UC Berkeley School of Information

Congratulations to MIMS student Sejin Kim, whose Berkeley Civic Innovation Challenge-winning team will join other finalists at this year's Big Ideas contest! 👏 👏 👏

The team created a product that replaces broken workflows with an AI-powered, human-in-the-loop infrastructure.

Alumni Spring Week A weekend dedicated to fun, connection, and community for all School of Information alumni.

Join us at Alumni Spring Week, a weekend dedicated to fun, connection, & community for I School alums!

📅 March 12-14

Events:
- Virtual Town Hall w/ Dean Meyer
- Alumni Night @ Golden State Warriors
- Jazz Brunch

Get your tickets today:
https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/alumni/springweek

Why we fall for online misinformation and what we can do about it Mar 2, 2026, 11:15 am - Online misinformation is a growing concern. Dr. Madeline Jalbert identifies the underlying psychological processes, the role that feelings play, and the criteria people use to…

LECTURE NEXT WEEK: 🗣️

Dr. @maddyjalbert.bsky.social will present her research on why we fall for online misinformation and what we can do about it. 😵‍💫 #academicsky

📅 Monday, March 2, 11:15 am - 12:25 pm
📍 210 South Hall & Online

Event details

A group of people gathered in a bar or lounge with multiple widescreen TVs displaying sports. The room has a festive atmosphere with some tables containing food and drinks.

A group of people seated around a table at a bar with drinks. Several are smiling and wearing name tags. In the background, two screens display the Lombardi trophy, associated with the NFL.

A group of five people are gathered around a wooden table in a casual setting with basketball games playing on large screens in the background. They are smiling and appear to be enjoying their time.

A group of seven people sitting around a table in a sports bar. The table has drinks and napkins. In the background, there's a large TV showing ACC Halftime Report. The setting appears casual and relaxed.

Last week, we had the pleasure of launching our second official alumni group in Los Angeles! 🌴☀️

We are so grateful to have had our amazing I School community join us. Go Bears! 🐻

Berkeley Cybersecurity Master’s Students Develop API Security Test for Different Users Rest Assured “VentiAPI”, by Master of Information and Cybersecurity grads Karl-Johan Westhoff, Bleu Strong, Jenny Garcia, and Tyler Heslop, helps organizations find and fix vulnerabilities in their…

Check out this Q&A with our Chang-Award winning team Rest Assured “VentiAPI”!

Members Karl-Johan Westhoff, Jenny Garcia, Tyler Heslop, and Bleu Strong help organizations find and fix vulnerabilities in their web APIs.

Read the full interview:

Data Science Master’s Students Build AI Model For Elderly Users Age VoicE, by Master of Information and Data Science alums Emma Choate, Vinith Kuruppu, and David Russell, aims to serve an aging population by creating a fine-tuned model that will bridge…

Check out this Q&A with our Varian-Award winning team AgeVoicE!

Members Emma Choate, Vinith Kuruppu, and David Russell created a fine-tuned model that bridged age-related performance gaps in AI.

They discussed working as a team and future plans!

Featured MIMS Student: Octavia Smith MIMS 2027 —

Meet MIMS student ✨ Octavia Smith ✨

Octavia shares her favorite classes, what advice she'd give to a new student, and what BHM means to her.

"I try to embody their legacies by focusing on inclusion, equity, and accessibility at MIMS," she said. #BHM

UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic Trains Students to Help Organizations Defend Themselves Online - CLTC UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity The School of Information-based program has trained 300+ students to defend nonprofits and social-sector organizations against cyber attacks — and sparked a global movement. When a group of students…

The UC Berkeley Cybersecurity Clinic has trained 300+ students to defend nonprofits and social-sector organizations against cyber attacks.

In the clinic, students learn how to apply cybersecurity practices to local organizations. @cltcberkeley.bsky.social

"Wait… what's an I School?" — a question more people have than you'd think 😅

Ph.D. student and MIMS grad Sarah Barrington breaks it all down in this episode of our "What is An I School" series.
👇
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVJzXe9CpHp/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Bellwether Postdoctoral Scholar - School of Information University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

🚨 HIRING 🚨

The I School invites applications for up to three new full-time Bellwether Postdoctoral Scholars to start as soon as July 2026!

This program will allow researchers to develop their own research while collaborating with leading faculty.

