berkeley phd thesis database

News alert: UC Berkeley has announced its next university librarian

Research Help

How do i find a dissertation from uc berkeley.

The ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database indexes graduate dissertations from over a thousand graduate school and universities, and includes full-text access to dissertations published since 1997. The database also includes full-text dissertations from the University of California from:

September 1962 - December 1970 and
December 1975 - present

If you can't find a specific UC Berkeley dissertation on ProQuest, go to UC Library Search and use the Resource Type filter to limit your search to "Dissertations."

If you're not on campus, and you are not a UC Berkeley student, faculty or staff member, you may be able to access UC Berkeley dissertations for a fee from ProQuest's Dissertation Express or, for items in our collection, using our photoduplication services .

See also: all electronic dissertation and thesis resources at UC Berkeley.

Research + Resources
Last Updated May 17, 2022
Answered By Instruction Services Division

FAQ Actions

Share on Facebook

Comments (0)

Make an Appointment

Contact a Subject Librarian

Find Research Guides

Thesis Writing and Filing

The following guidelines are only for master’s students. If you are pursuing a doctoral degree, please see the Dissertation Filing Guide .

Filing your master’s thesis at the Graduate Division is one of the final steps leading to the award of your graduate degree. Your manuscript is a scholarly presentation of the results of the research you conducted. UC Berkeley upholds the tradition that you have an obligation to make your research available to other scholars. This is done when the Graduate Division submits your manuscript to the University Library.

Your faculty committee supervises the intellectual content of your manuscript and your committee chair will guide you on the arrangement within the text and reference sections of your manuscript. Consult with your committee chair early in the preparation of your manuscript.

The specifications in the following pages were developed in consultation with University Library. These standards assure uniformity in the degree candidates’ manuscripts to be archived in the University Library, and ensure as well the widest possible dissemination of student-authored knowledge.

Research Protocols

Eligibility, fall and spring semesters, summer filing, formatting your manuscript, special page formats, organizing your manuscript, procedure for filing your thesis, permission to include previously published or co-authored material, inclusion of publishable papers or article-length essays, withholding your thesis, changes to a thesis after filing, diploma, transcript, and certificate of completion, certificate of completion, common mistakes, mixed media guidelines, definitions and standards, electronic formats and risk categories, frequently asked questions.

If your research activities involve human or animal subjects, you must follow the guidelines and obtain an approved protocol before you begin your research. Learn more on our website or contact the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects ( http://cphs.berkeley.edu/ or 642-7461) or the Animal Care and Use Committee ( http://www.acuc.berkeley.edu/ or 642-8855).

In addition to the considerations explained below, your Expected Graduation Term (EGT) must match the term for which you intend to file. EGT can be updated at any time using an eForm available in CalCentral.

To be eligible to file for your degree, you must be registered or on approved Filing Fee status for the semester in which you file. We encourage you to file your thesis as early in the semester as you can and to come in person to our office to submit your supporting documents. If you cannot come to our office, it is helpful if you have a friend bring your documents. The deadline to file your thesis in its final form is the last day of the semester for your degree to be awarded as of that semester.

Filing during the summer has a slightly different set of eligibility requirements. If you were fully registered during the immediately preceding Spring semester, and have not used Filing Fee already, you may file your thesis during the summer with no additional cost or application required. This option is available for both Plan I master’s degree students filing a thesis and Plan II students completing a capstone. Summer is defined as the period from the day after the Spring semester ends (mid-May) until the last day of the Summer Sessions (mid-August).

International students completing degree in the Summer must consult Berkeley International Office before finalizing plans, as in some cases lack of Summer enrollment could impact visa status or post-completion employment.

If you have already used Filing Fee previously, or were not registered the preceding Spring semester, you will need to register in 1.0 unit in Summer Sessions in order to file.

Theses filed during the summer will result in a summer degree conferral.

You must be advanced to candidacy, and in good standing (not lapsed), in order to file.

All manuscripts must be submitted electronically in a traditional PDF format.

Page Size : The standard for a document’s page size is 8.5 x 11 inches. If compelling reasons exist to use a larger page size, you must contact the Graduate Division for prior approval.
Basic manuscript text must be a non-italic type font and at a size of 12-point or larger. Whatever typeface and size you choose for the basic text, use it consistently throughout your entire manuscript. For footnotes, figures, captions, tables, charts, and graphs, a font size of 8-point or larger is to be used.
You may include color in your thesis, but your basic manuscript text must be black.
For quotations, words in a foreign language, occasional emphasis, book titles, captions, and footnotes, you may use italics. A font different from that used for your basic manuscript may be used for appendices, charts, drawings, graphs, and tables.
Pagination: Your manuscript is composed of preliminary pages and the main body of text and references. Page numbers must be positioned either in the upper right corner, lower right corner, or the bottom center and must be at least ¾ of an inch from the edges. The placement of the page numbers in your document must be consistent throughout.

Be Careful! If you have any pages that are rotated to a landscape orientation, the page numbers still need to be in a consistent position throughout the document (as if it were printed and bound).

Do not count or number the title page or the copyright page. All other pages must have numbers. DO NOT SKIP PAGE ” 1 “.
The remaining preliminary pages may include a table of contents, a dedication, a list of figures, tables, symbols, illustrations, or photographs, a preface, your introduction, acknowledgments, and curriculum vitae. You must number these preliminary pages using lower case Roman numerals beginning with the number “i” and continue in sequence to the end of the preliminary pages (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.).
An abstract is optional, but if you chose to include one, your abstract must have Arabic numeral page numbers. Start numbering your abstract with the number “1” and continue in sequence (1, 2, 3, etc.)
The main body of your text and your references also use Arabic numerals. Start the numbering of the main body with the number “1” and continue in sequence (1, 2, 3, etc.), numbering consecutively throughout the rest of the text, including illustrative materials, bibliography, and appendices.

Yes! The first page of your abstract and the first page of your main text both start with ‘1’

Margins: For the manuscript material, including headers, footers, tables, illustrations, and photographs, all margins must be at least 1 inch from the edges of the paper. Page numbers must be ¾ of an inch from the edge.
Spacing: Your manuscript must be single-spaced throughout, including the abstract, dedication, acknowledgments, and introduction.
Tables, charts, and graphs may be presented horizontally or vertically and must fit within the required margins. Labels or symbols are preferred rather than colors for identifying lines on a graph.

You may choose to reduce the size of a page to fit within the required margins, but be sure that the resulting page is clear and legible.

Guidelines for Mixed Media: please see Appendix B for details.

Certain pages need to be formatted in a very specific way. Links are included here for examples of these pages.

Do not deviate from the wording and spacing in the examples, except for details applicable to you (e.g. name, major, committee, etc.)

As noted in the above section on pagination, the abstract is optional but if included must be numbered separately with arabic numerals starting with ‘1’
IMPORTANT: A physical signature page should no longer be included with your thesis. Approvals by your committee members will be provided electronically using an eForm.
The title page does not contain page numbers.
Do not bold any text on your title page.
The yellow bubbles in the sample are included for explanatory purposes only. Do not include them in your submission.
If you are receiving a joint degree, it must be listed on your title page ( Click here for sample with joint degree )

The proper organization and page order for your manuscript is as follows:

Copyright page or a blank page
Dedication page
Table of contents
List of figures, list of tables, list of symbols
Preface or introduction
Acknowledgements
Curriculum Vitae
References or Bibliography

After you have written your thesis, formatted it correctly, assembled the pages into the correct organization, and obtained verbal approval from all members of your committee, you are ready to file it with UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division.

Step 1: Convert your thesis to a standard PDF file.

Step 2: Log into your CalCentral account. Under Student Resources in your Dashboard find Submit a Form and choose Final Signature Submission .

Step 3: Complete the eForm in its entirety and hit submit once all required documents are submitted:

Attach the PDF of your thesis and
Attach a copy of the approval letter for your study protocol from the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects, or the Animal Care and Use Committee if your research involved human or animal subjects.

(Step 4): Congratulations you’re done! The traditional lollipop will be mailed to you following the end of the semester. Please be sure to update your mailing addresses (especially the diploma mailing address).

Important Notes:

DO NOT SUBMIT A DRAFT. Once your thesis has been submitted, you will not be allowed to make changes. Be sure that it is in its final form!
Check your email regularly. Should revisions be necessary the eForm will be “recycled” to you and you will be notified via email. To resubmit your thesis, go back to Student Resources in your CalCentral account find Manage Your Forms and select Update Pending Forms . Here you can search for your submitted Final Signature form and make necessary updates and/or attach your revised thesis.
After your thesis has been approved by Graduate Division, it will be routed to the listed committee members for electronic approval. Once all members have provided approval you will be notified.
The review of your thesis may take up to four business days.

