"The Eternal Song" Film Screening
2026-02-11 18:30 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Merrill Cultural Center, 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The Eternal Song is a cinematic journey through timeless lands and Indigenous cultures. Voices from across generations and traditions invite us to witness the enduring scars of colonization on lands and peoples, and the healing pathways carried through ancestral wisdom. Entrusted with medicine stories, the film grapples with colonial legacies, intergenerational trauma, and the culture of separation that fragments our lives.

Virtual Resume Review
2026-02-12 10:00 - 14:00
Meet with actual recruiters for this virtual resume review! You’ll get a chance to show them your resume and get feedback from professionals.
Get career ready with Career Success!
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.
Handshake is committed to building an accessible product, as well as an ongoing, sustainable process for maintaining accessibility. Please contact slugtalent@ucsc.edu if you need accessibility support at least 5 days prior to the event date.
Questions? Email slugtalent@ucsc.edu

BME Seminar: Population Genetics in an Era of Genomic Health
2026-02-12 11:40 - 13:30 | Physical Sciences Building, Physical Sciences Building, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Dr. Eimear Kenny, Founding Director of the Institute for Genomic Health and a Endowed Chair and Professor for Genomic Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Description: The overarching goal of my work is to advance genomics in medicine and research through diversity and innovation. The work of my group seeks to enrich our understanding of human genomic diversity by focusing on populations underrepresented in genomics, developing and disseminating computational genomic tools to enhance precision and accuracy in diverse populations, unveiling genetic architectures of diseases that can track with demographic history, and advancing diversity large-scale genomic databases. We also work to integrate new paradigms of genomic medicine into routine clinical practice, ensuring genomic insights are appropriately applied in real-world healthcare settings and lead to improved patient care and health equity. I will discuss aspects of this work with emphasis on why we should promote inclusivity, innovate methodologies, and harness the potential of diverse populations in genomic health.
Bio: Eimear Kenny, PhD, is the Founding Director of the Institute for Genomic Health, building resources for integrating genomic information and AI in routine clinical care, and supporting the sequencing and return of results to a diverse patients in the Mount Sinai Health System. She also the Founding Director of the Center for Translational Genomics and a Endowed Chair and Professor of Genomic Health, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, working on computational and translational genomic research. She is Principal Investigator in many large NIH-funded international consortium focused on computational genomics and genomic medicine, including eMERGE, PRIMED, CSER, GSP, TOPMed, PAGE, and HPRC. She is a strong advocate for the importance of diversity in genomic research, is improving the accessibility of genetics to global populations, and has led multiple genetics-based clinical trials. Her exceptional contributions to the field earned her the prestigious Early Career Award from the American Society of Human Genetics in 2022. In addition to her academic and research roles, Dr. Kenny serves as a scientific advisor to various genomic medicine initiatives in government, non-profit, and industry sectors.
Hosted by: Professor Karen Miga, BME Department

Sambamurthy, A. (AM) - Lazy Diffusion: Resolving Spectral Collapse in Generative Models for Turbulence
2026-02-12 16:30 - 17:30 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Diffusion-based generative models offer a principled framework for probabilistic forecasting, but we show they suffer from a fundamental spectral collapse when applied to turbulent flows. A Fourier-space analysis of the forward SDE reveals that the mode-wise signal-to-noise ratio decays monotonically in wavenumber for power-law spectra, rendering high-wavenumber content indistinguishable from noise. We reinterpret the noise schedule as a spectral regularizer and introduce power-law schedules that preserve fine-scale structure deeper into diffusion time. We further propose Lazy Diffusion, a one-step distillation method that leverages the learned score geometry to bypass long reverse trajectories and prevent high-wavenumber degradation. Applied to high-Reynolds-number 2D Kolmogorov turbulence and ocean reanalysis data, these methods resolve spectral collapse and enable stable long-horizon autoregressive emulation.
Event Host: Anish Sambamurthy, Ph.D. Student, Applied Mathematics
Advisor: Ashesh Chattopadhyay
Zoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/5144530307?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode- 55555

