Spring 2026 Instructors

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.

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.

Victoria Howell - Director, Executive Programs and Associate Instructor, UC Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology

Victoria Howell leads the A. Richard Newton Lecture Series: A Berkeley Changemaker Course, the Center’s flagship program. Her background is in financial services, strategy and marketing, and she now dedicates herself to delivering opportunities/events connecting exceptional individuals to diverse audiences.

Robert Strand - Executive Director, Center for Responsible Business

Robert Strand is the Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Business and Lecturer at the Berkeley Haas School of Business. He is also Executive Director of the Nordic Center at UC Berkeley. His research and teaching compares U.S. and Nordic approaches to sustainable and socially responsible business. Strand teaches the suite of courses “Sustainable Capitalism in the Nordics?” at Haas that leverages his forthcoming book “Nordic Capitalism: Lessons for Realizing Sustainable Capitalism.”

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.

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.

John Levine - Lecturer, College Writing Programs

John Levine joined the UC Berkeley College Writing Programs faculty in 1997. In 2005, he co-developed the course design and began teaching Introduction to Public Speaking and, later, Advanced Public Speaking. He also coordinates the long-running Berkeley Writers at Work series.

Brandi M. Pearce - Lecturer, Director, High Impact Teams & Research, Team@Haas, Management of Organizations

Brandi Pearce is on the faculty in Management of Organizations and the Faculty Director of Teams@Haas. Prior to earning her doctorate, Pearce worked in the Silicon Valley leading alliance teams for Oracle Corporation, one of the world’s most innovative global organizations in the management of strategic partnerships. She deeply values the intersection between evidence-based management and organizational practice. These principals spill over into her research where she works directly with teams, individual contributors, and executives in Global Fortune 500 organizations all over the world to explore how collaborative dynamics drive creativity, employee engagement, and innovation.

Anita Balaraman - Lecturer at the Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership

Anita Balaraman is a technology product leader with more than 10 years of experience in building technology products that delight the customer both in the B2B and B2C domain. She is also an adjunct faculty at UC Berkeley, teaching and coaching hi-tech product management. She is currently the founder of an early stage ed-tech startup. Most recently she led the digital customer experience practice at Cisco Systems, designing and launching enterprise solutions for customer experience.

Christyna Serrano - Lecturer, Education

Christyna Serrano has over ten years of teaching, curriculum, and program design experience. Christyna has collaborated with, developed, and managed faculty, technical experts, thought leaders, and content partners to produce dynamic, interactive, and transformative learning experiences and educational solutions (in-person and online) -- most recently as Director, Faculty Engagement at Singularity University, and now as Strategic Content Partner Lead at Udacity