Events

CSE Colloquium - The EU’s Cybersecurity Framework: what it is, what it means
2026-05-13 11:00 - 12:15 (America/Los_Angeles) | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius, Lothar Determann, Pieter T.J. Wolters
Abstract:
The European Union has enacted a comprehensive cybersecurity framework (the “Framework”) that imposes far-reaching obligations on developers of standalone software and connected products. This Article describes the European legislative approach before turning to a description of the Framework. Anchored by the Cyber Resilience Act and the Cybersecurity Act, and reinforced by a constellation of sector-specific measures, the Framework effectively creates a California-like-products-liability regime for software. It mandates extensive security-by-design obligations, imposes stringent conformity assessment and incident-reporting duties, and shifts substantial compliance burdens onto manufacturers, importers, and distributors. It even treats emotional wrongs caused by software as injurious. The Framework will take full effect in December 2027, meaning that companies must integrate its requirements into their current product cycles.
Bio: Chris Hoofnagle is professor of law in residence at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches tort law and cybersecurity.
Hosted by: Professor Alvaro Cardenas
Location: Engineering 2, Room E2-180 (Refreshments such as fruit, pastries, coffee, and tea will be provided.)
Zoom Option: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=[REDACTED]

Ehrlich, D. (CM) - Designing Open Microscopy Tools for Neuroscience Research
2026-05-13 12:00 - 13:30
Advances in microscopy have transformed our understanding of biological systems,
yet the high cost and limited accessibility of commercial imaging platforms continue to re-
strict their use in many research settings. This thesis presents the design and development of
open hardware microscopy tools for neuroscience research, with a focus on integrating user-
centered design principles into the instrument development process. Two primary methods
are introduced: augmenting existing microscopes with new imaging capabilities, and the cre-
ation of modular microscopes that are designed for continuous, long-term live-cell imaging.
Both platforms are built around open hardware principles, prioritizing low cost, modularity, and
adaptability to the practical needs of working researchers. Alongside the hardware contribu-
tions, this thesis presents user experience research methods for examining how neuroscience
researchers interact with novel microscopy technologies, providing a methodological frame-
work for human-centered scientific instrument design. These contributions demonstrate that
pairing hardware development with user-centered design methodologies produces microscopy
tools that are both technically capable and meaningfully accessible to both laboratories and
individuals studying neuroscience, education, and other fields.

Event Host: Drew Ehrlich, Ph.D. Candidate, Computational Media
Advisor: Sri Kurniawan
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/2491739056?pwd=[REDACTED]

Thriving in Transition: A Mental Fitness Toolkit for What's Next
2026-05-13 13:00 - 14:00
Life After Graduation Series
Hosted by UC Davis, open to recent alumni and rising seniors of all UC campuses.
The Cal Aggie Alumni Association is kicking off its Life After Graduation Series with an engaging virtual session, “Thriving in Transition,” on Wednesday, May 13 at 1 p.m. (Pacific Time).
The transition from college to post-graduate life can bring both opportunity and uncertainty. Without the structure of academic life, many graduates face new pressures related to job searching, career decisions, and navigating change.
This session introduces the concept of mental fitness – the capacity to respond to challenges with clarity, resilience, and intention. Through practical, accessible techniques, participants will learn how to manage stress, regulate emotions, and strengthen focus during this period of transition. Attendees will leave with tools they can apply immediately to support their wellbeing and sustain momentum as they move into their next chapter.
Learning Objectives

Define mental fitness and its role in personal and professional success
Recognize common stressors and emotional patterns during post-graduate transitions
Practice techniques to manage stress and increase emotional regulation
Strengthen focus, motivation, and adaptability during periods of uncertainty
Develop habits that support long-term resilience and wellbeing

