• AM Seminar: Dissecting Complex Disease Mechanisms with Causal Inference and Deep Learning

    Jack Baskin Engineering Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA

    Presenter: Dr. David A. Knowles, New York Genome Center & Columbia University Description: Many human diseases have a substantial genetic component, which association studies are increasingly capable of characterizing, empowered by ever-growing sample sizes. These associations have the potential to elucidate complex disease biology and prioritize therapeutic interventions. However, it is challenging to determine the […]

  • ECE Seminar: Multiscale Sensing for Specialty Crop Systems: From Field Monitoring to Food Safety Application

    Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA

    Presenter: Eve Laroche-Pinel, Postdoctoral Researcher, California State University, Fresno Description: Advances in remote sensing, drone platforms, and data analytics are enhancing the ability to monitor agricultural systems at fine spatial and temporal scales. This presentation will highlight applied research using multispectral and hyperspectral data from satellites, drones, aircraft, and ground platforms to assess crop water […]

  • Paul Pena, D. (CSE) – Efficient Pattern Counting in Sparse Graphs and Hypergraphs

    Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA
    Hybrid Event

    Pattern counting is a fundamental problem in computer science with applications in many domains. For a fixed small pattern H, we are given a large graph G and we are asked to count the number of subgraphs or homomorphisms (edge-preserving maps) of H in G. For practical applications where the input graph can be very […]

  • Privacy’s Defender: Fight Against Digital Surveillance with Cindy Cohn

    Humanities 1 Building 257 Cowell-Stevenson Road, Santa Cruz, CA, United States

    Privacy’s Defender Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Executive Director Cindy Cohn’s Journey Inside the Privacy Battles That Shaped Today’s Internet Cindy Cohn has devoted her life to the fight for digital rights. She’s tangled with federal officials to keep our online conversations secure from the government’s prying eyes, fought to ensure that you are told when […]

  • Bai, G. (BMEB) – Long-read single-molecule chromatin architecture and its role in transcriptome regulation

    Biomedical Sciences Building 575 McLaughlin Drive
    Hybrid Event

    Sequencing technologies have revolutionized our understanding of biology, yet many existing methods require fragmentation of DNA or RNA, fundamentally limiting our ability to study these molecules in their native, intact forms. Long-read sequencing overcomes this constraint by enabling the sequencing of long, single-molecule native DNA and RNA, providing simultaneous access to both sequence and base […]

  • Maram, S. (CM) – Scripture To Console: The Nexus between Religion and Digital Play

    Virtual Event

    Religion has historically been a profound force for global mobilization, shaping geopolitics, economies, and geography. Similarly, contemporary interactive media, with video games at the forefront, has moved beyond mere entertainment to become a powerful vehicle for communication, narrative, and inspiration, reaching millions worldwide. This dissertation investigates the intersection of these two influential forces: religion and […]

  • Lucas, J. (BMEB) – Enabling Population-Scale Analysis of Human Centromere Diversity

    Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA
    Hybrid Event

    Centromeric DNA is critical for accurate chromosome segregation and genome stability, but due to its repetitive nature, it was only recently fully included in a human reference. Rapid evolution and sequence diversity in these regions limit the utility of one reference sequence, however. Integrating centromeric and pericentromeric satellite DNA – which together constitute over 5% […]

  • CSE Colloquium – Safety Alignment of LMs via Non-cooperative Games

    Engineering 2 Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA

    Presenter: Arman Zharmagambetov, Meta Abstract: Ensuring the safety of language models (LMs) while maintaining their usefulness remains a critical challenge in AI alignment. Current approaches rely on sequential adversarial training: generating adversarial (harmful) prompts and fine-tuning LMs to defend against them. We introduce a different paradigm: framing safety alignment as a non-zero-sum game between an […]

    Free
  • BME80G Seminar – Ann Mc Cartney, “The Why, What and How of Indigenous Data Sovereignty”

    Presenter: Dr. Ann Mc Cartney Location: Virtual. Please register here: https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/ciShTZsyRViYxMDjCc_cAQ#/registration Abstract: In 2007 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) that supports Indigenous Peoples’ inherent rights to self-determination and governance over Indigenous Peoples, territories and resources. This codification in an international treaty led to the […]

  • It Takes an Ecosystem: Staff and Faculty Perspectives on Collaboration at UC Santa Cruz