Important note for students in a Concurrent Degree Program (e.g. Landscape Architecture & City Planning):

If you are filing a thesis to satisfy both master’s degrees, do not submit two eForms. Please select one plan only on the eForm and the Graduate Division will update your record accordingly.

If you plan use of your own previously published and/or co-authored material in your manuscript, your committee chair must attest that the resulting thesis represents an original contribution of ideas to the field, even if previously published co – authored articles are included, and that major contributors of those articles have been informed.

Previously published material must be incorporated into a larger argument that binds together the whole thesis. The common thread linking various parts of the research, represented by individual papers incorporated in the thesis, must be made explicit, and you must join the papers into a coherent unit. You are required to prepare introductory, transitional, and concluding sections. Previously published material must be acknowledged appropriately, as established for your discipline or as requested in the original publication agreement (e.g. through a note in acknowledgments, a footnote, or the like).

If co-authored material is to be incorporated (whether published or unpublished), all major contributors should be informed of the inclusion in addition to being appropriately credited in the thesis according to the norms of the field.

If you are incorporating co-authored material in your thesis, it is your responsibility to inform major contributors. This documentation need not be submitted to the Graduate Division. The eform used by your committee chair to sign off on your thesis will automatically include text indicating that by signing off they attest to the appropriateness and approval for inclusion of previously published and/or co-authored materials. No addition information or text needs to be added.

Publishable papers and article-length essays arising from your research project are acceptable only if you incorporate that text into a larger argument that binds together the whole dissertation or thesis. Include introductory, transitional, and concluding sections with the papers or essays.

Occasionally, there are unusual circumstances in which you prefer that your thesis not be published immediately. Such circumstances may include the disclosure of patentable rights in the work before a patent can be granted, similar disclosures detrimental to the rights of the author, or disclosures of facts about persons or institutions before professional ethics would permit.

The Dean of the Graduate Division may permit the thesis to be held without shelving for a specified and limited period of time beyond the default, under substantiated circumstances of the kind indicated and with the endorsement of and an explanatory letter from the chair of the thesis committee. If you need to request that your manuscript be withheld, please consult with the chair of your committee, and have him or her submit a letter requesting this well before you file for your degree. The memo should be addressed to the cognizant Associate Dean, in care of Graduate Services: Degrees, 318 Sproul Hall.

Changes are normally not allowed after a manuscript has been filed. In exceptional circumstances, changes may be requested by having the chair of your thesis committee submit a memo to the cognizant Associate Dean, in care of Graduate Services: Degrees, 318 Sproul Hall. The memo must describe in detail the specific changes requested and must justify the reason for the request. If the request is approved, the changes must be made prior to the official awarding of the degree. Once your degree has been awarded, you may not make changes to the manuscript.

After your thesis is accepted by Graduate Services: Degrees, it is held here until the official awarding of the degree by the Academic Senate has occurred. This occurs approximately two months after the end of the term. After the degree has officially been awarded, the manuscripts are shipped to the University Library.

Posting the Degree to Your Transcript

Your degree will be posted to your transcript approximately 3 months after the conferral date of your degree. You can order a transcript from the Office of the Registrar (https://registrar.berkeley.edu/academic-records/transcripts-diplomas/).

Diploma Your diploma will be available from the Office of the Registrar approximately 4 months after the conferral date of your degree. For more information on obtaining your diploma, visit the Registrar’s website . You can obtain your diploma in person at the Office of the Registrar, 120 Sproul Hall, or submit a form to have it mailed to you. Unclaimed diplomas are retained for a period of five (5) years only, after which they are destroyed.

If you require evidence that you have completed your degree requirements prior to the degree being posted to your transcript, request a “ Certificate of Degree Completion “.

Please note that we will not issue a Certificate of Completion after the degree has been posted to your transcript.

The most common mistake is following a fellow (or previous) student’s example. Read the current guidelines carefully!
An incorrect committee — the committee listed on your title page must match your currently approved committee. If you have made any changes to your committee since Advancement to Candidacy, you must request an official change from the Graduate Division. Consult your departmental adviser for details.
Do not use a different name than that which appears in the system (i.e. the name on your transcript and Cal Central Profile). Students are allowed to use a Lived Name, which can be updated by self-service in CalCentral.
Page numbers — Read the section on pagination carefully. Many students do not paginate their document correctly.
Page rotation — some pages may be rotated to a landscape orientation. However, page numbers must appear in the same place throughout the document (as if it were bound like a book).
Do not include the signature/approval page in your electronic thesis. Signatures will be provided electronically using the eForm.
Do not include previous degrees on your title page.

In May, 2005, the Graduate Council established new guidelines for the inclusion of mixed media content in theses. It was considered crucial that the guidelines allow theses s to remain as accessible as possible and for the longest period possible while balancing the extraordinary academic potential of these new technologies.

The thesis has three components: a core thesis, essential supporting material, and non-essential supplementary material.

Core Thesis. The core thesis must be a self-contained, narrative description of the argument, methods, and evidence used in the thesis project. Despite the ability to present evidence more directly and with greater sophistication using mixed media, the core thesis must provide an accessible textual description of the whole project.

The core thesis must stand alone and be printable on paper, meeting the formatting requirements described in this document. The electronic version of the thesis must be provided in the most stable and universal format available—currently Portable Document Format (PDF) for textual materials. These files may also include embedded visual images in TIFF (.tif) or JPEG (.jpg) format.

Essential Supporting Material. Essential supporting material is defined as mixed media content that cannot be integrated into the core thesis, i.e., material that cannot be adequately expressed as text. Your faculty committee is responsible for deciding whether this material is essential to the thesis. Essential supporting material does not include the actual project data. Supporting material is essential if it is necessary for the actual argument of the thesis, and cannot be integrated into a traditional textual narrative.

Essential supporting material must be submitted in the most stable and least risky format consistent with its representation (see below), so as to allow the widest accessibility and greatest chance of preservation into the future.

Non-essential Supplementary Material. Supplementary material includes any supporting content that is useful for understanding the thesis, but is not essential to the argument. This might include, for example, electronic files of the works analyzed in the thesis (films, musical works, etc.) or additional support for the argument (simulations, samples of experimental situations, etc.).

Supplementary material is to be submitted in the most stable and most accessible format, depending on the relative importance of the material (see below). Clearly label the CD, DVD, audiotape, or videotape with your name, major, thesis title, and information on the contents. Only one copy is required to be filed with your thesis. A second copy should be left with your department.

Note . ProQuest and the Library will require any necessary 3rd party software licenses and reprint permission letters for any copyrighted materials included in these electronic files.

The following is a list of file formats in descending order of stability and accessibility. This list is provisional, and will be updated as technologies change. Faculty and students should refer to the Graduate Division website for current information on formats and risk categories.

Category A:

TIFF (.tif) image files
WAV (.wav) audio files

Category B:

JPEG, JPEG 2000 (.jpg) image files
GIF (.gif) image files

Category C:

device independent audio files (e.g., AIFF, MIDI, SND, MP3, WMA, QTA)
note-based digital music composition files (e.g., XMA, SMF, RMID)

Category D:

other device independent video formats (e.g., QuickTime, AVI, WMV)
encoded animations (e.g., FLA or SWF Macromedia Flash, SVG)

For detailed guidelines on the use of these media, please refer to the Library of Congress website for digital formats at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/index.shtml .

Q1: Can I file my thesis during the summer?

A1: Yes. There are 2 ways to file during the summer:

1) If you have never used Filing Fee before AND you were registered during the immediately preceding spring semester, you can file your thesis during the summer with no further application or payment required. Simply submit your thesis as usual and the Graduate Division staff will confirm your eligibility. If you are an international student, you must consult the Berkeley International Office for guidance as this option may have visa implications for you.

2) If you weren’t registered in spring, you can register for at least 1.0 unit through Berkeley Summer Sessions.

Q2: If I chose that option, does it matter which session I register in during the summer session?

A2: No. You can register for any of the sessions (at least 1.0 unit). The deadline will always be the last day of the last session.

Q3: If I file during the summer, will I receive a summer degree?

A3: Yes. If you file before the last day of summer session, you will receive an August degree. If you file during the summer, remember to write “Summer” on your title page!

Q1: I’ve seen other theses from former students that were / that had __________, should I follow that format?

A1: No. The formatting guidelines can be changed from time to time, so you should always consult the most current guidelines available on our website.

Q2: I want to make sure that my thesis follows the formatting rules. What’s the best way to do this?

A2: If you’ve read and followed the current guidelines available on our website, there shouldn’t be any problems. You are also always welcome to bring sample pages into the Graduate Degrees Office at 318 Sproul Hall to have a staff member look over your manuscript.

Q3: Does my signature page need to be printed on some special paper?

A3: Signatures are now an eForm process. A physical signature page is no longer required.

Q1: I’m away from Berkeley. Is there any way to file my thesis remotely?

A1: Yes! The whole process is done remotely.