El Centro, SASA, LALS, MEChA presents: Understanding Venezuela: History, Power, and Multiple Perspectives
2026-02-12 17:00 - 18:30 | Stevenson Fireside Lounge, 101 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
There is no single Venezuelan experience. Stories from Venezuela and the Venezuelan diaspora are shaped by history, politics, migration, and personal circumstances, and they often differ from one another in meaningful ways.
This panel invites students and community members to learn about the historical and present-day realities shaping Venezuela, including U.S. foreign policy, political power, natural resources, and migration. The discussion also acknowledges that Venezuelans hold a wide range of political views, including differing perspectives on the Maduro government, perspectives that are often missing from the U.S.-centered conversations.vnzla postervnzla poster
Our goal is to create a respectful space for learning, listening, and understanding. By centering multiple viewpoints and lived experiences, this program encourages thoughtful dialogue and a deeper understanding of Venezuela beyond simplified narratives.

Your path to medical school starts here.
2026-02-12 18:00 - 19:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Are you considering medical school and seeking a clear, supportive path forward?
Join the University of California, Santa Cruz, for a free online informational session to learn more about our Summer 2026 Premed Postbacc Cohort Programs. This session is designed for students and graduates who are serious about pursuing a career in health care and want expert guidance through the medical school preparation and application process.
During this session, you’ll learn how the UCSC Premed Postbacc Program provides a structured, cohort-based experience—offered in Silicon Valley and Marina on the Central Coast—to help students strengthen their academic foundation, prepare for medical school, and apply with confidence.
Register here.

OLLI at UCSC Sunday Speaker Meeting
2026-02-15 10:00 - 12:00 | Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis College Multi-purpose Room, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
OLLI at UCSC Hosts Benjamin Storm, UCSC Psychology Professor
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, February 15th, in the Colleges Nine/Lewis Multipurpose Room at UCSC.
Join us for a social hour and a presentation titled “Remembering and Forgetting in the Digital Age.” Professor Storm will discuss how new technologies have the potential to greatly enhance and expand the functioning of human memory, but they can also carry unintended consequences.
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.

CSE Colloquium - Query Optimization: How to design a Meta-Algorithm that designs Algorithms?
2026-02-18 11:00 - 12:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Mahmoud Abo Khamis, RelationalAI
Abstract:
Database systems have evolved from simple bookkeeping tools to comprehensive data analytics platforms capable of learning from the data and making business decisions. As a result, database queries expanded in their expressive power and applications to include tensor computations, constraint satisfaction problems, graph analytics, scientific computing, SAT solving, among others. This puts a lot of pressure on modern query optimizers to rise up to the occasion and produce efficient query plans for a wide variety of very complex queries that describe problems in different domains. The ultimate goal of query optimization is for the query optimizer to become a “meta-algorithm” where you can feed in any problem definition and get back an efficient algorithm for this particular problem.
In this talk, we describe two related frameworks for query optimization that aim to take us one step in the direction of the above goal. The first framework is based on information theory. It uses information theory to get provably accurate cost estimates for query plans and to find the best query plan. Among other applications, this framework currently achieves the best known complexity for graph pattern matching problems, thus subsuming and generalizing known results in this area, where, for decades, algorithms used to be designed by hand for specific graph patterns. The second framework is based on algebra. It uses algebraic abstractions to unify and generalize algorithms across different domains, in the same way template programming allows for reusing code across different applications.
Bio:
Mahmoud Abo Khamis is a Senior Computer Scientist at RelationalAI, where he has worked since 2017. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2016. Prior to joining RelationalAI, he was a Senior Database Engineer at Infor from 2015 to 2017. His research interests include database systems and theory, in-database machine learning, query optimization and evaluation, information theory, and beyond worst-case analysis. His work has been recognized with two Test-of-Time Awards at ACM PODS 2025 and 2026, three Best Paper Awards at ACM SIGMOD 2025 and ACM PODS 2022 and 2016, three ACM SIGMOD Research Highlight Awards, and the 2016 Best CSE Dissertation Award from SUNY Buffalo. His work has also received multiple invitations to the Journal of the ACM, ACM STOC, and ACM TODS. He is on the Editorial Board of ACM TODS, and serves on the program committees of ACM PODS, ICDT, and ICALP among others.
Hosted by: Professor Nikos Tziavelis
Location: Engineering 2, Room E2-180 (*Refreshments such as coffee, tea, pastries, and fresh fruit will be provided in-person.)
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=[REDACTED]