    HSI Equity Talks
    Virtual Event

    Funded through a Department of Education Title V grant, a team at UC Santa Cruz launched CULTURA (Centering Undergraduate Latine Thriving with University Racial-Equity Action) in 2024 as a bold, campus-wide effort to reimagine how we can collectively advance student success and equity. At its core, CULTURA asks: What becomes possible when we intentionally invest […]

  • The Helene Moglen Lecture in Feminism and Humanities: Donna Haraway

    Merrill Cultural Center 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA

    Donna Haraway, “Staying with the Trouble for Still Possible Times” Wednesday May 20, 2026, 5:30 p.m. There will be refreshments from 5– 5:30 p.m., the talk at 5:30 – 7 p.m., and a reception at the very end. Merrill Cultural Center In-person only The sky has not fallen – yet. In troubled times, this lecture […]

  • VMCC Talk with Salar Mameni—Blood of Tulips

    Porter College D-Building, Santa Cruz, CA

    What counts as life in the midst of war, genocide, and planetary destruction? What is death and how do ideas around martyrdom and sacrifice contribute to our understanding of sacred ecologies? In this talk, Mameni engages these questions based on research for his second book project focusing on ecologies of war and martyrdom in the […]

    FREE and open to the public
  • Tripoli: A Tale of Three Cities—reception, screening, and discussion with the filmmmaker

    Communications Building 7487 Red Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA

    While living abroad, a filmmaker returns to Tripoli, Lebanon, to confront a hometown that once rejected him as a queer child. With a microphone in hand, he walks around coffee shops, public squares, and a park to ask the city’s inhabitants about their cultural and social beliefs and their embrace of new ideas. Gradually, he […]

    FREE and open to UCSC affiliates
  • Annual BE Student Project Showcase

    The annual BE Student Project Showcase celebrates the innovative work and accomplishments of undergraduate engineers in capstone courses and research pathways.

  • BME 280B Seminar: Speaker Dylan Shropshire – “How did Wolbachia become Earth’s most pervasive animal symbiont?”

    Biomedical Sciences Building 575 McLaughlin Drive

    Presenter: Dylan Shropshire, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Lehigh University Description: Maternally transmitted Wolbachia bacteria inhabit roughly half of all arthropod species, making them likely the most common animal-associated microbe on Earth. Wolbachia alter host reproduction, persist across deep evolutionary timescales, and move into new host species in ways that we are only beginning to resolve. Wolbachia’s […]

  • Something held by poetry

    Institute of the Arts and Sciences 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States

    In this intimate workshop, UC Santa Cruz students, faculty, and staff are invited into conversation with poets Ronaldo V. Wilson and Terri Witek. Something held by poetry is programmed for Wilson’s multimedia exhibition, there are no words, but melodies, currently on view at the IAS. RSVP is required. Ronaldo V. Wilson is a poet, interdisciplinary artist, […]

  • All This Safety is Killing Us w/ Aminah Elster, Jennifer James, and Carlos Martinez

    Visualizing Abolition
    Institute of the Arts and Sciences 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States

    Join us for a conversation between Black feminist abolitionist, advocate, and researcher Aminah Elster, Black Feminist scholar Jennifer James, UCSF, and public health and medical anthropology reseaarcher Carlos Martinez, ucsc,  on the intersection of prison abolition and healthcare. This conversation draws on research from the co-edited volume All This Safety Is Killing Us: Health Justice Beyond […]

  • Chou, Y. (CM) – Exploring Future AI-Mediated Health Creator–Audience Interactions on Social Media: Transparency, Care, and Accountability

    Virtual Event

    Health and wellness content creators play an important role in shaping how people receive and engage with health information on social media. Beyond delivering information, they also convey care, build trust, and sustain relationships with audiences. As generative AI (GenAI) becomes increasingly integrated into creator work, existing research has examined AI disclosure, AI-mediated communication, and […]

  • Weber, Z. (ECE) – Sustainable Bioinspired Polymer–Mineral Composites for Adaptable Repair in Conservation Applications

    Jack Baskin Engineering Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA
    Hybrid Event

    Every year, tens of thousands of tons of plaster-based materials are used in restoration and conservation applications, many of which are derived from non-renewable sources and discarded at the end of their service life. Here, we introduce a biodegradable, bio-derived composite based on chitosan and calcium carbonate that is composed of simple, widely available constituents […]