Q2: Can I have a friend file my thesis for me?

A2: No. You will need to CalNet authenticate in order to file.

Q3: What’s a Receipt of Filing? Do I need one?

A3: The Receipt of Filing is an official document that we produce that certifies that you have successfully filed your thesis on the specified day and that, if all other requirements are met, the date of the degree conferral.

Some students may need the receipt in order to prove to an outside agency that they have officially filed their thesis. Many students simply keep the receipt as a memento. Picking up your receipt is not required.

Q4: What’s the difference between a Receipt of Filing and a Certificate of Completion?

A4: A Receipt of Filing is automatically produced for all students upon successful filing of their thesis. However, it only certifies that the thesis has been accepted. The Certificate of Degree Completion must be requested. It will state that all requirements have been met and notes the date that the degree will be conferred. This is a useful document for students who file early in the semester and need some verification of their degree in advance of its conferral (note: degrees are only conferred twice each year).

Q5: How to I know if I’m eligible for a Certificate of Completion?

A5: In order to be eligible to receive a Certificate of Completion, you must:

1) Successfully file your thesis

2) Have a completed (satisfied) Academic Progress Report. Your department can assist you with this if you have questions.

3) Pay all of your registration fees. If you have a balance on your account, we may be unable to provide a Certificate of Completion.

Q6: I’m supposed to submit my approval letter for research with human subjects or vertebrate animals, but it turns out my research didn’t use this after all. What should I do?

A6: If you’re research protocol has changed since you advanced to candidacy for your degree, you’ll need to ask you thesis chair to write a letter to the Graduate Division explaining the change. It would be best to submit this in advance of filing.

Q7: My thesis uses copyrighted or previously published material. How to I get approval?

A7: The policy on this has recently changed. There is no need to for specific approval to be requested.

Q9: I found a typo in my thesis that has already been accepted! What do I do?

A9: Once a thesis has been submitted and accepted, no further changes will be permitted. Proofread your document carefully. Do not submit a draft. In extreme circumstances, your thesis chair may write a letter to the Graduate Division requesting additional changes to be made.

Q10: Oh no! A serious emergency has caused me to miss the filing deadline! What do I do? Are extensions ever granted?

A10: In general, no. In exceptional circumstances, the Head Graduate Advisor for your program may write to the Graduate Division requesting an extension. Requests of this type are considered on a case by case basis and, if granted, may allow you to file after the deadline. However, even if such an exception is granted you will receive the degree for the subsequent term. Your first step is to consult with your department if an emergency arises.

Information for graduate students and GSIs

Overview .

The UC Berkeley Library is committed to assisting graduate students and graduate student instructors to access and use materials for their own scholarship and in their teaching practice. Let the Library team support you as a scholar and teacher through the following resources.

Your Cal 1 Card serves as your library card for borrowing materials and for access to the Main (Gardner) Stacks , Moffitt Library, and the Media Resources Center .
You can also use your Cal 1 Card to pay for printing in the libraries. Scanning to email, cloud storage, and to a USB drive is free.
Familiarize yourself with the options and rules for renewals and loan periods.
Loan periods vary by library and material type, though most books are checked out to graduate students for three months, and one week for serials.
Interlibrary Borrowing helps students obtain materials that are not available at UC Berkeley. International borrowing is also available.
Request library privileges at Stanford and UT Austin via the Research Library Cooperative Program (RLCP) .
Off-campus access to electronic resources — Access online resources from home using either the library proxy or VPN with your CalNet ID.
Databases — Search for article databases, e-book collections, digitized primary resources collections, statistical sources, and more.
Extending library privileges — Graduate students who are completing unfinished course work, or who are on filing fee status, may have their library privileges extended.
Disability resources — Find equal-access Library services and research assistance for persons with physical and print disabilities.

Research support

Contact your subject librarian — Specific librarians are designated to support each academic department and program, and serve as the first point of contact for all research and teaching-related inquiries.
Graduate Services in Doe Library (Room 208) offers a core non-circulating research collection in the humanities and history, course reserves for graduate humanities and social sciences courses, a quiet and congenial study space for graduate students, and a dissertation writer’s room for doctoral students advanced to candidacy.
Study carrels — Assigned study carrels in the Main (Gardner) Stacks are available to graduate students in the humanities and social sciences, who may apply at the Privileges Desk (Doe Library, Floor 1).
Library guides — Learn about library tools, research skills, citations, and more.
Workshops and tours
Subject guides

Teaching support

Course reserves — Instructors can submit lists of required books and videos for courses via email to [email protected] . Find more details and deadlines on the Course reserves page.
Add library guides to bCourses — Learn how to add links to specific library guides in the course navigation section of bCourses course or project sites.
Instruction Services — The Library offers instruction on library research for undergraduates and graduate students, tailored to courses, assignments, and students’ research topics, both in person and online. Have a librarian meet with your class .
To arrange library instruction in science, engineering, and graduate-level courses in humanities and the social sciences, contact your subject librarian .
Designing effective library assignments — Suggestions and example assignments to help teach students to navigate the academic research process.
Charlene Conrad Liebau Library Prize for Undergraduate Research — Faculty and GSIs in all disciplines should encourage undergraduate students to apply for the Library Prize, which recognizes students’ sophistication, originality, and/or unusual depth or breadth in the use of library collections in the creation of a course project.

Scholarly communication and copyright

Berkeley Research Impact Initiative — Financial support for faculty members, postdocs, and graduate students who want to make their journal articles free to all readers immediately upon publication.
UC copyright education — A wide range of materials related to the use of copyrighted and public domain materials at the University of California. See also, the Library’s copyright and fair use page.
eScholarship — This is the California Digital Library’s open access scholarly publishing platform, providing digital publishing services to the University of California that enable departments, research units, publishing programs, and individual scholars to have direct control over the creation and dissemination of the full range of their scholarship.
Dissertations and open access — All UC Berkeley graduate students submit their dissertation or thesis electronically. This guide addresses frequently asked questions.

Library policies

Library code of conduct — Read about standards for Library use intended to create a safe and pleasant research environment for all patrons.
Library privacy policy — The Library is responsible for safeguarding the confidentiality of a borrower’s transactions, as mandated by the California Information Practices Act of 1977.
Database conditions of use — It is the responsibility of individual users to ensure their use of Library electronic resources does not breach the terms and conditions specified in the license agreements.

More information

Unisex, single-stall, gender-inclusive, and other restrooms on UC Berkeley’s campus

102 Thesis Database

The thesis library.

The Department maintains a History 102 Thesis Library, temporarily held in 3313 Dwinnelle, for student access. The library holds all papers with High Honors and Highest Honors designations dating back to 2005. Due to library capacity limitations, papers designated either Honors or Non-Honors are purged after five years.

Guidelines for Reviewing Theses

For Spring 2024: While the department is working on getting all physical theses digitized, a selection of theses are available to view online here . If you would like to request to see a physical thesis in person, please email the Director of Student Services at [email protected] . When you come to review a particular thesis, please have your Cal ID with you and plan to stay in the History Department office while you review the paper, as theses are not to leave the office.

While you are encouraged to take hand-written notes, theses may not be photocopied, photographed, or marked up in any way.

View the 102 (formerly 101) Thesis Database

Spot an error.

If you notice an error or omission in the thesis database, email [email protected] .

Recent Dissertations

Physics ph.d. degrees - spring 2022.

Juan Camilo Buitrago Casas Advisor: Stuart Bale On the Sun's faintest coronal hard X-rays

David Dunsky Advisor: Lawrence Hall Fingerprints of High Energy Physics Beyond Colliders

Satcher Hsieh Advisor: Norman Yao Quantum sensing at high pressures using nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

Francisco Leal Machado Advisor: Norman Yao Out-of-equilibrium dynamics and phases of matter in Atomic, Molecular and Optical systems

Zengyi Li Advisors: Mike DeWeese and Friedrich Sommer Entropy in Unsupervised Machine Learning

Nikola Maksimovic Advisor: James Analytis Advances in nearly-magnetic superconductivity

Bradley Mitchell Advisor: Irfan Siddiqi Investigating Microwave-Activated Entangling Gates on Superconducting Quantum Processors

Christopher Olund Advisor: Norman Yao State Structure and Operator Dynamics in Quantum Many-Body Systems: from s-Sourcery to Strong Zero Modes

Leon Otis Advisors: Jeffrey Neaton and Eric Neuscamman Optimization Algorithms in Variational Monte Carlo for Molecular Excited States

Eric Parsonnet Advisor: R. Ramesh Dynamics and Methods of Manipulating Ferroic Order in BiFeO3 and Related Materials

Elizabeth Peterson Advisor: Jeffrey Neaton First-principles studies of complex functional oxides and chalcogenides

Sai Neha Santpur Advisor: Marjorie Shapiro Search for Non-pointing and Delayed Photons in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector

Conrad Stansbury Advisor: Alessandra Lanzara Cohesive Experimental and Analysis Techniques for Angle Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy

QinQin Yu Advisor: Oskar Hallatschek Empirical tools for studying genetic drift in microbial populations

Physics Ph.D. Degrees - Fall 2021

Roger Huang Advisor: Yury Kolomensky Searching for 0νββ Decay with CUORE and CUPID

Oliver Jeong Advisor: Adrian Lee Development of Simons Array Optics for Cosmic Microwave Background Polarimetry

Matthew Kramer Advisor: Kam-Biu Luk Robust Measurement of Mixing Parameters $\sin^2 2\theta_{13}$ and $\Delta m^2_{ee}$ with Reactor Antineutrinos at Daya Bay

Jonathan Han Son Ma Advisors: Naomi Ginsberg and Patrick Naulleau Understanding Radiation Physics and Chemistry of Extreme Ultraviolet Resists

Nathan Ng Advisors: Jeffrey Neaton and Eran Rabani Aspects of localization in centrally coupled systems

Kelsey Oliver-Mallory Advisors: Robert Jacobsen and Kevin Lesko Backgrounds in LUX and LZ: Extending the Sensitivity of LUX to Low-mass Dark Matter

Dylan Rees Advisor: Joseph Orenstein Nonlinear Optical Properties of the Chiral Weyl Semimetal RhSi

Fernando Torales Acosta Advisor: Barbara Jacak Isolated Photon Hadron Correlations in √sNN = 5.02 TeV pp and p–Pb Collisions

Physics Ph.D. Degrees - Summer 2021

Vyassa Baratham Adviser: Michael DeWeese and Kristofer Bouchard Constraining Ill-Posed Inverse Problems in Neural Electrophysiology via Biophysically Detailed Forward Simulation

Micah Brush Adviser: Oskar Hallatschek and John Harte Macroecological Patterns Out Of Steady State

Venkatesa Chandrasekaran Adviser: Raphael Bousso Classical and Quantum Aspects of Black Holes and Spacetime

Ahmet Coskuner Adviser: Lawrence Hall and Kathryn Zurek Dark Matter Detection Phenomenology

Siva Darbha Adviser: Daniel Kasen Signatures from Aspherical Kilonovae and Unconventional Tidal Disruption Events

Hannah Klion Adviser: Eliot Quataert Monte Carlo Radiation Transport Simulations of Asymmetric Neutron Star Mergers

Jonathan Liu Adviser: Hernan Garcia Investigating the Dynamics of Non-Equilibrium Behavior in Eukaryotic Transcriptional Regulation

Stephen Martis Adviser: Oskar Hallatschek Eco-evolutionary dynamics in high dimensions

Christopher Mogni Adviser: Petr Horava Quantum Gravity Beyond Equilibrium

Stephen Randall Adviser: Petr Horava Topological Quantum Gravity of the Ricci Flow

Pratik Sachdeva Adviser: Michael DeWeese and Kristofer Bouchard The impact of correlated variability on models of neural coding

Tianrui Xu Adviser: Joel Moore Quantum Dynamics of Correlated Fermions In- and Out-of-Equilibrium

Office of Scholarly Communication

University of California

Campus Resources
Why Publish Open Access?
Deposit Your Scholarly Articles
Open Access Policies FAQ
OA Policy Waivers
OA Publishing Agreements and Discounts
OA Thesis & Dissertation Policies
Publish Your Book OA
Transition Your Journal to OA
Collect and share your older publications
Publishing Funds
eScholarship Publishing
University of California Press
Copyright & Publication Contracts
Data Sharing Policies & Tools

Home » For Authors & Researchers » Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Theses and dissertations produced by students as part of the completion of their degree requirements often represent unique and interesting scholarship. Universities are increasingly making this work available online, and UC is no exception. Find information related to open access theses and dissertations below.

UC has an open access policy for theses and dissertations, but procedures and specifics vary by campus

Several UC campuses have established policies requiring open access to the electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) written by their graduate students. As of March 25, 2020, there is now a systemwide Policy on Open Access for Theses and Dissertations , indicating that UC “requires theses or dissertations prepared at the University to be (1) deposited into an open access repository, and (2) freely and openly available to the public, subject to a requested delay of access (’embargo’) obtained by the student.”

In accordance with these policies, campuses must ensure that student ETDs are available open access via eScholarship (UC’s open access repository and publishing platform), at no cost to students. By contrast, ProQuest, the world’s largest commercial publisher of ETDs, charges a $95 fee to make an ETD open access. Institutions worldwide have moved toward open access ETD publication because it dramatically increases the visibility and reach of their graduate research.

Policies and procedures for ETD filing, including how to delay public release of an ETD and how long such a delay can last, vary by campus. Learn more about the requirements and procedures for ETDs at each UC campus:

UC Berkeley: Dissertation Filing Guidelines (for Doctoral Students) and Thesis Filing Guidelines (for Master’s Students)
UC Davis: Preparing and Filing Your Thesis or Dissertation
UC Irvine: Thesis/Dissertation Electronic Submission
UCLA: File Your Thesis or Dissertation
UC Merced: Dissertation/Thesis Submission
UC Riverside: Dissertation and Thesis Submission
UC San Diego: Preparing to Graduate
UCSF: Dissertation and Thesis Guidelines
UC Santa Barbara: Filing Your Thesis, Dissertation, or DMA Supporting Document
UC Santa Cruz: Dissertation and Thesis Guidelines (PDF) from the Graduate Division’s Accessing Forms Online page

Open access can be delayed in certain circumstances

Some campuses allow students to elect an embargo period before the public release of their thesis/dissertation; others require approval from graduate advisors or administrators. Visit your local graduate division’s website (linked above) for more information.

Common copyright concerns of students writing theses and dissertations

Students writing theses/dissertations most commonly have questions about their own copyright ownership or the use of other people’s copyrighted materials in their own work.

You automatically own the copyright in your thesis/dissertation as soon as you create it, regardless of whether you register it or include a copyright page or copyright notice (see this FAQ from the U.S. Copyright Office for more information). Most students choose not to register their copyrights, though some choose to do so because they value having their copyright ownership officially and publicly recorded. Getting a copyright registered is required before you can sue someone for infringement.

If you decide to register your copyright, you can do so

directly, through the Copyright Office website , for $35
by having ProQuest/UMI contact the Copyright Office on your behalf, for $65.

It is common to incorporate 1) writing you have done for journal articles as part of your dissertation, and 2) parts of your dissertation into articles or books . See, for example, these articles from Wiley and Taylor & Francis giving authors tips on how to successfully turn dissertations into articles, or these pages at Sage , Springer , and Elsevier listing reuse in a thesis or dissertation as a common right of authors. Because this is a well-known practice, and often explicitly allowed in publishers’ contracts with authors, it rarely raises copyright concerns. eScholarship , which hosts over 55,000 UC ETDs, has never received a takedown notice from a publisher based on a complaint that the author’s ETD was too similar to the author’s published work.

Incorporating the works of others in your thesis/dissertation – such as quotations or illustrative images – is often allowed by copyright law. This is the case when the original work isn’t protected by copyright, or if the way you’re using the work would be considered fair use. In some circumstances, however, you will need permission from the copyright holder. For more information, please consult the Berkeley Library’s guide to Copyright and Publishing Your Dissertation .

How to find UC Dissertations and Theses online

All ten UC campuses make their electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) openly accessible to readers around the world. You can view over 55,000 UC ETDs in eScholarship , UC’s open access repository. View ETDs from each campus:

Santa Barbara

Sign up to receive OSC blog post updates

Email address:

Completed Ph.D. Dissertations

Emily Aiken. Targeting Social Protection Programs with Machine Learning and Digital Data. Ph.D. Dissertation. Advisor: Joshua E. Blumenstock. University of California, Berkeley. 2024.

Jeremy Gordon. Embodying the Future: Modeling Visually Guided Planning as Prospective Mental Simulation. Ph.D. dissertation. Advisors: John Chuang, Coye Cheshire, Steven Piantadosi, Giovanni Pezzulo. University of California, Berkeley. 2023.

Daniel Griffin. Situating Web Searching in Data Engineering: Admissions, Extensions, Repairs, and Ownership . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisors: Deirdre K. Mulligan and Steven Weber. University of California, Berkeley. 2022.

Jonathan Gillick. Creating and Collecting Meaningful Musical Materials with Machine Learning . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: David Bamman. University of California, Berkeley. 2022.

Jonas, Anne. 2021. “Blank Slate: Freedom, Connection, and Accountability in U.S. Virtual Schools.” Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

Nitin Kohli. Leveraging Differential Privacy While Attending to Social and Political Commitments . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Deirdre Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2021.

Doris Jung-Lin Lee. Designing Automated Assistants for Visual Data Exploration . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Aditya G. Parameswaran. University of California, Berkeley. 2021.

