Nobel wins, psychedelic lilies and a mission to Mars: UC Berkeley’s top stories of 2025

UC Berkeley researchers continued to push the boundaries of science and discovery this year, from winning two Nobel Prizes and fueling a life-saving medical breakthrough to leading a mission to Mars.

The campus’s spirit of innovation and commitment to social mobility were also on full display. Berkeley secured top spots in a host of rankings, helped Indigenous communities revitalize their language, and launched a book exploring its culture of asking big questions and developing world-changing technology. 

Amid the breakthroughs, the campus navigated change and turmoil. Students learned to navigate disagreement, while new leadership signaled a fresh era for Cal Athletics.

Below are 13 of the most significant moments of 2025, as covered by UC Berkeley News.

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John Clarke awarded Nobel Prize in Physics; Omar Yaghi awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry 

It was a banner year for the University of California, which set a world record for the most Nobel Prizes awarded to one university system in a single year. 

It was also a big week at UC Berkeley.

On Oct. 7, the Nobel Prize committee honored John Clarke, an emeritus professor of physics, for his work that laid the foundation for superconducting quantum bits, or qubits, at the heart of many of today’s quantum computers.

The next day, the committee awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Omar Yaghi. Yaghi created a field called reticular chemistry, which involves stitching together molecular building blocks to form porous structures with myriad applications — from pulling water from desert air to drawing carbon from the atmosphere. 

After winning the Nobel Prize, Yaghi was clear about the role of accessible education: “This recognition is really a testament to the power of the public school system in the U.S.”

UC Berkeley named top public school in the country by ‘U.S. News’

Keegan Houser/UC Berkeley

Of more than 1,700 U.S. colleges and universities evaluated, Berkeley claimed the No. 1 spot of all public schools in the 2026 U.S. News & World Report rankings. It is the 16th time over the past two decades that Berkeley has claimed the top spot in the annual evaluation. The magazine also noted Berkeley’s premier-level graduate programs in a separate list published earlier in the year. 

They were just two of the campus’s many accolades this year. Berkeley took first place in the 2025 Pitchbook university rankings, which said graduates have founded more venture-backed companies than undergraduate alumni from any other university in the world. Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education also gave Berkeley top marks. 

“The data here are independent confirmation that we’ve built something truly remarkable here at Berkeley,” said Chancellor Rich Lyons.

NASA’s ESCAPADE mission launches for Mars

In a closely watched mission led by Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, two twin satellites nicknamed Blue and Gold launched in November aboard a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket. They will fly in formation to map the magnetic fields, upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Mars in 3D, providing an unprecedented stereo view of the Red Planet’s unique near-space environment.

Their findings will help scientists understand how and when Mars lost its atmosphere and provide key information about conditions on the planet that could affect people who land or settle on Mars.

Ron Rivera announced as general manager of Cal football program

Brad Mills/USA TODAY Sports

In March, Chancellor Rich Lyons announced that Berkeley was hiring Ron Rivera, a former All-American linebacker at Cal who went on to play and coach in the NFL, as general manager of the California Golden Bears football program.

In the new position funded by private philanthropy, Rivera will work to generate new revenue and fundraising opportunities for the team while lending his leadership and expertise on and off the field. Cal won seven regular season games, the most since 2019. 

And in December, Tosh Lupoi, a former defensive lineman and assistant coach known for his dynamic recruiting ability and who has enjoyed extensive success both in college and the NFL, was named the new Travers Family Head Football Coach.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Tosh and his family back home to Berkeley as our head football coach,” Rivera said.

Gov. Newsom visits UC Berkeley to sign bill encouraging quantum innovation

At an event held at Berkeley’s Campbell Hall in October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to create a statewide strategy to transform quantum research. The changes will help the state grow the quantum economy and attract and retain businesses built on quantum information science, an area expected to evolve into a trillion-dollar-plus industry.

Newsom also spoke to reporters and toured three quantum computing labs at Berkeley — among the many quantum research endeavors on campus.

“It was amazing to walk in the labs downstairs and to see the world here at UC Berkeley,” Newsom said.

New book chronicles UC Berkeley’s evolution into a ‘Startup Campus’

Brandon Sánchez Mejia/UC Berkeley

A book released in the fall, Startup Campus, tells the inside story of how Berkeley transformed from a campus wary of corporate influence into a leading engine for entrepreneurship, new business ventures and world-changing ideas. Written by Mike Alvarez Cohen, the campus’s director of innovation ecosystem development, the book features firsthand accounts from faculty and alumni who built the environment that now churns out more startup founders than any other school.

And in October, a panel of prominent Berkeley faculty and an alum joined Chancellor Rich Lyons to discuss how the campus’s startup culture has powered their work and encouraged the next generation of scholars to grow their ideas. 

