UC Berkeley has reappointed Jennifer Chayes, founding dean of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS), to a second five-year term. The dean term began January 1, 2025, and will end December 31, 2029.
When she joined Berkeley in 2020, Chayes was enticed by the University of California’s public mission and the opportunity to develop a compelling vision for CDSS, the first new college at the Berkeley campus in more than 50 years. In addition to her role as dean, Chayes holds professorships in electrical engineering and computer sciences, information, mathematics and statistics.
Chayes spent 23 years leading research groups and starting interdisciplinary labs at Microsoft before arriving at Berkeley. An active researcher with expertise in core computing, AI and machine learning, Chayes completed her Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Princeton University and started her career as a math professor at UCLA.
“I was attracted to Berkeley for many reasons: this institution has tremendous scale that represents a cross section of society, phenomenal faculty and students in every domain, and a shared sense of societal purpose,” said Chayes. “While other universities may have one of these attributes, only Berkeley has it all."
“Our faculty, staff and students across campus are willing to roll up their sleeves and help create a better and more just world.”
The campus initiative that eventually established the college predated Chayes’ leadership, stemming from the widespread interest and focused efforts of faculty and students that continues today. The proposal to form the College of CDSS was reviewed and approved by the Berkeley and UC Systemwide Academic Senates and the UC Office of the President. Chancellor Emerita Carol Christ and Chayes presented the proposal to the UC Board of Regents in May 2023, and establishment of the college was unanimously approved by the governing body.
During her first term as dean, Chayes worked with faculty, staff and administrators to set the groundwork for the academic, administrative and philanthropic structures necessary for a new college to become a lasting campus institution. CDSS welcomed its first class of directly admitted students last fall. The college currently serves more than 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
“Dean Chayes has been a tenacious advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in data science and across campus,” said Aaron Streets, associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Center for Computational Biology and faculty advisor for excellence and equity at CDSS. “She consistently commits resources and her time to support faculty and their service efforts and has been integral to the recruitment of students in data science and junior faculty.”
A number of existing academic and research units were brought together to found the College of CDSS, including the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, shared with the College of Engineering; the Department of Statistics; the Data Science Undergraduate Studies program; the Center for Computational Biology; and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science.
Chayes collaborated extensively with faculty and staff at CDSS and across campus to form new innovative interdisciplinary academic programs and research institutes, support the sustainable growth of the college’s popular data science major, and develop several donor-funded initiatives in education and research.
“We have a tremendous opportunity to create the best cross-disciplinary research environment in the world,” said Ion Stoica, professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, director of Sky Computing Lab, and a co-founder of Databricks. “To achieve this, we need a leader who has the experience, vision and courage to push the boundaries of what is possible on campus and beyond. Jennifer is that leader!”
With Chayes’ leadership, CDSS launched a number of initiatives that bridge computing and data science research across disciplines to make direct impacts on challenging societal issues, including healthcare and climate: the UCSF UC Berkeley Joint Program in Computational Precision Health; the Center for Healthcare Marketplace Innovation, jointly with the Haas School of Business; the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet; and the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center for Data Science and Environment, jointly with the Rausser College of Natural Resources.
The Gateway building, envisioned as the future home of CDSS and a welcoming collaboration hub for campus, is currently under construction at Hearst Avenue and Arch Street in Berkeley. Construction is scheduled for completion during the spring 2026 semester. The building includes a lower-level convening space, five floors of research laboratories and offices, classrooms, seminar and conference rooms, social kitchens, a café, and a rooftop event space.
Chayes is also deeply committed to public service. Last spring, she welcomed attendees to the Joint California Summit on Generative AI in San Francisco, bringing together leaders from science, industry, policy, and civic life to advance critical conversations about AI. Her conversation with California Governor Gavin Newsom and Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI’s Fei-Fei Li explored how this transformative technology can help address societal challenges while minimizing risks.
In December, Chayes was named by Governor Newsom to a panel of experts that will help assess generative AI capabilities and potential trajectories by leveraging leading-edge scientific understanding. The working group will inform California policymakers as the state seeks to define practical guardrails for generative AI development while fostering the innovation ecosystem.
“This new working group on AI frontier models aims to help inform state policy that would mitigate potential AI risks while enabling tremendous advancements that would benefit Californians,” said Chayes. “By helping to develop frameworks that enable safe and responsible AI in our state, we can set an example for the U.S. and the world on how best to limit risk while enhancing opportunities.”
In her second term as CDSS dean, Chayes said she is most excited by “opportunities to nurture and create institutional structures that will provide fertile ground for the further development of computing and statistics, and the development of new interdisciplinary fields to accelerate solutions to the world’s most urgent problems.”
Pamela Samuelson, Berkeley Law professor and director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, has been an active participant in this interdisciplinary work. “Under Jennifer Chayes’ inspirational leadership, many scholars on the Berkeley campus representing a range of disciplines and research that use data science tools have joined together with CDSS scholars,” said Samuelson. “We have also connected those who are concerned with the societal impacts of data and computer science to offer cross-disciplinary perspectives on how the public interest can best be served by advances in these fields.”
Chayes believes this to be an important and lasting CDSS contribution. “The college can actively encourage and form collaborations across disciplines by bringing together domain experts with faculty in computing and statistics to develop new domain-specific quantitative solutions to societal challenges,” said Chayes. “We are also bringing qualitative scholars into deep conversation and iteration with quantitative scholars.”
“This should become an essential component to the process of developing technical solutions. We must ensure the solutions we are creating are imbued with the diversity of knowledge and perspectives – and the values – of the society we collectively aspire to build.”