LEARN MORE & REGISTER

Zheng, K. (CSE) - Towards Generalist Embodied World Models: From Neuro-Symbolic Interaction to Self-Evolving 3D World Generation
2026-05-13 15:00 - 17:00
Artificial intelligence is moving beyond passive perception toward systems that can understand, interact with, and generate the world. This dissertation studies generalist embodied world models that connect language, vision, action, and 3D scene representations. It explores how multimodal systems can ground human instructions in physical environments, reason over long-horizon tasks, generate coherent text-and-visual content, and construct spatially consistent 3D worlds from limited observations. Across embodied reasoning, multimodal generation, and 3D world construction, this dissertation develops methods that combine pretrained models with structured interfaces such as symbolic reasoning, generative visual tokens, spatial priors, and iterative self-refinement. These approaches aim to improve generalization, data efficiency, interpretability, and geometric consistency without relying solely on monolithic end-to-end training. Together, the work argues for a broader view of embodied AI: intelligent systems should not only recognize or describe the world, but also act within it, imagine it, and build reusable representations of it.
Event Host: Kaizhi Zheng, Ph.D. Candidate, Computer Science & Engineering
Advisor: Xin Eric Wang

Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/91912825272?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Building Belonging Program Student Showcase 2026
2026-05-13 15:00 - 17:30 | Seymour Marine Discovery Center, 100 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060
Join us for the Institute for Social Transformation’s annual student showcase, celebrating the incredible work of our Building Belonging Fellows! This special event highlights the achievements of undergraduate research fellows. Each student will give a 2-minute lightning talk about a research project they worked on with a Social Sciences faculty mentor.
The event will be held in person on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, from 3:00–5:00 p.m. in the Seymour Center La Feliz Room, followed by an outdoor reception with light refreshments on the Oceanview Terrace from 5:00–5:30 p.m.
All are welcome—students, faculty, staff, family, and friends—we look forward to celebrating together!
RSVP HERE
Sponsored by:
The Institute for Social Transformation and the Division of Social Sciences
For questions, you can reach us at transform@ucsc.edu

Chat with the Chair: Conversations on AI
2026-05-13 18:00 - 19:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Curious about the newest developments in artificial intelligence?
Join us for Chat with the AI Chair, a monthly drop-in conversation designed for professionals who want to stay ahead of emerging AI trends.
Event details
Praveen Krishna, chair of the Artificial Intelligence Application Development certificate program, will lead the informal discussion about what this technology means for developers, professionals, and organizations adopting AI tools.
Format: Online discussion + open Q&A
When: Every 2nd Wednesday of the month
Who should attend: Developers, technologists, product managers, and professionals exploring AI tools and automation
This is a casual, interactive session—bring your questions, share your experience, and hear directly from an AI educator working at the forefront of applied AI training. You’ll get an insider’s look at the technologies shaping the next generation of AI—and what you need to know to stay ahead.
Register
CLAIM YOUR SEAT.

What is Mythos? Conversations on AI
2026-05-13 18:00 - 19:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
What do we know about Mythos?
Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, a next-generation, general-purpose AI model with 10 trillion parameters, is the most powerful AI developed to date. It is highly capable of advanced reasoning, coding, and autonomously identifying and exploiting complex software vulnerabilities, creating significant cybersecurity risks.
Join us for Chat with Praveen Krishna, chair of our AI program, a monthly drop-in conversation about the latest developments in artificial intelligence and what this technology means for developers, professionals, and organizations adopting AI tools.
What you need to know to stay ahead
This is a casual, interactive session. Bring your questions, share your experience, and hear directly from an AI educator working at the forefront of applied AI training. You’ll get an insider’s look at the technologies shaping the next generation of AI.
Event details

Speaker: Praveen Krishna, AI chair, UCSC Silicon Valley Extension
Format: Online discussion + open Q&A about the latest news in AI
When: 2nd Wednesday of the month
Who should attend: Developers, technologists, product managers, and professionals exploring AI tools and automation

Claim your seat today.
Share your perspective. Plan your learning.
Visit our Artificial Intelligence program page to learn more about our AI offerings.