Next review date is Feb 28! #academicsky

Measuring and Circumventing Emerging Internet Censorship Threats Feb 23, 2026, 11:30 am - Jerry Chai describes governmental censorship programs and their risks and outlines real-world circumvention and resistance strategies.

Happening Today!

Jerry Chai will examine two major censorship upgrades in China: new mechanisms for blocking fully encrypted traffic and for filtering QUIC traffic at scale. #academicsky

📅 TODAY, 11:30 am - 12:40 pm
📍 210 South Hall

Measuring and Circumventing Emerging Internet Censorship Threats Feb 23, 2026, 11:30 am - Jerry Chai describes governmental censorship programs and their risks and outlines real-world circumvention and resistance strategies.

Join us on Monday for another amazing talk! 🤩

Jerry Chai will examine two major censorship upgrades in China: new mechanisms for blocking fully encrypted traffic and for filtering QUIC traffic at scale.

📅 Feb 23, 11:30 am - 12:40 pm
📍 210 South Hall

@cltcberkeley.bsky.social just released a white paper report analyzing every cybersecurity-related bill enacted in all 50 states during the 2025 legislative sessions.

The report identifies nationwide patterns, approaches, and entities and sectors they regulate.

cltc.berkeley.edu/2026/02/19/n...

Interpersonal Security and Privacy: Emerging Threats and Sociotechnical Defenses Feb 19, 2026, 2:15 pm - Many of today’s most pervasive digital security and privacy threats come not from distant hackers, but from the individuals around us.

🚨 Lecture TODAY! 🚨

Join us for a lecture w/ @sophiestephenson.me, who will discuss interpersonal security and privacy, as interpersonal digital threats become more pervasive. #academicsky

📅 TODAY, 2:15 pm - 3:25 pm
📍 210 South Hall & Online

Five from Cornell named 2026 Sloan Research Fellows | Cornell Chronicle Five Cornell faculty members are among 126 early-career researchers across North America who have won 2026 Sloan Research Fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Congratulations to I School Ph.D. alum @zephoria.bsky.social for receiving a 2026 Sloan Research Fellowship! 👏 👏

boyd is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell. She graduated from the I School in 2008.

On second thought, maybe don’t spill the Tea Regardless of how the great Tea App debacle impacts our perception of cybersecurity, it will be etched in society’s collective memory as a particularly divisive and incessantly gendered moment in

The Daily Call featured I School lecturer Elliott Adams in an article about the Tea app.

"There is a lot of industry momentum to build in security, even if you use tools (such as) Claude Code that are getting more popular for (vibe coding)," said Adams.

www.dailycal.org/weekender/co...

Happy Lunar New Year! 🐎
新年快乐
Chúc mừng năm mới
새해 복 많이 받으세요
恭喜发财
明けましておめでとうございます
Selamat Tahun Baru Cina.
Selamat Tahun Baru Imlek.

🫶 , the School of Information

Alumni Spring Week A weekend dedicated to fun, connection, and community for all School of Information alumni.

Join us at Alumni Spring Week, a weekend dedicated to fun, connection, & community for I School alums!

📅 March 12-14

Events:
- Virtual Town Hall w/ Dean Meyer
- Alumni Night @ Golden State Warriors
- Jazz Brunch

Get your tickets today:
https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/alumni/springweek

Fall 2025 MICS and MIDS Capstone Award Winners Outstanding MICS and MIDS capstone projects.

Congrats to Team AgeVoicE and Team Rest Assured "VentiAPI" for receiving the Fall 2025 Varian Capstone Award and Chang Capstone Award respectively! 🏆

The teams created solutions for age-related AI performance gaps and for identifying API vulnerabilities.

www.ischool.berkeley.edu/news/2026/fa...

A person holding a handmade Valentine's Day card with a design of a jam jar and the phrase "you're totally my jam" on it. The card is adorned with red and pink hearts. The image has a border with candy and heart illustrations, and a "Happy Valentine's Day!" message at the top.

A person smiling and holding two Valentine's Day cards with colorful heart designs. They are standing in a well-lit room with large windows. The image is decorated with red heart and Cupid illustrations along the borders.

A person sitting at a table holds two handmade cards. One card is green with a cartoon avocado design, the other is pink with a heart illustration. The person is wearing a brown hoodie and has curly hair. The image has decorative borders with red illustrations of roses and hearts.