Creative Interventions: "Empathy in the Archives" with Irene Lusztig
2026-02-18 16:00 - 17:35
Across a range of projects, filmmaker/artist, archival researcher, and UC Santa Cruz Film + Digital Media Professor Irene Lusztig discusses her creative practice working with archival materials to reanimate hidden, forgotten, and unsettled histories in this talk, organized as part of the Creative Interventions speaker series.
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ADMISSION
– Attend online
– FREE and open to UCSC affiliates only
– Advance registration required here
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Event dates to be announced throughout the 2025-26 academic year.
– Learn more about the Creative Intervention Series here.
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ABOUT THE SERIES
Creative Interventions addresses the interconnected work of artists, designers, activists, and knowledge workers—and the intrinsic and transformative capacity of that work to cultivate a just society. The speaker series raises questions of import to contemporary creative workers in media and technology. How do creative workers address their most challenging problems? How does creative labor intersect with other forms of labor to nurture the world views and cultural practices of democracy?
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This program is open to all UC Santa Cruz affiliates consistent with state and federal law.

Reframing the STEM Classroom: Justice as Pedagogical Practice
2026-02-19 10:15 - 12:00 | Namaste Lounge, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
In this conversation, Jabari Jones, Emily Murai, and Kriti Sharma reflect on their experiences integrating justice into teaching and curriculum design. They discuss why this work is critical for STEM fields and share lessons learned, concrete approaches, and the institutional and disciplinary transformations needed for justice to become core pedagogy across fields.
Click here for additional details.

Jabari Jones is an Assistant Professor of Earth and Oceanographic Sciences at Bowdoin College. His research is centered around the role of humans as a geologic agent on Earth and how rivers change through time.
Emily Murai is a Lecturer in UCSC’s Environmental Studies Department and Director of the Emerging Leaders Fellowship program at the Center for Reimagining Leadership. She explores interdisciplinary writing, critical environmentalism, and belonging in higher education.
Kriti Sharma is an Associate Professor of Critical Race Science & Technology Studies and Climate Justice Fellow with the Center for Reimagining Leadership at UCSC. She works at the intersection of science, philosophy, poetics and justice.

The Center for Reimagining Leadership (CRL) is dedicated to establishing workplaces and learning environments that reflect our equity-forward values and allow the full human diversity of our nation and the world to meaningfully contribute to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
The Teaching & Learning Center (TLC) at UC Santa Cruz supports all members of the teaching community by using research- and equity-minded practices to strengthen the culture of teaching, advance innovative and accessible pedagogy, and promote student success through collaboration with educators and campus partners within our minority-serving research university.

Networking Skills 101
2026-02-19 12:00 - 13:00 | Career Success Student Lounge (125 Hahn), 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Does the concept of “networking” leave you feeling a little mystified? Everyone says this is an essential skill for career development, but how do we do it effectively? Join us for this fast-paced and informative workshop led by UCSC Career Success Student Coaches who will share best practices, insider tips, and relevant steps that you can take to network with confidence and success!

All students are welcome. The presentation will last 45 minutes, followed by a 15-minute Q&A.
We will provide captions for the presentation. If you have disability-related needs, please contact the Career Success office at csuccess@ucsc.edu or (831) 459-4420 as soon as possible.

YOU BELONG HERE
Programs and services 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.