Shadmon, R. (CS) - Proximal Byzantine Agreement
2026-05-14 09:00 - 11:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Research on fault-tolerance protocols for approximate Byzantine agreement
(ABA) has largely focused on ensuring that distributed processes remain
consistent despite fewer than 1/3 faulty processes. Yet in many
real systems, consistency is only useful when it enables processes to
make accurate decisions from replicated, noisy, and potentially
adversarially corrupted data relative to an ideal fault-free baseline.
This limitation is increasingly important in edge applications such as
autonomous vehicles, drone networks, smart cities, manufacturing, and
sensor-based systems, where agreement directly drives downstream
actions. At the same time, many existing ABA protocols impose
impractical requirements, such as replica counts that grow with data
dimensionality or prior knowledge of the maximum distance between values
proposed by each process.
We introduce Stochastic Byzantine Agreement (SBA), a new problem
formulation in which the goal is to estimate an output from n replicated
values consisting of n-f nonfaulty outputs generated by an
underlying stochastic process and f arbitrarily chosen
Byzantine outputs. We then present Proximal Byzantine Agreement
(PBA), a stochastic agreement protocol that solves SBA by enabling
consumers to infer the most likely ideal output conditioned on the
outputs they receive. In addition, PBA provides a region
guarantee that, as we prove, always contains the corresponding
fault-free stochastic estimate of the true value.
We describe the design of PBA, formalize its guarantees, and evaluate
its accuracy against existing techniques using stochastic simulations
across symmetric and asymmetric distributions and multiple system
configurations. We also evaluate runtime overhead and performance in a
follow-the-leader drone network simulator and in a Java implementation on
Raspberry Pis using a real-world adaptive cruise control dataset. Our
results show that PBA performs competitively across all evaluated
settings and especially well under simulated Byzantine attack. Most
notably, PBA maintains stable accuracy as dimensionality increases,
outperforming methods that require up to 10x more replicas}
and incur up to 10x greater computation time per agreement
decision.
Event Host: Roy Shadmon, Ph.D. Candidate, Computer Science
Advisor: Owen Arden
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/98390167664?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode: pba

Learn more about high school health pathways
2026-05-14 18:00 - 19:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
At this interactive info session about our new program for college-bound high schoolers, program staff will talk about the UC Santa Cruz High School Health Pathways Summer Academy, a six-week session of transformative learning, in-person, at the Silicon Valley Campus of UC Santa Cruz.
Get hands-on learning in diverse topics such as:

Human biology
Microscopy
Public health advocacy
Expert mentorship
Field experiences
Capstone project

Attend to learn more about the program and how to apply. Applications are due May 16th.
Who should attend?
High school students, parents, and advisors are invited to join the discussion and bring questions.
Sponsor
This session is sponsored by the UC Santa Cruz Premed Postbacc Program.

CLAIM YOUR SEAT.

2026 Robert L. Sinsheimer Distinguished Lecture in Biology: Global Vaccines and Immunizations in a Time of Climate Change, Mega Cities, and Anti-science
2026-05-14 19:00 - 20:30 | Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis College Multi-purpose Room, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join us for an evening with Dr. Peter Hotez, a world-renowned vaccine scientist, pediatrician, and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. A graduate of Yale, Cornell, and Rockefeller University, Dr. Hotez has dedicated his career to global health, co-developing low-cost COVID-19 vaccines administered to over 100 million people in India and Indonesia.
Beyond the lab, Dr. Hotez is one of the nation’s most prominent “science explainers,” tirelessly combating the rise of anti-science sentiment. In this lecture, he will discuss the themes of his current book, Science Under Siege (co-authored with climate scientist Michael Mann), offering a front-line perspective on defending scientific integrity and public health in an era of unprecedented challenge.

Flow and Friction Symposium: Media Practices Across Global Asias
2026-05-15 09:00 - 18:00 | Cowell Conference Room, 257 Cowell-Stevenson Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
“Media Practices Across Global Asias,” a graduate-student research cluster working across the History of Art and Visual Culture and Film and Digital Media departments, hosts their first symposium titled “Flow and Friction.” The day-long symposium is comprised of four panels with presenters from UC Santa Cruz and universities further afield in the U.S. and abroad. Three of the panels are focused on papers, while the fourth is focused on practice as research, with a screening of three short video works followed by Q&A. Professor Lisa Nakamura will visit from the University of Michigan, where she is the Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor in the Department of American Cultures, as keynote speaker for the event. Each of the symposium presentations takes up the notion of flow and friction in response to the research cluster’s open call inviting inquiries in media studies and audiovisual culture in the context of Global Asias. Global Asias offer an expansive model to consider the imaginary or symbolic Asia as a series of diasporic interpolations constituted by Asian, non-Asian, and indigenous peoples and cultures. It demonstrates that worlds are not singular, much like media and its practices, and are contingent upon the labor and bodies that engage and disengage with them.
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ADMISSION
– Attend in person at the Cowell Conference Room at UC Santa Cruz.
– FREE and open to Arts Division staff & faculty, Arts Division students, and their invited guests.
– Registration recommended here.
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PARKING
– Closest lots to the event are Lots 107, 108, 109 and 110.
– All lots require an A permit which can be purchased via UCSC TAPS.
– ParkMobile can be found at Lot 107 and 109.
– Additional parking can be found in Lot 111 or Lot 111B or East Remote Lot 104.
– Visitors with DMV placards or plates may park for free in DMV spaces, Medical spaces, or ParkMobile spaces without additional payment, or in timed zones for longer than the posted time.
– More information provided by UCSC Transportation & Parking Services (TAPS)
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This program is open to all UC Santa Cruz affiliates consistent with state and federal law.

UCSC Graduate Research Symposium
2026-05-15 13:00 - 16:00 | McHenry Library, 1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Friday, May 15, 1:00-4:00 PM (PDT)
McHenry Library | Information Commons South on the Main Floor
We are delighted to invite you to the 22nd Annual Graduate Research Symposium!
This event celebrates and highlights the work of UCSC graduate students in all academic divisions. Any enrolled graduate student is welcome to present either a poster, talk, or mixed media presentation. The event is free and open to the public. Please see the Graduate Division website for more information.

2026 Graduate Research Symposium
2026-05-15 13:00 - 16:00 | McHenry Library, 1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
UCSC 22nd Annual Graduate Research Symposium
Friday, May 15, 1:00-4:00 PM (PDT)
McHenry Library | Information Commons South on the Main Floor
This event celebrates and highlights the work of UCSC graduate students in all academic divisions. Any enrolled graduate student is welcome to present either a poster, talk, or mixed media presentation. The event is free and open to the public.

OLLI at UCSC Sunday Speaker Meeting
2026-05-17 10:00 - 12:00 | Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis College Multi-purpose Room, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
OLLI Hosts Michael Hutchinson, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UC Santa Cruz invites the public to an in-person presentation from 10:00 to noon on Sunday, May 17th, in the Colleges Nine/Lewis Multipurpose Room at UCSC.
Join us for a social hour and a presentation.
OLLI at UCSC is a community of adults from diverse educational, occupational, and geographic backgrounds who are devoted to the pursuit of learning. This event is free and open to the public. Bring a friend. Coffee and nibbles will be served.
For directions and free parking information, visit: https://olli.ucsc.edu/monthly-gatherings/location-directions-and-parking/
Free and open to the public

Presented by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UC Santa Cruz.

Statistics Seminar: Unifying Regression-Based and Design-Based Causal Inference in Time-Series Experiments and Crossover Experiments
2026-05-18 16:00 - 17:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Peng Ding, Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
Description: I will present some recent results on unifying regression-based and design-based causal inference in time-series experiments and crossover experiments. Part I: Time-series experiments, also called switchback experiments or N-of-1 trials, play increasingly important roles in modern applications in medical and industrial areas. Under the potential outcomes framework, recent research has studied time-series experiments from the design-based perspective, relying solely on the randomness in the design to drive the statistical inference. Focusing on simpler statistical methods, we examine the design-based properties of regression- based methods for estimating treatment effects in time-series experiments. We demonstrate that the treatment effects of interest can be consistently estimated using ordinary least squares with an appropriately specified working model and transformed regressors. Additionally, we show that asymptotically, the heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent variance estimators provide conservative estimates of the true, design-based variances. This part is based on https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.22864
Part II: Crossover designs randomly assign each unit to receive a sequence of treatments. By comparing outcomes within the same unit, these designs can effectively eliminate between-unit variation and facilitate the identification of both instantaneous effects of current treatments and carryover effects from past treatments. They are widely used in traditional biomedical studies and are increasingly adopted in modern digital platforms. However, standard analyses of crossover designs often rely on strong parametric models, making inference vulnerable to model misspecification. We unify the analysis of crossover designs using least squares, with restrictions on the coefficients and weights on the units. Based on the theory, we recommend specifying the regression function, weighting scheme, and coefficient restrictions to assess identifiability, construct efficient estimators, and estimate variances in a unified manner. This part is based on https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.09215
About the speaker: Peng Ding is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at UC Berkeley. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Statistics, Harvard University in May 2015 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health until December 2015. Previously, he received his B.S. in Mathematics, B.A. in Economics, and M.S. in Statistics from Peking University.
This seminar is hosted by Professor Allen Kei.

AM Seminar: Dissecting Complex Disease Mechanisms with Causal Inference and Deep Learning
2026-05-18 16:00 - 17:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
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 impacted genes, pathways and cellular states since most risk variants are noncoding. I will describe strategies we have explored to address this challenge, particularly in the context of Alzheimer’s disease. We have mapped genetic effects on expression, splicing and RNA editing in over 10k postmortem brain samples, enabling interpretation of common variant associations. We developed a Mendelian randomization-based causal network inference method to estimate how genetic effects propagate through the gene network to converge on disease risk. We show that deep learning models of pre- and post- transcriptional regulation can refine functional fine-mapping, improve the portability of polygenic risk scores across ancestries, and increase power in novel annotation-aware noncoding rare variant association studies. Finally, we designed a CRISPR/Cas13-based strategy to perform isoform-specific knockdown, opening the door for isoform-resolved functional characterization of putative disease-causal transcriptomic changes.
About the speaker: Dr. Knowles studied Natural Sciences and Information Engineering at Cambridge before obtaining an MSc in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at Imperial College London. During his PhD in the Cambridge University Machine Learning Group under Zoubin Ghahramani he worked on variational inference and Bayesian nonparametric models. He was a postdoc at Stanford developing methods for functional genomics with Daphne Koller (CS), Sylvia Plevritis (Computational Systems Biology/Radiology) and Jonathan Pritchard (Genetics/Biology). At Columbia, he is an Associate Professor of Computer Science, an Interdisciplinary Appointee in Systems Biology and an Affiliate Member of the Data Science Institute. He is also a Core Faculty Member at the New York Genome Center. His group develops methods to better understand the genetic basis of human disease.

This seminar is hosted by Professor Nilah Ioannidis.

Privacy’s Defender: Fight Against Digital Surveillance with Cindy Cohn
2026-05-19 12:00 - 13:30 | Humanities 1 Building, 257 Cowell-Stevenson Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, 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 your information has been turned over to the government, and argued before judges to protect our right to speak and to share science and knowledge on the internet.
In Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance (MIT Press), Cindy weaves her own personal story with her role as a leading legal voice representing the rights and interests of technology users, innovators, whistleblowers, and researchers during the Crypto Wars of the 1990s, battles over NSA’s dragnet internet spying revealed in the 2000s, and the fight against FBI gag orders.
During this national book tour, Cindy will be at UC Santa Cruz to give a book talk on May 19, 2026 from 12:00-1:30 pm.
Free and open to the public with registration.
RSVP HERE to attend in-person or on Zoom.
In-Person location: UCSC Humanities 1, Room 210 (map link)
Virtual: Zoom link will be sent separately
Cindy Cohn is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which works to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice and innovation for all the people of the world. Before becoming Executive Director a decade ago, Cindy was the organization’s Legal Director from 2000-2015, and led the organization’s impact litigation work on bringing balance to copyright law, stopping mass spying and protecting freedom of expression online. She’s won many awards for her work and even more court decisions.

UCSC co-sponsors:
Institute for Social Transformation, The Humanities Institute, Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas, The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute (CITRIS), and the Security Research Lab.

Maram, S. (CM) - Scripture To Console: The Nexus between Religion and Digital Play
2026-05-20 08:00 - 10:00
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 video games, demonstrating the influence of religion on video games, the influence of video games on religion, and finally, how these two powerful mobilization forces can come together to solve global challenges.
First, I examine the current landscape of religious representation in commercial video games (e.g., Assassin’s Creed, SMITE). I analyze how key stakeholders i.e. players, game designers, and development studios, interpret and engage with embedded religious elements, drawing on existing critical reception and player discourse. This analysis identifies common narrative pitfalls and successful strategies for incorporating complex religious themes in digital spaces, culminating in proposed design frameworks for sensitive and effective representation.
Building on this foundational work, the thesis culminates in defining and validating a new interaction paradigm where learning meets religion through play. This paradigm focuses on intentionally leveraging religious content i.e. specifically its rituals and narratives as mechanics in serious games to drive motivation and learning toward collective action. I validate this paradigm through a comprehensive case study focused on climate change, arguably the most pressing issue of the modern era. This involves the design and empirical discussion of a serious game that incorporates specific religious mechanics, ethics, and narratives (e.g., stewardship, ritual) to effectively communicate the severity of the climate crisis and motivate stakeholders toward a collective solution.

