Openness to Opposing Views Contributing Faculty

Ben Hermalin, Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost, Professor of Economics, and the Thomas & Alison Schneider Distinguished Professor of Finance at Berkeley Haas

Benjamin E. Hermalin is the University of California Berkeley's executive vice chancellor and provost (EVCP), and holds professorships both in the Economics Department and at Berkeley Haas. In the latter, he is the Thomas & Alison Schneider Distinguished Professor of Finance.

Nicole Holliday, Associate Professor, Linguistics

Nicole Holliday is a sociophonetician, specifically interested in how people use linguistic variation to perform and construct their social identities and to understand the identities of others through differences in their use of properties related to intonation and voice quality.

Saul Perlmutter - Professor of Physics, Nobel Prize Winner (2011)

Saul Perlmutter is a 2011 Nobel Laureate, sharing the prize in physics for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe. A professor of physics at UC Berkeley and a senior scientist at Berkeley Lab, he leads the Berkeley Institute for Data Science, the Supernova Cosmology Project, and Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics.

Lisa Armstrong - Faculty, Asst. Professor

Lisa Armstrong is an award-winning journalist with credits in The Intercept, The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The New Yorker, and other outlets. She has reported from several countries, including Sierra Leone, Kenya, and the Philippines.

Ronald Dahl - Berkeley Changemaker Faculty Director

Professor Dahl is a pediatrician and developmental scientist with more than 30 years of experience working at the interface of research, practice, and policy with the goal of improving the lives of children and adolescents. He is a distinguished professor in the School of Public Health. He served as Director of the Institute of Human Development for 12 years, and was founding director of the Center for the Developing Adolescent.

Chelsea Gregory - Lecturer, Theater, Dance and Performance Studies

Chelsea Gregory (she/her) is a community-engaged artist, educator, cultural organizer, equity and restorative justice practitioner with over two decades of experience working at the intersections of arts and social change. She has collaborated with Urban Bush Women, Cornerstone Theater Company, Guillermo Gomez-Peña/ La Pocha Nostra, Working Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and many other dance and theater companies.

Laura Paxton Hassner - Strategic Advisor to the Chancellor | Professional Faculty, Management of Organizations at Berkeley Haas | Executive Director, Innovation & Entrepreneurship | Executive Director, Berkeley Changemaker

Laura Hassner is the Strategic Advisor to the Chancellor of UC Berkeley. She is also the Executive Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley and the Berkeley Changemaker academic program. Hassner co-created and co-leads the Berkeley Changemaker® academic program. Berkeley Changemaker’s identity-making curriculum activates students’ passions and helps them develop a sharper sense of who they want to be and how to make that happen. In its first 5 years, over 8,500 students have become Berkeley Changemakers.

Jennifer Johnson-Hanks - Executive Dean, College of Letters & Science

Jennifer Johnson-Hanks is a professor of demography and sociology. She is a cultural demographer with interests in fertility and family, epistemology, and the history of population thought.

Arlie Hochschild, Professor Emerita, Sociology

Arlie Russell Hochschild ’62 H’93 is a professor emerita in the department of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Hochschild graduated from Swarthmore in 1962 before earning her M.A. and Ph.D in sociology at Berkeley, where she has spent the majority of her career.

Mark Brilliant - Associate Professor Margaret Byrne Chair in American History

Mark Brilliant is an Associate Professor and Margaret Byrne Chair in American History. He is contributing faculty for the Openness to Opposing Views course.