Nick Doty. Enacting Privacy in Internet Standards . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Deirdre K. Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2020.

Max T. Curran. Sensor-Mediated Empathy: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Social Biosensing . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: John Chuang. University of California, Berkeley. 2020.

Richmond Y. Wong. Values by Design Imaginaries: Exploring Values Work in UX Practice . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisor: Deirdre Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2020.

Howell, N. 2020. Emotional Meaning Making with Data. University of California, Berkeley.

Guanghua Chi. Migration and Social Networks: New Insights from Novel Data. Ph.D Dissertation. Advisor: Joshua E. Blumenstock. University of California, Berkeley. 2020.

Sarah Van Wart. In search of a “fair explanation”: Helping young people to consider the possibilities, limitations, and risks of computer- and data-mediated systems . Ph.D. Dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. 2019.

Niall C. Keleher. Economic Indicators and Social Networks: New approaches to measuring poverty, prices, and impacts of technology. Ph.D. Dissertation. Advisor: Joshua E. Blumenstock. University of California, Berkeley. 2019.

Sedenberg, Elaine. “Information-intensive innovation: the changing role of the private firm in the research ecosystem through the study of biosensed data.” PhD Diss. University of California, Berkeley, 2019. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1s60w39f#main

Nick Merrill. Mind-Reading and Telepathy for Beginners and Intermediates: What People Think Machines Can Know About the Mind, and Why Their Beliefs Matter . Ph.D. Dissertation. Advisor: John Chuang. University of California, Berkeley. 2018.

Ishita Ghosh. Challenging the dominant narratives of a Digital Financial Inclusion. Ph.D Dissertation. Advisor: Jenna Burrell. University of California, Berkeley. 2018.

Khan, Muhammad Raza (2018). “Machine Learning for the Developing World using Mobile Communication Metadata” PhD dissertation., University of California, Berkeley

Jennifer King. Privacy, Disclosure, and Social Exchange Theory. Ph.D Dissertation. Advisor: Deirdre Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2018.

Sebastian Benthall. Context, Causality, and Information Flow: Implications for Privacy Engineering, Security, and Data Economics . Ph.D. dissertation. Advisors: John Chuang and Deirdre Mulligan. University of California, Berkeley. 2018.

MIMS Program
5th Year MIDS Program
MIDS Program
MICS Program
Graduate Certificates
Application

UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations

UC Berkeley Previously Published Works
UC Berkeley Recent Work

Digital Twins as Testbeds for Iterative Simulated Neutronics Feedback Controller Development

Ong, Theodore Kay Chen
Advisor(s): Peterson, Per F

Before a new nuclear reactor design can be constructed and operated, its safety must bedemonstrated using models that are validated with integral effects test (IET) data. However, because scaled integral effects tests are electrically heated, they do not exhibit nuclear reactor feedback phenomena. To replicate the nuclear transient response in electrically heated IETs, we require simulated neutronics feedback (SNF) controllers. Such SNF controllers can then be used to provide SNF capabilities for IET facilities such as the Compact Integral Effects Test (CIET) at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). However, developing SNF controllers for IET facilities is non-trivial. To expedite development, we present the use of Digital Twins as testbeds for iterative SNF controller development. In particular, we use a Digital Twin of the Heater within CIET as a testbed for SNF Controller Development. This Digital Twin with SNF Capabilty is run as an OPC-UA server and client written almost entirely in Rust using Free and Open Source (FOSS) code. We then validate the Digital Twin with experimental data in literature. We also verify the transfer function simulation and Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID) controllers written in Rust using Scilab. Moreover, we demonstrate use of data driven surrogate models (transfer functions) to construct SNF controllers in contrast to using the traditional Point Reactor Kinetics Equations (PRKE) models with the hope that they can account for the effect of spatially dependent neutron flux on reactor feedback. To construct the first surrogate models in this work, we use transient data from a representative arbitrary Fluoride Salt Cooled High Temperature Reactor (FHR) model constructed using OpenMC and GeN-Foam. Using the Digital Twin as a testbed, two design iterations of the SNF controller were developed using the data driven surrogate model. Compared to the potential development time taken in using physical experiments, using the digital twin testbed for SNF controller development resulted in a significant time saving. We hope that the approaches used in this dissertation can expedite testing and reduce expenditure for licensing novel Gen IV nuclear reactor designs.

Adaptive cellular strategies to improve commodity chemical production in Escherichia coli

Koleski, Edward Jon
Advisor(s): Chang, Michelle C.Y.

Biology holds an amazing propensity for chemistry. Living systems continuously carry out a vast plethora of chemical reactions within a complex network, known as metabolism, to sustain growth and improve evolutionary fitness. Metabolic engineers seek to utilize this aptitude for chemistry by creating biological catalysts for chemical production from renewable feedstocks. Biological catalysts offer an eco-friendly, and in some cases, superior, alternative to petrochemical-based chemical production.In this work, we examine biological catalysts designed for the production of two C4 commodity chemicals, n-butanol and (R)-1,3-butanediol. These catalysts are strains of Escherichia coli containing constructed biosynthetic pathways. Leveraging an anaerobic growth selection, laboratory adaptive evolution identified several mutant strains with improved phenotypes. We set out to understand the mechanism by which these adaptive mutations confer improved production. Through detailed analysis of n-butanol fermentation, we discovered that the parent strain for our evolution was unable to support sustained anaerobic growth via n-butanol fermentation, potentially due to metabolic burden associated with overexpression of the pathway enzymes. Further experimentation suggested that the mutations arose as a strategy to relieve metabolic burden through decreased expression of our biosynthetic pathway. The results of this study highlight the importance of balanced pathway expression when designing biological catalysts. We then shifted our focus to design a microbial catalyst for production of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) containing unsaturated monomers. Sites of unsaturation provide functional handles for downstream chemical modification. We devised a metabolic strategy to convert two non-canonical amino acids with unsaturated functional groups to their respective 2-hydroxy acids and activate these acids as coenzyme A thioesters for polymerization within E. coli. We identified and tested candidate enzymes for the appropriate activities in vitro and successfully showed that our identified enzymes can form a functional biosynthetic pathway. These experiments lay the groundwork for creation of a microbial catalyst capable of generating PHAs with unsaturated functional groups using glucose as a carbon source.

Understanding implicit sensorimotor adaptation as a process of kinesthetic re-alignment

Tsay, Jonathan S
Advisor(s): Ivry, Richard B

From elementary skills such as walking and talking, to complex ones such as playing tennis or music, humans are remarkably adept at learning to use their bodies in a coordinated manner. However, these abilities can be fragile: Many neurological conditions can compromise motor performance and learning. Understanding how the brain produces skilled movement will not only elucidate principles of learning but can also optimize rehabilitation interventions for individuals with movement disorders.

Motor learning is not a unitary operation but relies on multiple learning processes (Kim, Avraham, and Ivry 2020; Krakauer et al. 2019). For example, reinforcement learning helps us select rewarding actions (Dayan and Daw 2008), use-dependent learning helps us rapidly execute well-practiced actions (Verstynen and Sabes 2011; Classen et al. 1998), and sensorimotor adaptation keeps our movements well-calibrated in response to changes in the body and environment (Helmholtz 1924; Stratton 1896). In addition, recent work has highlighted how these implicit processes may be complemented by explicit processes (Codol, Holland, and Galea 2018; Collins and Frank 2012; Marinovic et al. 2017; Jonathan S. Tsay, Kim, Saxena, et al. 2022). For example, when asked to move in a novel environment in which the visual feedback is altered (e.g., prism glasses), participants may adopt a re-aiming strategy to nullify the perturbation. Unlike implicit forms of learning, explicit processes allow for rapid changes in performance (Kim, Avraham, and Ivry 2020; Krakauer et al. 2019; Inoue et al. 2015; Smith, Ghazizadeh, and Shadmehr 2006; Schween et al. 2020; Daniel M. Wolpert and Flanagan 2016; Facchin et al. 2019). The joint operation of multiple learning processes has made it difficult to characterize features inherent to each process. To address this, new analytical methods have been recently developed to isolate individual components (Brudner et al. 2016; Jonathan S. Tsay, Haith, Ivry, et al. 2022; Marinovic et al. 2017; Yang, Cowan, and Haith 2021), providing new opportunities to revisit classic problems in sensorimotor learning: What is the critical signal driving learning for different processes? Are there limits to plasticity, and does this vary between processes? How does the quality of sensory feedback impact different components of motor learning?