Slugs at Sundown: Strengthening Your Professional Brand
2026-02-19 17:30 - 19:30 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
In a constantly evolving job market, having a clear and authentic professional brand can open doors at any career stage. Join fellow Banana Slugs for a practical, engaging conversation focused on how to show up—and stand out—professionally. We’ll explore how AI-powered tools can help you efficiently tailor your resume for specific opportunities, along with best practices for sharpening your LinkedIn presence and building meaningful, genuine connections online. Whether you’re exploring a new direction, preparing for your next move, or simply refreshing your professional story, this session offers actionable takeaways you can put to use right away.
New: Complimentary headshots will be available on-site for attendees.
Thursday, February 19
5:30 – 5:45 p.m. | Check-in
5:45 – 6:45 p.m. | Welcome, Presentation, Q&A
6:45 – 7:30 p.m. | Networking
The workshop will be presented by COOP Careers, in partnership with UCSC Career Success.
Professional headshot photography by Cherlyn Wagner (Merrill, ’99).
Please register to confirm your attendance.

Fredrickson, K. (CSE) - Practical Anonymity with Formal Resistance to Traffic Analysis
2026-02-20 14:00 - 16:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Anonymous communication systems hide who is talking to whom, not just what is said. However, existing systems are either vulnerable to traffic analysis attacks–attacks where adversaries observe and correlate the network traffic of users–or are forced to rely on unrealistic and unenforceable assumptions about how users behave. Worse, existing theory lacks tools to rigorously model traffic analysis attacks, much less inform whether if a system is secure against traffic analysis or how to design systems that are.
We make several contributions toward our goal of practical anonymity systems that resist traffic analysis. First, we develop the first formal framework for describing the security of systems against traffic analysis attacks, allowing us to quantitatively describe and compare the security of all existing works. Second, leveraging this framework, we develop a security definition that distinguishes between systems that are and are not susceptible to traffic analysis. We call this property input/output independence. We use this definition to prove that the dominant model of systems–synchronous systems–cannot practically provide input/output independence. We then design a new asynchronous anonymity functionality, deferred retrieval, that achieves input/output independence with far more flexible user assumptions and up to 3400 times less traffic overhead for the same latency compared to prior methods. Finally, we design and implement Sparta, a family of high-throughput, scalable instantiations of deferred retrieval using trusted execution environments and oblivious algorithms, yielding the first practical anonymity systems that are formally resistant to long-term traffic analysis.
Event Host: Kyle Fredrickson, Ph.D. Candidate, Computer Science and Engineering
Advisor: Darrell Long
Zoom – https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/98133127429?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode – 242206

Santa Cruz Pickwick Club presents: Bleak House
2026-02-22 13:00 - 15:00 | CA
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.

ECE 290 Seminar: High-Frequency Circuits for Next-Generation Communication: From Beyond-5G mm-Wave MIMO to Co-Packaged Optics
2026-02-23 10:40 - 11:45 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Susnata Mondal, Research Scientist, Intel
Description:
Rapid growth in wireless connectivity, cloud computing, and AI infrastructure is driving an urgent need for communication systems that can deliver higher data rates with improved energy efficiency. Meeting these demands requires advances in high-frequency circuit design across both wireless and wireline domains, spanning millimeter-wave radios to optical interconnects.
This seminar will present recent developments in two complementary directions. The first focuses on millimeter-wave MIMO systems for beyond-5G communication. Conventional phased arrays are typically limited to single-stream beamforming, while fully digital solutions, although flexible, incur significant power and area overhead. Emerging hybrid architectures enable multi-stream, multi-band operation with improved spectral efficiency by combining RF and baseband beamforming, supporting carrier aggregation, adaptive spatial processing, and full-duplex operation. Prototype systems have demonstrated scalable multi-antenna transceivers operating across 28/37 GHz bands, integrating RF front-ends, beamforming networks, and system-level signal processing.
The second direction addresses high-performance computing interconnects, where electrical links increasingly struggle with loss and energy efficiency at high data rates. Co-packaged optics offers a promising alternative by placing optical engines in close proximity to compute and switch chips, improving link efficiency. The seminar will discuss circuit and system innovations enabling scalable optical I/O, including equalization, clocking, and high-linearity design techniques for high-speed optical links, along with recent prototype demonstrations achieving high data rates with low energy per bit.
Bio: Susnata Mondal received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in E&ECE from IIT Kharagpur in 2015 and the Ph.D. degree in ECE from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, in 2020. Since then, he has been a Research Scientist at Intel, Hillsboro, working on co-packaged optics and high-speed I/O. He has authored several lead-author papers in ISSCC and JSSC and holds 18 U.S. patents. He is a Technical Program Committee member of RFIC and an Associate Editor for TCAS-I, TCAS-II, and SSCL. His honors include the SSCS Predoctoral Achievement Award, the Best Ph.D. Thesis Award from CMU ECE, and selection as an SSCS Rising Star.
Hosted by: Professor Soumya Bose, ECE Department
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=[REDACTED]

