About

Background

I was born in Watsonville, CA, the son of an immigrant from Durango, Mexico, and grew up in Salinas. I began my academic journey at City College of San Francisco as a sociology major before transferring to UC Berkeley, where I completed my B.A. in Sociology in 2018.

My path to demography came by chance. During a sociology class at Berkeley, I noticed “CAL-ADAR” written on a whiteboard and decided to look into it. CAL-ADAR—Advancing Diversity in Demography of Aging Research—turned out to be a diversity initiative funded by the National Institute on Aging that introduced underrepresented students to demographic research on aging. I applied on a whim and was accepted as a trainee fellow. That experience, and the mentorship I received through the program, opened my eyes to demography as a discipline and set me on the path to graduate school. I entered UC Berkeley’s PhD program in Demography in 2021, where I earned my M.A. in 2022 and am now completing my dissertation on social networks and cognitive aging.

Personal

Outside of academia, I have an appreciation for literature, nature, and my home state of California. I’m a devoted fan of John Steinbeck, with whom I share a birthplace, and “East of Eden” is my favorite work by the author. I love hiking and discovering lesser-known areas, often accompanied by my dogs, Gus and Bentley. At home, my enthusiasm for nurturing life has led to a veritable jungle of houseplants. In my spare time, I stubbornly persist in playing chess, my strategy best described as “optimistic confusion.” Each game serves as a humbling reminder that my true talent lies in creatively losing pieces rather than channeling Magnus Carlsen.

For more info

Interested in leveraging LLMs for your research but unsure where to start? I’m available for consulting to help integrate language models into your workflow—from survey analysis to data cleaning and beyond. Just email me!

For any questions at chrissoria AT Berkeley DOT edu.