Event Host: Sai Siddartha Maram, Ph.D. Candidate, Computational Media
Advisor: Magy Seif El-Nasr
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/91946426300?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode: [REDACTED]

It Takes an Ecosystem: Staff and Faculty Perspectives on Collaboration at UC Santa Cruz
2026-05-20 15:00 - 16:15 | https://events.ucsc.edu/event/it-takes-an-ecosystem-staff-and-faculty-perspectives-on-collaboration-at-uc-santa-cruz/
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 in and connect the people, relationships, and infrastructures already engaged in transformative work?
Different from past Title V HSI grants, which have rigorously tested and sustained single interventions, CULTURA embraces an ecosystem approach. This approach recognizes that meaningful, sustained change depends on the investment in and coordination of those leading equity work every day: campus staff and faculty. The HSI Equity Talk centers their voices.
In June 2025, we launched the HSI CULTURA Staff and Faculty Survey, a collaborative effort* designed to surface insights from staff and faculty respondents. The survey explored key dimensions of the ecosystem: coordination among campus units, support (or lack thereof) available to equity-focused leaders, and collective and institutional capacity to collaborate, adapt, and transform campus culture.
In this interactive session, facilitators will share key survey findings as an invitation to collective sense-making. Together, we will discuss: What resonates? What is missing? How do these findings reflect or challenge your own experiences? How can we mobilize this collective knowledge to strengthen and coordinate our shared efforts toward student success and equity, especially amid severe financial constraints? Join us as we aim to deepen our coordination, elevate the voices of those leading change, and build a more connected ecosystem for student success and equity.
Please register to receive a calendar invitation and Zoom details.

You Belong Here: The programs and services described here are open to all, consistent with state and federal law, as well as the University of California’s nondiscrimination policies. Every initiative—whether a student service, faculty program, or community event—is designed to be accessible, inclusive, and respectful of all identities.
To learn more, please visit UC Nondiscrimination Statement or Nondiscrimination Policy for UC Publications.

The Helene Moglen Lecture in Feminism and Humanities: Donna Haraway
2026-05-20 17:30 - 19:00 | Merrill Cultural Center, 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
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 joins human and more-than-human companion species to ask how to think, really think, without either the apocalyptic violence or salvific comfort of human exceptionalism. Revisiting themes, images, arguments and collaborations from a lifetime of feminist work and play in science studies, biology, cultural studies, and arts, Haraway asks how to tell evidence-laden, effective stories for earthly flourishing in exterminationist times. Is it still possible to make powerful oddkin in opposition to techbro anti-immigrant pronatalism and extraterrestrial settler nationalism in order to partially heal devastated worlds together? If oddkin hold up the sky, we have a chance.
Donna Haraway is Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California Santa Cruz. She writes and speaks in science and technology studies, feminist theory, and multispecies studies. She is an active participant in the Science and Justice Research Center and Center for Cultural Studies. Attending to the intersections of biology with culture and politics, Haraway’s work explores the string figures composed by science fact, science fiction, speculative feminism, speculative fabulation, science and technology studies, and more-than-human worlding. Haraway’s renowned essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985) is considered a foundational text in multiple scholarly fields. Some of her books include Staying with the Trouble:
This lecture is presented by the Center for Cultural Studies and made possible by the Helene Moglen Lecture in Feminism and Humanities for the Center for Cultural Studies Endowment, The Humanities Institute, and the Department of Polities.

VMCC Talk with Salar Mameni—Blood of Tulips
2026-05-20 17:30 - 19:00 | Porter College, D-Building, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
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 SWANA region.
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Visual & Media Cultures Colloquium (VMCC) is an annual lecture series that brings cutting-edge scholars to speak on a broad range of subjects related to visual and media culture. The series is co-sponsored with the graduate programs in the History of Art & Visual Culture (HAVC) and the Arts Division.
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ADMISSION
– Attend in person.
– Porter College D245
– FREE and open to the public.
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This program is open to the public consistent with state and federal law.
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Save, download, and share the event flyer here:
image: blood of tulips by salar

Annual BE Student Project Showcase
2026-05-21 09:00 - 14:30
Join Baskin Engineering for our annual Student Project Showcase to celebrate the innovative work and accomplishments of undergraduate engineers in capstone courses and research pathways. The broader campus community, parents, and industry partners are invited to view the culmination of student work.
The day begins with oral presentations from nominated “best-in-class” teams and those working on industry-sponsored projects. Following this, all students will participate in a comprehensive Poster Session featuring project outcomes with some teams including table-top demonstrations of functional hardware.
Event Details:

Date: May 21, 2026
Oral Presentations (Nominated/Industry Teams): 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM, Engineering 2, Room 180
Poster Session (All Student Teams): 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM, Engineering Courtyard

Something held by poetry
2026-05-22 12:00 - 14:00 | 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, academic, and the author of Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man, winner of the Cave Canem Prize; Poems of the Black Object, winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry; Farther Traveler: Poetry, Prose, Other, and Lucy 72. His latest books are Carmelina: Figures and Virgil Kills: Stories. He is the editor of three special issues of hybrid and experimental work in Interim: A Journal of Poetry and Poetics; and Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. Wilson is Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at U.C. Santa Cruz, where he directs the Creative Writing Program, and serves on the core faculty of the Creative Critical PhD Program; principal faculty member of CRES (Critical Race and Ethnic Studies); and affiliate faculty member of DANM (Digital Arts and New Media).

Terri Witek’s most recent books include her 2026 eco-poetics collection with Amaranth Borsuk, W/ SH, which loops two rain prophets, both women, into a crisis between future worlds, and 2023’s Something’s Missing in This Museum (Anhinga Press). A translation by Dona Mayoora of 2018’s The Rape Kit into Malayalam is forthcoming. Her work has been included in many anthologies, including 2 from 2021: JUDITH: Women Making Visual Poetry (Timglaset Editions ) and the WAAVe Global Gallery (Hysterical Books). Witek’s solo and collaborative work has been featured in a wide variety of text venues, including Fence, The Colorado Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry, Slate, Hudson Review, Lana Turner, The New Republic, and UTSANGA .

All This Safety is Killing Us w/ Aminah Elster, Jennifer James, and Carlos Martinez
2026-05-23 14:00 - 15:30 | 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 Prisons, Police, and Borders, to which Elster and James contributed the chapter “Medical Neglect as Carceral Violence.”

Santa Cruz Pickwick Club presents: Bleak House
2026-05-24 13:00 - 15:00
Spontaneous human combustion! Evil lawyers! Detectives! Family intrigue! These all come together in Charles Dickens’s masterwork, Bleak House. This year, we will spend the year reading the 2026 Dickens Universe novel. Join Dickens enthusiasts and Pickwick Club members on Zoom for a series of discussions about this beloved book.
Register via Zoom
Reading Schedule:

OCT 26: Chapters 8-13
NOV 23: Chapters 14-19
DEC 28: No meeting
JAN 25: Chapters 20-25
FEB 22: Chpaters 26-32
MAR 22: Chapters 33-38
APR 26: Chapters 39-46
MAY 24: Chapters 47-53
JUN 28: Chapters 54-67 (End)

Recommended Edition: We recommend the Penguin Classics edition of the novel for its appendices and notes, but other versions are fine. First-time readers should avoid the Introduction if they don’t want spoilers. Download the novel to read at Gutenburg.org or listen to it at LibriVox.org.
The Santa Cruz Pickwick (Book) Club, a branch of the Dickens Fellowship, is a community of local bookworms, students, and teachers who meet monthly to discuss a nineteenth-century novel. The Santa Cruz Public Libraries provide support for the reading group.

FINS: Fisheries Insights Narratives and Stories seminar series featuring Lisa Uttal
2026-05-27 10:30 - 12:00 | Ocean Health Building, McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Please join us for the final talk in the FINS: Fisheries Insights Narratives and Stories seminar series featuring Lisa Uttal.
FINS: Fisheries Insights Narratives and Stories Seminar Series
Lisa Uttal, Marine Biologist for Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
Title: Science Unlocked: Translating Research into Public Stewardship
When: Wednesday, May 27th from 11am-12pm
Where: Ocean Health Building Rm 118, 115 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 and on Zoom
Agenda:

10:30 am – 11:00 am – Professional Networking Session (in person only – light snacks and refreshments provided)
11 am to 12 pm – presentation followed by Q & A
12 pm – 1pm – student lunch with the speaker in OHB courtyard → sign up here

Zoom Meeting Registration: https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/NwH0_qUbSeuIm3A76DY-Dg

CSE Colloquium - Learning to Image: Computational Microscopy for Dynamic Systems
2026-05-27 11:00 - 12:30 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Laura Waller, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Computational imaging jointly designs hardware and algorithms to push beyond the classical limits of imaging, enabling measurement of new quantities (e.g. 3D, phase, and super-resolution) with simple, inexpensive hardware. These approaches have already transformed consumer photography; our goal is to achieve a similar transformation in scientific microscopy.
In this talk, I will show how end-to-end learning is reshaping the design of imaging systems, from programmable illumination with LED arrays to compact, lensless cameras built from Scotch tape. By combining physical models with neural networks, we can jointly learn how to capture data, reconstruct images, and self-calibrate systems that would otherwise be too complex to model. However, many computational methods rely on multiple measurements, limiting their use for live, dynamic samples. I will introduce new space-time algorithms based on implicit neural representations (INRs) that jointly recover structure and motion, correct artifacts, and enable high-resolution imaging in regimes where traditional approaches fail.
Bio:
Laura Waller is the Charles A. Desoer Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. She received B.S., M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004, 2005 and 2010. After that, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer of Physics at Princeton University from 2010-2012. She is a Packard Fellow for Science & Engineering, Moore Foundation Data-driven Investigator, OSA Fellow, and Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. She has received the Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award, OSA Adolph Lomb Medal, the SPIE Early Career Award and the Max Planck-Humboldt Medal.
Hosted by: Professor Alvaro Cardenas
Location: Engineering 2, Room E2-180 (Refreshments such as fruit, pastries, coffee, and tea will be provided.)
Zoom Option: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=[REDACTED]

Panel Discussion—Let the City Speak: The Sonic Journey of Quetzal—Arts Dean's Speaker Series
2026-05-27 12:00 - 13:30 | Digital Arts Research Center, 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Audiences are invited to Let the City Speak: The Sonic Journey of Quetzal—a conversation and panel discussion with filmmaker Akira Boch and Quetzal members Martha Gonzalez and Quetzal Flores. Introduced by Interim Dean and Professor of Film and Digital Media Lawrence Andrews.
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ABOUT THE SERIES
This event is presented as part of the “Arts Dean’s Speaker Series,” an annual event focused on bringing together scholarship and practice related to critical issues of our time in the Arts, in order to expand our students’ imaginations on what is possible, the importance of ambition and aspiration and tackling real structural problems and exclusions in our society and in the arts.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public.
– Advance registration recommended here on Eventbrite for the 4:00 p.m. panel event due to limited venue capacity.
– Attend in person in the Dark Lab (DARC 108) at the Digital Arts Research Center at UC Santa Cruz.
– Doors open 30 minutes prior to the scheduled event start time.
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
noon–1:30 p.m.: Film screening of Let the City Speak: The Sonic Journey of Quetzal (no registration needed for the screening)
4:00–6:30 p.m.: Conversation and panel discussion
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PARKING
– Parking by UCSC permit or ParkMobile.
– Arts Lot #126 is the closest parking lot to the event.
– Visitors with DMV placards or plates may park for free in DMV spaces, Medical spaces, or ParkMobile spaces without additional payment, or in timed zones for longer than the posted time.
– More information provided by UCSC Transportation & Parking Services (TAPS).
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Film Screening—Let the City Speak: The Sonic Journey of Quetzal—Arts Dean's Speaker Series
2026-05-27 16:00 - 18:30 | Digital Arts Research Center, 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