AM Seminar: Multiscale Modeling of Cellular Membranes and Oncogenic Proteins
2026-02-23 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
Presenter: Liam Stanton, Professor, San Jose State University
Description: In this talk, I will present a multiscale model for cellular membranes, which is trained on molecular dynamics simulations. The model is constructed within the formalism of dynamic density functional theory and can be extended to include features such as the presence of proteins and membrane deformations. This new framework has enabled simulations that can access length-scales on the order of microns and time-scales on the order of seconds, all while maintaining near fidelity to the underlying molecular interactions. Such scales are significant for accessing biological processes associated with signaling pathways within cells and experimentally relevant regimes. As applications, we consider the cellular interactions of two membrane proteins of biological interest: G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and RAS-RAF complexes, the latter being implicated in roughly 30% of human cancers.
Bio: Dr. Stanton received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University in 2009. He went on to do a postdoc at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where he later became a staff scientist at the Center for Applied Scientific Computing. In 2018, he joined the faculty at San Jose State University in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, where he is now an associate professor and a recent recipient of the Dean’s Scholar Award in Research Excellence. Dr. Stanton’s current research interests are in the multiscale modeling of non-equilibrium, many-body systems. In particular, he focuses on areas such as fusion energy, biophysical systems and statistical mechanics.
Hosted by: Applied Mathematics

Statistics Seminar: Rotated Mean-Field Variational Inference and Iterative Gaussianization
2026-02-23 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
Presenter: Sifan Liu, Assistant Professor, Department of Statistical Science, Duke University
Description:Mean-field variational inference (MFVI) approximates a target distribution with a product distribution in the standard coordinate system, offering a scalable approach to Bayesian inference but often severely underestimating uncertainty due to neglected dependence. We show that MFVI can be greatly improved when performed along carefully chosen principal component axes rather than the standard coordinates. The principal components are obtained from a cross-covariance matrix of the target’s score function and identify orthogonal directions that capture the dominant discrepancies between the target distribution and a Gaussian reference. Performing MFVI in a rotated system defines a rotation followed by a coordinatewise transformation that moves the target closer to Gaussian. Iterating this procedure yields a sequence of transformations that progressively Gaussianize the target. The resulting algorithm provides a computationally efficient construction of normalizing flows, requiring only MFVI sub-problems and avoiding large-scale optimization. In posterior sampling tasks, we demonstrate that the proposed method greatly outperforms standard MFVI while achieving accuracy comparable to normalizing flows at a much lower computational cost.
Bio: Sifan Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. She was previously a research scientist at the Flatiron Institute and received her Ph.D. in Statistics from Stanford University. Her research interests include sampling, generative modeling, and selective inference.
Hosted by: Statistics Department

Arts Division - Application and Interview Skills That Will Get You A Great Job!
2026-02-24 12:00 - 13:00 | https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/2614256373?pwd=[REDACTED]
Having a stand-out application and exceptional interview skills are essential for landing a great job! Join us for this fast-paced and interactive one-hour online workshop where we’ll explore how to submit an application that makes an employer WANT to interview you, as well as top-notch tips and techniques to prepare for and answer interview questions with intentionality, confidence, and skill.
We will provide captions for the presentation. If you have disability-related needs, please contact the Career Success office at csuccess@ucsc.edu or (831) 459-4420 as soon as possible.
YOU BELONG HERE
Programs and services 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.