I exploit these methods in this dissertation to revisit the mechanisms at play in sensorimotor adaptation. Implicit adaptation has been framed as an iterative process designed to minimize sensory prediction error, the mismatch between a desired and experienced sensory outcome (Donchin, Francis, and Shadmehr 2003; R. Morehead and Smith 2017; Albert et al. 2022, 2021; Herzfeld et al. 2014; Kim et al. 2018; Thoroughman and Shadmehr 2000). Traditionally, the focus has been on how visual sensory prediction errors are used to modify a visuomotor map, ensuring that future movements are more accurate. According to this visuo-centric view, the upper bound of implicit adaptation represents a point of equilibrium, one at which the trial-by-trial change in hand position in response to a visual error is counterbalanced by a trial-by-trial decay (‘forgetting’) of this modified visuomotor map back to its baseline, default state.

Despite its appeal, the visuo-centric view is an oversimplification. The brain exploits information from all of our senses, not only from vision (Ernst and Banks 2002; Van Beers, Sittig, and Gon 1999; Chancel, Ehrsson, and Ma 2022; Sober and Sabes 2005, 2003). This insight, paired with the empirical data outlined in this dissertation, have inspired a new, ‘kinesthetic re-alignment’ model of implicit adaptation (Jonathan S. Tsay, Kim, Haith, et al. 2022). By this view, implicit adaptation is an iterative process designed to minimize a ‘kinesthetic’ sensory prediction error, the misalignment between the perceived heading angle and the movement goal. The perceived hand position is a composite signal, reflecting the seen hand position (via visual afferents), the felt hand position (via peripheral proprioceptive afferents based on mechanoreceptors from muscles, joints, and skin), the predicted hand position (via the efferent motor command), and the movement goal (via a prior belief that the movement will be successful). Implicit adaptation will cease when the kinesthetic error is nullified, that is, when the perceived hand position and the movement goal are re-aligned. (Footnote: Whereas we had used ‘proprioception' in our published work featured in this dissertation, we will adopt the term “kinesthesia” here in the Abstract given that the perceived hand is a composite kinesthetic representation that encompasses both central beliefs and peripheral senses (Proske and Gandevia 2012)).

In Chapter 1, I tested a core assumption held by studies of implicit sensorimotor adaptation, namely that the perceived hand position is at the target (subject to random noise). Specifically, we used a novel visuomotor task that isolated implicit adaptation and probed kinesthesia in a fine-grain manner (i.e., the participant’s perceived heading position on each trial). Whereas participants exhibited robust implicit adaptation (i.e., changes in hand position away from the target in the opposite direction of the visual error), their perceived hand position remained near the target. However, to our surprise, the position reports exhibited a non-monotonic function over the course of adaptation: The participants initially perceived their hand to be biased towards the perturbed visual feedback, mis-aligned with the movement goal. However, over time the reports shifted away from the perturbed visual feedback, re-aligning back to the target. Together, these data not only revealed unappreciated kinesthetic changes that arise during learning but also seeded the idea for a kinesthetic re-alignment perspective of implicit adaptation.

In Chapter 2, I evaluate whether there is the relationship between kinesthetic perception and implicit adaptation, one that would not be predicted by visuocentric models. By using two visuomotor tasks that isolated implicit adaptation and probed kinesthesia, we discovered that participants who have greater kinesthetic biases towards the perturbed visual feedback and greater baseline kinesthetic uncertainty exhibited greater implicit adaptation. As such, these data provided evidence for new, unexplained kinesthetic constraints on the extent of implicit adaptation, supporting the notion that kinesthetic perception plays a critical role in implicit adaptation. The empirical results from the previous chapters led us to develop a new, kinesthetic re-alignment model of implicit adaptation. I will formalize this model in Chapter 3, demonstrating how it readily explains the non-monotonic time course of perceived hand position during implicit adaptation (Chapter 1 and the relationship between kinesthetic biases/uncertainty with the extent of implicit adaptation (Chapter 2). Moreover, I will demonstrate how the kinesthetic re-alignment model is also able to capture a myriad of observations not accounted for by a visuo-centric view of adaptation. Taken together, the kinesthetic re-alignment model brings us one step closer to a more holistic view of motor adaptation, a perspective that formalizes how our high-level beliefs and low-level senses inform where we are positioned and how we are to adapt.

Photorealistic Reconstruction from First Principles

Fridovich-Keil, Sara
Advisor(s): Recht, Benjamin

In computational imaging, inverse problems describe the general process of turning measurements into images using algorithms: images from sound waves in sonar, spin orientations in magnetic resonance imaging, or X-ray absorption in computed tomography.Today, the two dominant algorithmic approaches for solving inverse problems are compressed sensing and deep learning. Compressed sensing leverages convex optimization and comes with strong theoretical guarantees of correct reconstruction, but requires linear measurements and substantial processor memory, both of which limit its applicability to many imaging modalities. In contrast, deep learning methods leverage nonconvex optimization and neural networks, allowing them to use nonlinear measurements and limited memory. However, they can be unreliable, and are difficult to inspect, analyze, and predict when they will produce correct reconstructions.

In this dissertation, we focus on an inverse problem central to computer vision and graphics: given calibrated photographs of a scene, recover the optical density and view-dependent color of every point in the scene. For this problem, we take steps to bridge the best aspects of compressed sensing and deep learning: (i) combining an explicit, non-neural scene representation with optimization through a nonlinear forward model, (ii) reducing memory requirements through a compressed representation that retains aspects of interpretability, and extends to dynamic scenes, and (iii) presenting a preliminary convergence analysis that suggests faithful reconstruction under our modeling.

Solar Flux: Remaking landscapes, labor, and environmental politics in California

Brown, Keith Brower
Advisor(s): Chari, Sharad ;
Sayre, Nathan

From 2015-2020, massive booms in solar power and high speed rail reconstructed landscapes across California's San Joaquin Valley. Globally rare alliances of construction unions with environmental justice and immigrant movements won breakthroughs in regional politics. How did construction workers reshape their power in response to the booms–and what formed their politics in this extraordinary direction? This dissertation argues that construction worker power hinged on unions' capacity to reproduce the workforce for urgent landscape transformations, while labor alliances were driven by shared political exclusion and common household struggles over social reproduction of the region's working class, Mexican-American majority. Drawing on five years of ethnographic and archival research, I compare the Fresno-Madera region, where these construction labor-immigrant-environmental justice alliances prevailed at crucial moments, to the Bakersfield region just to the south, where limited household ties, unstable overall employment, and conflicts over oil fractured potential coalitions. In conversation with environmental justice, Marxist feminist, and Marxist geography approaches–including Gramscian interpretations of Clyde Woods, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Matthew Huber–I develop a theory of environmental leverage, explaining how landscape transformation and the labor involved can challenge or entrench hegemony. The breakthroughs made by San Joaquin alliances in winning municipal office, jobsite power, and infrastructure redistribution help show how working and oppressed people can build pressing climate transitions by their own blueprints.

Inferring species distributions from semi-structured biodiversity observations

Goldstein, Benjamin R
Advisor(s): de Valpine, Perry

Estimating the spatiotemporal distributions of species and understanding how variation in those distributions is explained by the environment are central goals in ecology. Observations of animals generated by participatory science (or "citizen science") are an increasingly important resource for ecologists interested in estimating species distributions because they are high-volume and high-resolution. However, statistical inference with these data is more challenging than inference with data collected under standardized sampling, because participatory science observations contain substantial unmeasured variation in sampling effort and observer behavior. Ecologists need tools and methodological guidance that support the estimation of computationally efficient, flexible statistical models useful for robust inference with participatory science data. In this dissertation, I advance the field of species distribution modeling with participatory science data via contributions across three chapters. First, I present a new software tool, nimbleEcology, that supports the efficient and flexible estimation of hierarchical ecological models, alongside a brief review of the use of such models in ecology and three worked examples of model estimation. Second, I undertake a comparison of two modeling approaches useful for estimating relative abundance from participatory science data, making practical recommendations for model selection. Finally, I apply these methodological developments to data obtained from an important participatory science dataset, eBird, to investigate how common birds respond to drought in California's Central Valley ecoregion. This project demonstrates the application of modeling principles to an important ecological case study and produces new evidence to characterize critical dimensions of birds' drought responses.

