far should we go to change the fundamental nature of who we are as people?

Manu Prakash always yearned to know the why and the how of things. As a boy in India, he spent endless hours playing outside with animals and making flammable artifacts in an abandoned lab in the basement of his home. Having the chance to explore his surroundings with open-ended curiosity, he learned to find the sublime in the mundane. Today, as a world-renowned researcher and inventor at Stanford University, he continues to be inspired by these childhood lessons, and is creating low-cost tools to empower people around the globe to go on their own journey of science and discovery.

Dr. Tshaka Cunningham is a molecular biologist and a Black man of faith. This short film explores Dr. Cunningham’s personal and professional identities, and how they unite to help him promote community health through personal genomics.

In The Century of Biology, noted bioethicist R. Alta Charo ponders the ever-shifting interrelationship between humans and nature. The power of CRISPR and genome editing fundamentally reshapes the realm of the possible, as humans can manipulate life with precision on the molecular level. What we will do with this power is a question that far exceeds the limits of biology and touches on what kind of future we hope for, or fear.

Status: Actively Fundraising. Two Black graduate students came to UC Berkeley expecting a progressive institution that welcomed diversity. They found something different. This launched Valeria King and Khansaa Maar on a search for context and solutions to confront the challenges of being Black in STEM.

There is ample evidence that race can be a major factor in health outcomes. But racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in clinical and biomedical research. In this series, Dr. Esteban Burchard talks about the consequences of this underrepresentation and what does it mean for equity in research and medicine.