With right and left deeply divided, emerging UC Berkeley groups embrace the ‘vital center’

According to a popular, if inaccurate, caricature, Berkeley is an ideological monoculture. Now three growing campus organizations are working to expand space on campus for diverse political perspectives.

“Ultimately, I came to Berkeley to be intellectually challenged, inside and outside of the lab,” said Nathan Tang, a student and co-chair of the Heterodox Academy, a national organization dedicated to expanding the diversity of viewpoints on a campus. “We need to be willing to disagree with each other openly, but to do so civilly. I want others to be intellectually charitable to me, and I want to do the same to them.”

Scientists trick the eye into seeing new color ‘olo’

Using a new technique called “Oz,” Berkeley scientists found a way to manipulate the human eye into seeing a blue-green color of unparalleled saturation. The research team named the new color “olo.” The world noticed. 

By using tiny doses of laser light to individually control up to 1,000 photoreceptors in the eye at one time, the team can show people not only a green more stunning than anything in nature, but also other colors, lines, moving dots and images of babies and fish. 

Researchers say it could transform how we understand and treat eye diseases and expand the way we see the world around us.

For 50 years, she recorded her Pomo language. Her voice is helping this student reclaim his culture.

Berkeley Voices kicked off its latest season in November with the theme “two sides of a story.” In the first episode, Tyler Lee-Wynant, a graduate student researcher for the California Language Archive on campus, shares how the linguistic recordings he’s now analyzing feature his great-great aunt — and have opened a portal to his family’s history.

“It’s such a trove of information about … my family’s history,” he said. “I always get the chills whenever I listen to it because you never know what story is gonna come up.”

A companion piece for UC Berkeley News tells the story of the linguist who spent decades interviewing Pomo tribal elders and how the team brought the collection to Berkeley, where it’s already being used for language revitalization work.

Infant born with deadly disease now thriving thanks to customized CRISPR treatment six months after birth

In a medical first, doctors raced to create a bespoke CRISPR gene therapy for a boy born with a genetic disease that prevented him from breaking down the proteins in his food. They delivered it to him a mere six and a half months after birth, and the infant is now growing well and thriving.

Researchers at Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute worked with the boy’s physicians at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to test the safety and efficacy of a CRISPR base-editing therapy that hospital doctors had developed. The tests helped fast-track approval of the new therapy by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“This was a remarkable team effort,” said Jennifer Doudna, founder of IGI and recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her role in the development of CRISPR gene editing.

Three standout stories uncovered by the California Local News Fellowship

Nikolay Loubet via Unsplash

As tech behemoths like Google and Facebook have increasingly dominated the advertising market that news publications long relied on, California has lost nearly two-thirds of its journalists over the past 20 years. The California Local News Fellowship is working to fill some of that gap. 

Reporters participating in the Berkeley School of Journalism-based program said it provided the resources and stability that made their investigations possible, from a deadly disease afflicting stoneworkers to educational disparities in Napa Valley. Since 2023, the program has placed more than 70 full-time reporters with a variety of outlets throughout the state, with 38 new fellows set to begin in the fall.

Ceremony celebrates xučyun ruwway, UC Berkeley’s newest housing for graduate students

In January, local Indigenous leaders, campus administrators and community officials gathered to celebrate Berkeley’s newest graduate student residence, xučyun ruwway (HOOCH-yoon ROO-why). It’s the first time Berkeley has given a name in any Indigenous language to a campus building or consulted with an Indigenous group to name one.

It kicked off a year of major building news. April marked the opening of the Grimes Engineering Center, a new hub on the north side of campus. Berkeley’s planned Innovation Zone took a big step forward in July with the approval of a new laboratory building devoted to health and agricultural applications of CRISPR gene editing and growth space for entrepreneurial startups.

And at People’s Park, the under-construction student housing project took shape. Crews placed the highest steel beam atop the complex. Campus leaders announced it would be named after the disability rights leader Judith Heumann, and they named the partner organization that will provide supportive and affordable housing at People’s Park.

Investigating the psychedelic blue lotus of Egypt, where ancient magic meets modern science

Diego Moran/UC Berkeley

Few plants are more celebrated in Egyptian mythology than the blue lotus, a stunning water lily that stars in some of archaeology’s most significant discoveries. Perhaps, then, it’s not surprising that a plant resembling the blue lotus is now marketed online as a soothing flower, one that can be vaped or infused in tea. 

There’s just one problem, according to Liam McEvoy, a student majoring in anthropology and minoring in Egyptology. His analysis of the chemical properties of the flowers found the blue lotus used in ancient Egypt and the water lily advertised online are completely different plants.

McEvoy said of his in-depth focus on the ancient plant, “I knew from the very beginning this was going to be my Berkeley thing.”