Chemistry and Physics of Graphite in Fluoride Salt Reactors

Vergari, Lorenzo
Advisor(s): Scarlat, Raluca O

Graphite is a ubiquitous material in nuclear engineering. Within Generation IV designs, graphite serves as a reflector or fuel element material in Fluoride-Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs), Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), and High-Temperature Gas Reactors (HTGRs). Graphite versatility in nuclear systems stems from its unique combination of mechanical, thermal, chemical, and neutronic properties. These properties are influenced by operational parameters like temperature, radiation, and chemical environment. In FHRs and MSRs, graphite can interact with the salt through multiple mechanisms, including salt-infiltration in graphite pores, chemical reactions with salt constituents, and tribo-chemical wear. The goal of this Ph.D. dissertation is to investigate mechanisms of interaction of fluoride salts with graphite in FHRs and assess their impact on salt reactor engineering. Chemical interactions between the salt and graphite are studied by exposing a graphite sample to 2LiF-BeF2 (FLiBe) salt and to the cover gas above the salt at 700°C for 240 hours. Chemical and microstructural characterization of the samples highlights formation of two types of C-F bonds upon exposure, with different degrees and mechanisms of fluorination upon salt and gas exposure. Infiltration of salt in graphite pores is examined by reviewing literature on infiltration and its effect and by studying salt wetting on graphite. Contact angles for salt on graphite are measured under variable conditions of graphite surface finish and salt chemistry, and used to predict salt infiltration. Wear and friction of graphite-graphite contacts at conditions relevant to pebble-bed FHR operation is studied through tribology experiments in argon and in FLiBe. Characterization via SEM/EDS, polarized light microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy is employed to seek a mechanistic understanding. Different mechanisms of lubrication are observed in the tests: in argon, graphite is observed to self-lubricate by forming a tribo-film that remains stable at high temperature in argon; in FLiBe, boundary lubrication is observed and postulated to be associated with C-F bond formation at graphite crystallite edges.

The interactions between graphite and tritium are studied. Tritium production rates in FHRs are quantified to be three orders of magnitude larger compared to light water reactors. A literature review is performed to investigate the thermodynamics and kinetics of the hydrogen-graphite interaction; the findings are employed to develop an improved model for hydrogen uptake and transport in graphite, which is used to extract tritium transport parameters from experimental studies.The experiments conducted in this dissertation indicate that the presence of the salt impacts graphite engineering performance in the reactor and after discharge in multiple ways, from providing increased lubrication to impacting graphite surface chemistry. As a further development, exploration of other areas where the salt could have an effect, including evolution of oxidation and graphite reactive sites upon neutron irradiation, in the presence of salt-exposure, is recommended.

Statistical Machine Learning for Reliable Hypothesis Generation in Biomedical Problems

Tang, Tiffany
Advisor(s): Yu, Bin

Given the ever-growing volume and variety of biomedical data, principled analyses of these rich datasets offer an exciting opportunity to accelerate the scientific discovery process. Here, we advance our goal of extracting reliable scientific hypotheses from such data through (I) the in-context development of interpretable statistical machine learning methods, (II) the demonstration of responsible data science in practice, and (III) the dissemination of open-source software and data for reliable data science.

Throughout this dissertation, we build heavily upon the Predictability, Computability, and Stability (PCS) framework and documentation for veridical (trustworthy) data science (Yu and Kumbier, 2020) to improve the reliability of our scientific conclusions. This framework advocates for the use of predictability as a reality check, computability as an important consideration in algorithmic design and data collection, and stability as a minimum requirement for reproducibility and interpretability in knowledge-seeking and decision-making. Moreover, it calls on the need for transparent documentation of decisions made throughout the data science pipeline.

In Part I, we highlight two statistical machine learning methods, developed within the context of grounded biomedical problems and guided by the PCS framework. First, in Chapter 2, we investigate genetic and epistatic drivers of cardiac hypertrophy in hope of obtaining a more complete understanding of the disease architecture. To this end, we develop a data-driven recommendation system, named the low-signal signed iterative random forest (lo-siRF), to identify candidate genes and gene-gene interactions that are both predictive and stable across various model and data perturbations. We then phenotypically validate these genes and gene-gene interactions via gene-silencing experiments and investigate potential mechanistic explanations for the demonstrated epistases. This leads to a hypothesis in which the identified genes interact through mediating the variable binding of transcription factors that are essential for cardiac contractile function and metabolism. Second, the practical utility of random forests and interpretability tools, not only in the search for epistasis but in a wide range of scientific problems, motivates the need for reliable tree-based feature importance measures. In Chapter 3, we demonstrate that the mean decrease in impurity (MDI), arguably the most popular random forest feature importance measure, suffers from well-known biases including against highly-correlated and low-entropy features. To overcome these drawbacks, we develop a novel feature importance framework, MDI+, which leverages a connection between MDI and the R-squared value from linear regression. We show that MDI+ improves the reliability and stability of feature importance rankings across an extensive range of data-inspired simulations and two real-data case studies on drug response prediction and breast cancer subtype prediction.

In Part II, we further expand on the theme of reliable data science and demonstrate it in practice through two collaborative projects in cancer -omics. In Chapters 4 and 5, we incorporate principles from the PCS framework while working in close collaboration with scientists and clinicians to identify stable and predictive biomarkers in drug response prediction and the early detection of pancreatic cancer, respectively.

Finally, in Part III, we introduce open-source software and data to promote and facilitate the broader adoption of reliable, transparent data science for statisticians and substantive researchers. In particular, we highlight three tools that support our goals: (1) simChef, an R package to simplify the creation of tidy, high-quality simulation studies (Chapter 6); (2) vdocs, an interactive virtual lab notebook in R to seamlessly implement, document, and justify human judgment calls throughout the data science pipeline in accordance with the PCS framework (Chapter 7); and (3) a COVID-19 data repository that aided community-wide data science efforts during the height of the pandemic (Chapter 8).

Politics of Belonging: Families and Communities Building Power to Transform Schools

Casanova, Cassandra Diana
Advisor(s): Fuller, Bruce

The past decade of California’s education policy landscape has been shaped by two significant events and the interaction between them. First, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), signed into law in 2013, shifted the way that the state distributes money to local school districts and implemented mandatory stakeholder engagement in allocating the funds. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic was a shock to the public school system, and though there is ample research underscoring how difficult it is to change institutions, this crisis may have created the necessary conditions for enacting consequential change. The LCFF created the potential to restructure relationships between multiple stakeholders—district leadership, school site-level administrators, families, and communities—and we can examine how groups navigated a landscape of nascent education finance reform and implemented a new process of state-mandated stakeholder engagement. The COVID-19 crisis represented a much deeper and more destabilizing shock to the relationships between families and schools. During the initial onset of emergency stay-at-home orders, the global pandemic blurred the division between home and school—living rooms became classrooms with many parents and caregivers acting as de facto teaching assistants and school coordinators. These two events offer the opportunity to study ways that the relationships between families and educators may have changed and to evaluate the extent to which these changes have allowed families to influence local education policy discussions and share in decision-making.

This dissertation project consists of three substantive chapters and uses qualitative methods to examine how, if at all, a process of state-mandated stakeholder engagement in district-wide decision-making builds power for families to influence local education policy. Additionally, I illustrate how engaging in this process impacts both the micro-level experience of the individual and the organizational level of the district. Drawing on theories that examine institutional stability and change, collective action, and the role of families in schools, the overarching questions guiding my research are the following: (a) In what ways, if any, have school finance and accountability reform changed the balance of power between families and district administrators?; (b) In what ways, if any, has state-mandated stakeholder engagement expanded participation in decision-making and the process by which decisions are made?; and (c) How has participating in mandatory stakeholder engagement during various crises and shocks shifted the role and influence of families and communities in district-wide planning and decision-making?

In Chapter 1, I conduct a research synthesis that analyzes the literature on family and community engagement, with a focus on the policies and practices that empower diverse stakeholders to participate in discussions and decision-making related to education policy. The synthesis is guided by a framework used to map school-community literature along two dimensions—social stance and power and control. These dimensions help identify the extent to which families claim ownership of physical or symbolic spaces of engagement, author and control the agenda for engagement, and co-construct or shift the norms and beliefs of the education system. Based on a review of the literature, I conclude that conflict, not collaboration, is the status quo and that rather than mitigating conflict, family engagement may create structures and support venues for open negotiation of power. Additionally, although when families own engagement spaces and author agendas, they build political power to challenge status quo policies, there is minimal evidence to suggest they shift the norms and values of the existing education system.

The case study in Chapter 2 is a micro-level analysis of the parents who participated in a district-wide advisory committee; the chapter presents the motivations that drove parents to act collectively as they sought to impact the planning process. Drawing from interview data and parents’ reports, I investigate how parents conceptualized and framed what it means to build power to influence change and to engage in the process and how this framing contributed to the collective identity and shared understandings of the parent members of the advisory committee. Based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews conducted in a diverse urban school district in California, this study shows how families engage in local-level decision-making and build power to influence the policies and institutions that structure their lives; the findings speak to the limitations and affordances of state-mandated stakeholder engagement.

Finally, in Chapter 3, I conduct a field-level analysis of a diverse urban school district in California to explore the implementation of school finance and accountability reform and the influence of democratic participation in expanding inclusion within policy discussions and to identify potential shifts in the balance of power between stakeholder groups seeking to impact district-wide planning. Based on participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis, my findings describe how school reform created and protected a relatively vague structure and process of mandated stakeholder engagement. It is because this engagement was codified into law that when conditions were ripe, the community could push and exert force. Therefore, while the law did not guarantee community power, it codified a process and created potential for collective action to push back against the status quo.