Two people smiling and holding handmade Valentine cards with heart designs. They are in an indoor setting, standing side by side. The image background features red decorative elements, including a cake, bow, and hearts.

Made with paper, glitter, and lots of love ✂️✨

Happy Valentine's Day to our amazing I School community! 💙 💛
More photos can be found here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCJDq7

In the search for Nancy Guthrie, AI is complicating things.

On a @NPR.org podcast episode, Prof. Hany Farid spoke about how easy it is to create AI content: "if you have a single LinkedIn profile and somebody listened to your voicemail...That's it."

⏰ TODAY, 2/11, at 12:10pm, South Hall & Online.

Join us for a Bellwether Lecture with Prof @michamahlberg.bsky.social: "Making Sense of the World through Language and Stories: A Digital Humanities Perspective."

Details: https://bit.ly/4bO6jCv

Alumni Spring Week A weekend dedicated to fun, connection, and community for all School of Information alumni.

Join us at Alumni Spring Week, a weekend dedicated to fun, connection, & community for I School alums!

📅 March 12-14

Events:
- Virtual Town Hall w/ Dean Meyer
- Alumni Night @ Golden State Warriors
- Jazz Brunch

Get your tickets today:
https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/alumni/springweek

‘They Couldn't Break Me': A Protester, the White House and a Doctored Photo President Trump and the White House regularly circulate imagery that has been manipulated by A.I. But the photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong was different.

AI-edited photos depicting Nekima Levy Armstrong leads to Prof Hany Farid on New York Times questioning, “If you are so seamlessly intermixing real and fake, why should I believe anything you do?”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/us/politics/nekima-levy-armstrong-minnesota-protest.html

Brb, going to sit in a tunnel and monologue about all the things we love about our I School 📱

Come to the college 🥰

#heatedrivalry #smiski

A bold calculation: What would it cost to end extreme poverty worldwide? - Berkeley News Using detailed surveys and machine learning computation, new research co-authored at UC Berkeley’s Center for Effective Global Action finds that eradicating extreme poverty would be surprisingly…

Prof. Josh Blumenstock's research with @cega-uc.bsky.social was featured in a Berkeley News article.

Using machine learning, he found that it would only take $318 billion per year (0.3% of the global GDP) to bring millions of people out of extreme poverty.

Fellowship Recipients Design Systems for Justice, Security, and Sustainability Eight School of Information students have been awarded fellowships for 2025-26. From research on food waste, industry asset emissions, and platform risk for marginalized youth, these scholars are…

Eight I School students were awarded fellowships for 2025-26 to study issues such as food waste and biased systems.

Congratulations to Ando Shah, Marisa Hall, Yangyang Yang, Yinwei Sun, Stephanie Andrews, Kobby Hanson, Anna Mowat, and Roshni Misra! 👏

Los Angeles I School Alumni Chapter Launch Feb 21, 2026, 2:30 pm - Connect with fellow alumni, grab a beverage, and celebrate the launch of the I School’s Los Angeles alumni chapter.

We just announced our Los Angeles Alumni Chapter Launch and would love to see you there!

📅 Saturday, February 21 | 2:30–5:00 PM
📍 Tom’s Watch Bar @ LA Live (1011 S Figueroa St b101)

Register here: https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/2026/los-angeles-i-school-alumni-chapter-launch

How to Film ICE Filming federal agents in public is legal, but avoiding a dangerous—even deadly—confrontation isn’t guaranteed. Here’s how to record ICE and CBP agents as safely as possible and have an impact.

When filming ICE, certain procedures such as saving non edited videos are used as safety precautions.

Prof Hany Farid advises “always saving the original recordings that can be shared with reporters and forensic analysts like me.” @wired.com

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-film-ice/

I School Alumni Night at the Golden State Warriors Mar 13, 2026, 4:30 pm - Join us to see Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors take on the Minnesota Timberwolves, and meet and mingle at a pre-game reception.

Alums!

This is your last chance to purchase tickets to join us at the Warriors Game for Spring Week! 🏀

📅 March 13, 4:30 pm - 10:00 pm
📍 Chase Center

Get your tickets now:
https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/events/2026/i-school-alumni-night-golden-state-warriors