Teaching Symposium — Teaching Week 2026
2026-02-24 14:45 - 17:30 | Merrill Cultural Center, 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
This is the kick-off event for Teaching Week 2026. The symposium will showcase the work of instructors (including grads, lecturers, senate faculty) presenting on a teaching innovation, activity, program, or scholarly work. Presentation modalities include posters and short spoken presentations.
Application to Present
RSVP here to attend

Liu, C. (CSE) - Enabling LLM Unlearning at Inference Time by Decomposing Detection and Intervention
2026-02-25 09:00 - 12:00
Machine unlearning addresses the “right to be forgotten” under GDPR and enables privacy, copyright, and safety compliance in large language models. Training-based unlearning can remove targeted behavior on benchmarks, but it scales poorly, can degrade utility, and can fail under adversarial prompting that recovers supposedly forgotten content. This prospectus proposes inference-time behavioral unlearning: rather than modifying weights to “erase” knowledge, we detect when a query targets forgotten content and intervene in generation so the system behaves like a model never trained on that content. We formalize this approach as Detect-Intervene Decomposition and instantiate it with three complementary methods operating at the embedding, token, and reasoning levels under different access capabilities. Comprehensive experiments across entity unlearning, hazardous knowledge removal, and copyright protection demonstrate that our methods match or exceed training-based approaches while being orders of magnitude faster and preserving model utility. As LLMs increasingly operate as services with restricted weight access, inference-time unlearning provides the only practical path for responsible AI deployment that respects privacy, safety, and legal requirements.
Event Host: Chris Liu, Ph.D. Student, Computer Science and Engineering
Advisor: Yang Liu
Zoom – https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/94799852992?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode – 242384

CSE Colloquium: Agile and evolvable software construction in the era of rapidly evolving hardware accelerator designs
2026-02-25 11:00 - 12:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter

Charith Mendis, Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

Modern AI workloads have become exceedingly abundant and important in the current computing landscape. As a result, there have been numerous software and hardware innovations aimed at accelerating these workloads. However, we observe a subtle disconnect between the software and hardware communities. Most software innovations target well-established hardware platforms such as CPUs (e.g., x86, ARM) and GPUs (e.g., NVidia GPUs), while hardware innovations produce plenty of other tensor accelerator designs (e.g., Gemmini, Feather, Trainium) each year.

We asked the question, why aren’t the software community using these accelerators or even evaluating on them? The simple yet undeniable reason is the lack of standardized software tooling compared to CPUs and GPUs. For an architecture to be used, properly designed compiler backends, correctness, and performance testing tools should be abundant (e.g., CUDA ecosystem).

In this talk, I will describe how we bridge this gap by automatically generating the necessary software tools for a large class of accelerators through the Accelerator Compiler Toolkit (ACT) ecosystem. Central to ACT is an ISA definition language, TAIDL, that for the first time standardizes the hardware-software interfaces for a large class of accelerators. Departing from the traditional approach of manually constructing test oracles, performance models, or retargetable compiler backends, we instead introduce agile and evolvable methodologies to automatically generate such necessary tooling using both formal methods and machine learning techniques for any TAIDL-defined accelerator interface. I will show how such automation enables rapid software prototyping, making rapidly evolving accelerator designs usable by the software community.

Bio

Charith Mendis is an Assistant Professor in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His broad research interests are at the intersection of compilers, programming languages, and machine learning. He received his Ph.D. and Master’s from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his B.Sc. from the University of Moratuwa. He is the recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Google ML and Systems Junior Faculty Award, the Outstanding Advisor award at UIUC, the William A. Martin Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award at MIT, and the University Gold Medal for his B.Sc. He has won numerous paper awards, including a Distinguished Paper Award at POPL, a Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE BigData conference, an honorable mention for the Best Artifact Award at SIGMOD, a Best Paper Award at ML for Systems workshop at ISCA, and an IEEE Top Picks Honorable Mention.

Hosted by: Professor Nikos Tziavelis

Location: Engineering 2, E2-180 (Refreshments such as fruit, pastries, tea, and coffee will be available for guests.)

Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=[REDACTED]

February 25, 2026 | Works-in-Progress with Geoffrey Bowker
2026-02-25 15:00 - 17:00 | CA
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
3:00 – 5:00 PM
Humanities 1, Room 210 or Zoom (Registration)
Join SJRC scholars in Humanities 1, room 210 or on Zoom for an open discussion of works-in-progress! This is a wonderful chance to engage with one another’s ideas, and support our own internal work.
At this session, we will hear from Geoffrey Bowker, Emeritus Professor in Irvine and Science & Justice Advisor about works-in-progress and ongoing work on the death of infrastructure, AI, and underwater network cables and his collaborative comic book on Actor Network Theory. SJRC members Warren Sack and Dimitris Papadopolous will act as “warm up” discussants.
Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) or Maria Puig de la Bellacasa (puig@ucsc.edu) for the readings, including a new comic book on the graveyard of machines!
Register for Zoom here.
Geoffrey C. Bowker is Emeritus Professor at the School of Information and Computer Science, University of California at Irvine, where he directed a laboratory for Values in the Design of Information Systems and Technology. He was also Professor of and Senior Scholar in Cyberscholarship at the University of Pittsburgh School, and Executive Director, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara. He was awarded the prestigious 4S Bernal Prize in 2024 for his distinguished, career-long contributions to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). His book Memory Practices in the Sciences (MIT Press 2008) won the 2007 Ludwig Fleck Prize of the Society for Social Studies of Science, and was awarded “Best Information Science Book” by the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T).
Co-sponsored by earthecologies x technoscience conversations, History of Consciousness

Exploring Research Pathways at Baskin Engineering
2026-02-25 17:30 - 19:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Curious how being part of a research lab can supercharge your experience as a Baskin Engineer?
Join us for this informative event to learn about opportunities to solve open-ended problems, build deeper technical skills, and learn how to think like an engineer.
We’ll kick things off with a quick overview of the kinds of research opportunities available to undergrads and how to get started, then you’ll hear directly from students who’ve worked in research labs as undergraduates. They’ll share what they actually did day-to-day, the skills they built (technical and professional), and how research shaped their confidence, career goals, and next steps. We’ll then have pizza and networking to end the evening.
Whether you’re aiming for industry, graduate school, or just want hands-on experience that goes beyond coursework, this panel will help you understand how undergraduate research can set you apart—academically, professionally, and personally!

Register via Handshake.
YOU BELONG HERE
Programs and services 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.

BME 280B Seminar: The evolution of structural variation across vertebrate genomes
2026-02-26 11:40 - 13:15 | Physical Sciences Building, Physical Sciences Building, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Peter Sudmant, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley
Description: Structural variants (SVs) contribute substantially to genetic variation and play vital roles in adaptation and disease. However, SVs are poorly captured by short read sequencing and thus are understudied, particularly in non-model organisms. Here, taking advantage of recently generated haplotype-resolved genome assemblies from >600 vertebrate species, we present the most comprehensive survey of the diversity of SVs and single nucleotide variants (SNVs) across the vertebrate tree of life to date.
Bio: Peter Sudmant is an Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California Berkeley. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, Dr Sudmant completed his PhD at the University of Washington in the Lab of Dr Evan Eichler as HHMI International Fellow. Dr Sudmant went on to complete a postdoc with Christopher Burge at MIT as a Genentech fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. Dr Sudmant is a recipient of the American Foundation for Aging Research Junior Faculty Award and a Hellman Fellow.
Hosted by: Professor Russ Corbett-Detig, BME Department