Cover page of Understanding the Relationship between Correctional Officer Job Demands, Job Resources, & Decision-Making: Embracing Public Management Perspectives to Improve the Administration of Justice

Understanding the Relationship between Correctional Officer Job Demands, Job Resources, & Decision-Making: Embracing Public Management Perspectives to Improve the Administration of Justice

Harney, Jessie
Advisor(s): Lerman, Amy E

This dissertation includes four essays, each of which speak to the importance of embracing a public management perspective in understanding the ways in which correctional officers play a critical role in the administration of justice.

Chapter 1 includes a systematic review of the literature on factors associated with violence in carceral settings, calling for greater inclusion of public management perspectives. While there are several prominent theories on what is associated with or causes violence in carceral settings, much of this work is dominated by importation theory and has been driven by analyses on limited sets of data in specific geographic contexts and with mainly individual-level factors situated largely within importation theory. This paper focuses especially on the lack of incorporation of management perspectives in the study of carceral violence. Through scraping Google Scholar results, I find that much of the literature is driven by individual-level data only, which cannot fully account for the context in which individuals are incarcerated, studies from the geographic context of the United States, largely published in criminal justice journals, and seldomly controls for staff-specific factors (i.e., disregards many crucial factors related to institutional management.) Implications for the future study of carceral violence and the limitations of the current body of evidence and our ability to develop effective solutions to carceral violence are discussed.

Chapter 2 includes co-authored work, analyzing survey data from correctional officers, focusing on how the coping mechanisms correctional officers employ to manage work-related stress, or how coping mechanisms affect workplace outcomes. To address these questions, we utilize original survey data about California correctional officers. We draw on the Stress Process Paradigm to model the relationship between exposure to violence and mental health, the impact of occupational stress on the development of coping mechanisms, and whether differential coping mechanism utilization impacts officers’ levels of cynicism and desire to leave corrections. Our findings suggest that emotion-focused coping (e.g., having someone to talk to) is associated with lower intentions to leave correctional employment, while the opposite is true for avoidant coping (i.e., alcohol abuse). These insights shed light on the problem of officer turnover and retention and provide potential direction to policymakers and practitioners seeking to create an effective, healthy workforce.

Chapter 3 includes co-authored work, focusing on the role of hierarchy in correctional officer decision-making. Hierarchy exists within bureaucratic agencies for several reasons, including to foster employee accountability. However, with hierarchy comes rigidity, and in times of emergency, this can stymie effective, expedient organizational response. Existing literature has examined the implications of hierarchy in emergency management, but limited work exists to understand hierarchy’s impacts on frontline worker decision-making during crises. In this paper, we contribute to this literature through an exploratory examination of the role of hierarchy on officer decision-making in a state prison system during the COVID-19 pandemic. As bureaucrats with the most direct interaction with incarcerated individuals, the decisions officers make have profound consequences for well-being of incarcerated people. Drawing on 50 interviews conducted amongst prison staff and incarcerated people, we utilize an expanded definition of hierarchy, one that reflects the ways in which power is granted and imposed both formally and informally. We find that correctional hierarchy is pervasive and complex, influencing officer decision-making through varying their perceived level of autonomy, despite the reality that, as street-level bureaucrats, they themselves are policymakers. Our results suggest that, to some extent, in contexts within which the imposition of hierarchy is reduced, officers autonomy may be bolstered, and this may improve their decision-making, particularly in ways that may leave incarcerated individuals under their care better-off.

Finally, Chapter 4, also including co-authored work, focuses on burnout among officers. Though correlational evidence links predictors of burnout to service delivery, limited causal evidence exists on how to improve officer well-being and how that impacts interactions with incarcerated individuals. In collaboration with a mid-sized U.S. Sheriff Department, we report results from a large-scale field experiment aimed at reducing burnout (n = 712). In an eight-week intervention, the treatment group was nudged to anonymously share experiences with others on a common platform (peer support), whereas the control was nudged to reflect on their experiences individually on a solo-access platform. Our findings suggest that peer support not only improved well-being and belonging amongst correctional officers, but also significantly improved their perceptions of incarcerated individuals. We fail to find significant differences in turnover or incident involvement, the latter of which is measured as both direct and indirect involvement in incidents within the jail or detention center. Thus, this study contributes to a burgeoning literature on how investments in public servants can causally improve well-being and perceptions of those they serve.

Ming Wu Lab

Ph.D. Theses
Low-loss and Nonlinear Silicon-based Integrated Photonic Circuits Jean-Etienne Tremblay [2020]
Co-planar Optoelectrowetting (OEW) Device for Droplet Manipulation Jodi Loo [2020]
Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenide NanoLEDs: Towards High Speed and High Efficiency Kevin Han [2019]
FMCW Lidar: Scaling to the Chip-Level and Improving Phase-Noise-Limited Performance Phillip Sandborn [2017]
Integrated Nanoscale Antenna-LED for On-Chip Optical Communication Seth Fortuna [2017]
Highly Scalable Silicon Photonic Switches Based on Waveguide Crossbar with Movable Waveguide Couplers Sangyoon Han [2016]
Metal Optics Based nanoLEDs: In Search of a Fast, Efficient, Nanoscale Light Emitter Michael Eggleston [2015]
Optofluidic Devices for Droplet and Cell Manipulation Shao Ning Pei [2015]
Ultra-low energy photoreceivers for optical interconnects Ryan Going [2015]
Low Noise, Low Power Cavity Optomechanical Oscillators Alejandro Grine [2014]
Optical Whispering-Gallery Mode Resonators for Applications in Optical Communication and Frequency Control Karen Grutter [2013]
Engineering Optical Antenna for Efficient Local Field Enhancement Tae Joon Seok [2012]
Linear, Low Noise Microwave Photonic Systems using Phase and Frequency Modulation John Wyrwas [2012]
Metal-optic and Plasmonic Semiconductor-based Nanolasers Amit Lakhani [2012]
Light-induced Electrokinetics: A path to a versatile micro total analysis system Justin K Valley [2011]
MEMS Lens Scanners for Free-Space Optical Interconnects Jeffrey Chou [2011]
Photopatterned polyacrylamide gels enable efficient microfluidic protein assays Chenlu Hou [2011]
Optoelectronic Manipulation, Assembly, and Patterning of Nanoparticles Arash Jamshidi [2009]
SIlicon Photonic Devices for Optoelectronic Integrated Circuits Ming-Chun Tien [2009]
Optofluidic Devices for Cell, Microparticle, and Nanoparticle Manipulation Aaron Takami Ohta [2008]
Tunable Optical Microresonators with Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) Integration Jin Yao [2007]
High-Speed Modulation of Optical Injection-Locked Semiconductor Lasers Erwin K Lau [2006]
Strong Optical Injection Locking of Edge-Emitting Lasers and Its Applications Hyuk-Kee Sung [2006]
Massively Parallel Optical Manipulation of Single Cells, Micro- and Nano-Particles on Optoelectronic Devices Pei-Yu Chiou [2005]

Publications

Journal Articles
Book Chapters
Masters Reports
Technical Reports

Electronic-Photonic Co-Design of Silicon Photonic Interconnects

Eecs department, university of california, berkeley, technical report no. ucb/eecs-2017-208, december 13, 2017, http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/techrpts/2017/eecs-2017-208.pdf.

Silicon photonic interconnects hold great promise in meeting the high bandwidth and low energy demands of next-generation interconnects. System-level driven electronic-photonic co-design is the key to improving the bandwidth density and energy efficiency. In this study, a comprehensive co-optimization framework is developed for high-speed silicon photonic transmitters utilizing compact models and a detailed optical simulation framework. Given technology and link constraints, microring and Mach-Zehnder transmitter designs are optimized and compared based on a unified optical phase shifter model. Non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and pulse-amplitude-modulation-4 (PAM-4) modulation schemes are analyzed and compared for microring-based transmitters. Using the co-design approach, a monolithic 40Gb/s optical NRZ transmitter based on microring modulators is designed and demonstrated in zero-change 45nm CMOS SOI process. Electronic-photonic co-design with the high swing driver enables this transmitter to achieve total energy efficiency of 330fJ/b and the photonics and modulator driver area bandwidth density of 6.7 Tb/s/mm2. This dissertation also discusses the design and demonstration of the first full silicon photonic interconnect on a 3D integrated electronic-photonic platform. These results make the microring-based silicon photonic transceivers an attractive solution for the next-generation inter and intra-rack photonic interconnects. Finally, a short-reach laser-forwarding coherent link architecture is proposed to further improve the energy efficiency of silicon photonic interconnects. The key concepts of the proposed architecture are verified experimentally with microring-based silicon photonic transmitters. The architecture saves the laser power by 6-7.5x and could enable complex modulation schemes for the future short-reach optical links.

Advisors: Vladimir Stojanovic

BibTeX citation:

EndNote citation: