Computer Science and Engineering Department

The Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department housed within the Baskin School of Engineering spans multiple areas of research including theory, systems, AI/ML, architectures, and software. In cooperation with other departments on campus, CSE also offers a strong research group in bioinformatics, computational biology, biomolecular engineering, and human genome mapping. The CSE department enjoys a close relationship with the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, and Statistics departments. Faculty members carry out joint research projects, supervise students, and teach courses for these departments.

Events from this organizer

Today

  • Xu, Y. (CSE) – Right Place, Right Time: Accelerating Edge Computation on Modern Heterogeneous SoCs

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

    Modern edge computing increasingly relies on heterogeneous System-on-Chip (SoC) architectures. These chips tightly integrate general-purpose CPUs with various specialized accelerators, including GPUs, FPGAs, and AI accelerators, all under a shared memory architecture. Although these shared-memory SoCs enable more efficient communication and data sharing between different processing units, they are notoriously difficult to program and tune […]

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    CSE Colloquium: Co-Active AI-Assisted Programming

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

    Presenter: Nadia Polikarpova, UCSD Abstract: AI-assisted programming has rapidly moved from novelty to default. Today, most developers use AI coding tools, and increasingly rely on agentic systems capable of making multi-step […]

    Free

  • Yang, S. (CSE) – Beyond Image Editing: Building Generalized Image Customization Systems

    Virtual Event

    Current generative vision models struggle with image customization that requires multi-step reasoning or real-world knowledge. This proposal introduces generalized image customization, enabling systems to execute complex, inferential modifications rather than just simple edits. The research focuses on the foundational framework required for this generalization, specifically high-quality training data, scalable evaluation benchmarks, self-improving training paradigms that […]

  • Fan, Y. (CSE) – Building Human-Centered Multimodal AI Agents

    Virtual Event

    As multimodal artificial intelligence systems become increasingly embedded in everyday technology, there is a growing need to design human-centered AI agents that support and amplify human capabilities rather than replace […]

  • Moghadam, M. (CE) – Constraint-Aware Scene Understanding and Trajectory Generation Using Deep Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Vehicles

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

    Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) are commonly organized as modular pipelines that transform raw sensor measurements into low-level actuation commands through perception, planning, and control. While learning-based methods have achieved state-of-the-art performance in perception and environment modeling, the planning layer remains a key bottleneck for reliable autonomy. Highway driving in particular requires long-horizon reasoning and socially […]

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    CSE Colloquium – Messages from across the event horizon:  AI Agentic Design for Computer Architecture (and more generalizable learnings)

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

    Presenter: Christopher Fletcher, UC Berkeley Abstract: It is difficult to escape the hype of agentic coding.  Is the hype real?  Are we still living in ~Summer 2025 — when AI coding would accomplish little more than upset its human supervisor?  Or has a level shift in technology finally arrived? In this talk I will argue the latter.  I will […]

    Free

  • Castello, J. (CSE) – Space Mission Simulation From the Outside In

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

    Robotic space missions often use discrete event simulation to reduce risk in operation. A simulation applies a set of planned activities to a model of mission resources, and the model’s […]

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    CSE Colloquium – Algorithmic Problems in Discrete Choice by Ravi Kumar

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

    Presenter: Ravi Kumar, Google Abstract: In discrete choice, a user selects one option from a finite set of available alternatives, a process that is crucial for recommendation systems applications in e-commerce, […]

    Free
  • Kraw Lecture Artificial Intelligence Edition

    Kraw Lecture: At the Forefront of AI: Innovation and Discovery

    The Quad Conference Center 2400 Sand Hill Rd, Menlo Park, CA, United States

    Artificial intelligence is transforming how we understand and solve the world’s most complex challenges—while at the same time causing new challenges and concerns. We invite you to join us for a special UC Santa Cruz Kraw Lecture showcasing the faculty whose groundbreaking research in artificial intelligence is transforming science, technology, and society. From advances in […]

  • Two students wearing UC Santa Cruz t-shirts smile together with redwood trees in the background

    BE Climate & Cookies Student Pop-Up!

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

    Come get excited about Baskin Engineering Climate Week at our student pop-up! 🌎 Climate Week is a chance to explore how Baskin Engineering is addressing climate challenges through innovative research, teaching, and hands-on projects. Discover the events happening throughout the week and find ways to get involved! Swing by for FREE BE swag, coffee, cookies, […]

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    CSE Colloquium – Robust Machine Learning for Biomedical Data: Efficiency, Reliability, and Generalizability

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

    Presenter Chenyu You, Stony Brook University Abstract In the rapidly growing area of machine learning, there is profound promise in crafting intelligent, data-driven methods for diverse real-world applications. Yet, in safety-critical domains like healthcare, some fundamental challenges remain: (1) The insufficiency of raw biomedical data emphasizes the need for data-efficient and robust learning approaches. (2) […]

    Free
  • A student presents a research poster to a group of attendees during Baskin Engineering Climate Week

    Climate Tech & Sustainability Showcase

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

    Join us for a Climate Tech & Sustainability Showcase, where students, faculty, climate and sustainability-focused companies, founders, and community organizations come together to share their work and ideas. The event is part of Baskin Engineering Climate Week, focused on raising awareness of climate issues and sustainability research and teaching. Explore a range of interactive demos, […]

  • Professor Javier Gonzalez-Rocha holds a drone in a UCSC field

    Careers in Climate Tech & Sustainability

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

    Ready to explore career pathways that matter? Attend our very special Careers in Climate Tech & Sustainability Panel—celebrating Baskin Engineering Climate Week—for an inside look at careers that will help build a sustainable future. Panelists representing different roles and organizations will share their career journeys and offer practical insights into working in climate tech. There […]

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    Climate Week Tech Connect: Energy Solutions

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

    Join Baskin Engineering to explore the frontier of power engineering, where the rapid rise of electrification and digital infrastructure is creating an unprecedented demand for next-generation talent and a critical opportunity for sustainability.  This networking event bridges the gap between the classroom and the field, offering students and faculty a front-row seat to the trends […]

  • Four students on laptops

    Quality First Coding Contest

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

    This is a programming contest, but with a twist! Instead of scoring you based on your speed and solution accuracy, we score you based on your programming quality and solution accuracy. This means that instead of looking at how fast you can program a solution, we look at your number of compiles/runs instead.* The contestant that […]

    Free
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    CSE Colloquium – Towards Safe and Resilient Large-scale Distributed Programming

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

    Presenter: Philipp Haller, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Abstract: Distributed programming is notoriously difficult. Not only are distributed systems concurrent, they pose additional challenges including data consistency and fault tolerance. At the same time, the share of software systems that are necessarily distributed systems is growing rapidly. As a result, too many software developers are […]

    Free

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    CSE Colloquium – The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program

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

    Presenters: Prof. Karl-Erik Arzen (Co-Director of WASP and Lund University), Dr. Paul Townend (WASP Graduate School management and UmeĂĄ University), and Carl Magnus Bruhner (Linkoping University) Abstract: The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems, and Software Program (WASP) is the largest research initiative in Swedish history, with a budget of over $700M and a research focus AI […]

    Free