• 2026 Right Livelihood International Conference

    Hybrid Event

    The Right Livelihood International Conference is a five-week global conference exploring how education can strengthen democracy, collective intelligence, and just futures. Bringing together Right Livelihood Laureates, students, faculty, and community partners across continents, the conference combines asynchronous learning with participatory dialogue and collaborative action. Rather than advocating specific outcomes, the conference positions education as a democratic […]

  • Slug48—Student Film Competition, Screening, and Awards Ceremony

    The third annual Slug48 returns with a 48-hour film competition—open to all UC Santa Cruz students. A 48-hour film is one that is written, shot, edited, and all music composed within a 48-hour time period. Teams and strategies for filming may be formed ahead of time, but nothing can be written, and no footage can […]

    FREE and open to UCSC affilates
  • Taming Two Scorpions: Climate Science Tipping Points Meet Finance Tail Risks

    Center for Adaptive Optics 7487 Red Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA

    When two quite different disciplines make eerily similar predictions about the future of the planet and human societies, they deserve notice. Climate scientists warn that we may be heading toward a Hothouse Earth “inhospitable to … human societies,” with “increasingly catastrophic impacts” possibly “worldwide societal breakdown.”       Finance and actuarial science emphasize the importance of tail […]

    Free
  • Landesman Lecture

    Music Center Recital Hall 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA
    Hybrid Event

    This evening blends science, poetry, and storytelling to explore our deepest origins and shared humanity. Tracing the cosmic formation of the elements that make our bodies, we reflect on an ancestry older than nations, borders, and labels. Through verse and story, we connect stellar history with lived experience, inviting us to see how our many identities arise from the same ancestral matter. Together, we explore how storytelling can soften divisions, cross boundaries, and remind us that we are forged from one common origin.

    FREE and open to the public
  • 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. […]

    Free
  • Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed

    Merrill Cultural Center 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA

    Please join us as Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff discuss their new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed (April, 2026). A Financial Times Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of the Year • A Kirkus Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of Spring 2026• A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year A pyrotechnic examination of Elon Musk as a symptom and avatar […]

    Free – Registration link below
  • TLC Convocation 2026

    Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis College Multi-purpose Room 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA
    Hybrid Event

    The Opposite of Cheating: Rethinking Instruction in the Age of AI David Rettinger, Applied Professor and Undergraduate Program Director at the University of Tulsa Higher education stands at a crossroads. Generative AI is a powerful and flawed tool that may render traditional assessments obsolete and call fundamental pedagogical assumptions into question across all disciplines. Yet […]

    Free
  • Planetary Health and Innovation Panel

    Seymour Marine Discovery Center 100 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA

    Join us for an interactive conversation featuring visionary entrepreneurs, investors, and ecosystem experts at the forefront of global sustainability. This panel explores the intersection of environmental stewardship and cutting-edge solutions to drive meaningful impact. Following the discussion, please stay for a networking reception to connect with fellow attendees and industry leaders. It is a premier […]

  • Slugs at Sundown: CEO of Your Own Career

    Silicon Valley Campus 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, United States

    Tired of the dreaded question, “So, what do you do?” Join us for a high-impact session designed to help you ditch the “humble brag” and start speaking like the CEO […]

  • Summer Session Enrollment Open

    Summer Session Enrollment Open
    Virtual Event

      Summer Session enrollment is now open! All continuing students can add classes in MyUCSC. Incoming students must register to enroll. Get ahead on your degree, explore new subjects, or catch up on requirements. Financial aid is available. Learn more and enroll at summer.ucsc.edu

  • Sequence to Survival: Using Genomics to Save Biodiversity

    Cultural Center – Merrill College 641 Merrill Rd, Santa Cruz, United States

    A Free Public Symposium Friday, May 1, 2026 Merrill Cultural Center, UC Santa Cruz Main Campus Doors open at 12:30 PM | Program begins at 1:00 PM Registration is free but required! In the 25 years since the Human Genome Project, scientists have sequenced the DNA of thousands of species. But what can genomics actually […]

  • First Saturday Tour at the Arboretum

    First Saturday Tour at the Arboretum
    Arboretum 122 Arboretum Road, Santa Cruz, CA

    First Saturday Tours are a wonderful way to introduce yourself to the Arboretum or to deepen your knowledge of the Arboretum’s plant collections. Each tour is a little different depending on the time of year, the interests of the tour guide, and the people who join in. For example, you might learn about the birds […]

  • Sister Warriors in Conversation: Expanding Communities of Care in CA Women’s Prisons

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

    This panel discussion with Niki Martinez, Elizabeth Lozano, and Susan Bustamente of Sister Warriors Freedom Coalition will be moderated by Dr. Julissa O. Muñiz, UCLA.  Organized for Visualizing Abolition, the event will talk about the movement women and gender expansive folks who have been incarcerated are building to support each other, shift power, and lead systems and policy […]

  • AM Seminar: Engineering the Earth’s Climate

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

    Presenter: Dr. Pulkit Dubey, Postdoc, UC Santa Cruz Description: Neural climate emulators such as NeuralGCM and LUCIE offer efficient, differentiable alternatives to General Circulation Models (GCMs), producing climate predictions at […]

  • May Slugs and Steins with Professor Soraya Murray

    Virtual Event

    TECHNOTHRILLER: Film and the American Imagination In this presentation, visual culture scholar Soraya Murray (Film + Digital Media Department, UCSC) shares her new book, TECHNOTHRILLER: Film and the American Imagination (MIT, Feb 2026). In TECHNOTHRILLER, Soraya Murray reveals how popular American films after the 1960s, in which technology assumes a central role—mainly biotech, military, and computational—channel our cultural […]

  • Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods Book Talk

    Hay Barn 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, United States

    Join us for a conversation with co-editors Liz Carlisle and Aubrey Streit Krug and contributor Tim Crews about their new book Living Roots: The Promise of Perennial Foods. Following the conversation, we’ll enjoy a tasting of perennial treats, and copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. Living Roots makes the case for putting […]