Venezuela: Contradictions of Regime Change Without a Change of Regime, A Discussion with Dr. Gabriel Hetland
2026-02-26 12:00 - 13:30 | Stevenson Event Center, Stevenson Service Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
*UPDATE!* New date! Now on Thursday, February 26th, 12- 1:30pm at the Stevenson Event Center.
Following the January 3 US attack and kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela has been transformed into something approaching a protectorate of the US. In this bizarre regime change without a change of regime, Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, is allied -under explicitly coercive threats- with Donald Trump in his brazenly neocolonial plunder of Venezuela’s oil resources. This talk will explore the political and economic contradictions of this dangerous and unusual situation, which poses grave risks to Venezuela, Latin America and the world.
Gabriel Hetland is associate professor of Africana, Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at SUNY Albany and author of Democracy on the Ground: Local Politics in Latin America’s Left Turn.

Campus to Career: Job Talk with Fashion Reporter Elizabeth Segran
2026-02-26 13:00 - 13:45 | https://events.ucsc.edu/event/campus-to-career-job-talk-with-fashion-reporter-elizabeth-segran/
Are you interested in writing, fashion, or sustainability? Join us for a job talk with Elizabeth Segran, a fashion reporter and author. Elizabeth will share insights from her career covering the intersection of fashion and sustainability, and she’ll tell us how her educational background in the humanities has shaped her trajectory and informed her work. If you’re curious about careers in the creative fields, this event is for you!
Register here
Attendees will be entered to win a raffle for two copies of Elizabeth’s book, The Rocket Years: How Your Twenties Launch the Rest of Your Life.
Learn more about Elizabeth:
Elizabeth Segran is senior staff writer at Fast Company, whose work has appeared in a range of publications including The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, The Nation, The New Republic, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Salon. Her book, The Rocket Years, was published in 2020 by Harper Books.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in the field of South and Southeast Asian Studies with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality. She is an expert on India, having devoted a decade to studying its history, literature, culture and gender dynamics.
She is a global nomad who grew up in Brussels, Paris, Singapore, Jakarta and London before moving to New York to attend Columbia University. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA with her books, her husband and her two daughters.
This event is co-sponsored by Career Success, the Humanities Division, and the Arts Division.
This program is open to all students consistent with state and federal law, the UC Nondiscrimination Statement and the Nondiscrimination Policy Statement for University of California Publications Regarding Student-Related Matters.

Distinguished Teaching Award Lecture — Teaching Week 2026
2026-02-26 16:30 - 18:30 | Merrill Cultural Center, 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Welcoming the Unknown Together
Join us as 2024-25 Distinguished Teaching Award recipient Laurie Palmer, Professor Emerita of Art, shares her insights on teaching. This lecture is one of the key events featured in Teaching Week 2026.
Artist, theorist, scholar, and activist, A. Laurie Palmer is Professor Emerita of Art. Since joining UCSC in 2015, she’s offered courses in sculpture, writing, forms and ideas, mixed media and project-based art, materiality of color, materiality of time, and environmental and racial justice. She has contributed significantly to establishing and guiding the Art Department’s Environmental Art and Social Practice graduate program during its first years. Before joining UCSC faculty, Palmer taught sculpture and contemporary theory at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for 18 years. Her artwork has been shown nationally and internationally. She also lectures widely on her work, and publishes writing as, and about, art in multiple formats and forums.
Starting in 2018-2019, the Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) recognizes outstanding teaching on our campus. This annual award is an opportunity to acknowledge the pedagogical contributions of our colleagues that include—but also go beyond—any one particular course. It seeks to recognize an instructor that has made significant contributions to educational equity within and beyond UC Santa Cruz.
Hybrid Event
Please register to attend in person or to stream via Vimeo
Learn more about the Distinguished Teaching Award

How promotions actually happen (and why hard work alone isn’t enough)
2026-02-26 17:30 - 18:30 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Most professionals are told a simple formula: work hard, deliver results, and your career will naturally advance. Yet many find that after years of strong performance, progress slows—responsibilities grow without recognition, and promotions go elsewhere.
The issue is rarely capability, but a misunderstanding of how advancement really works. Each career stage has different expectations: the skills that earn a first role aren’t the same ones that move someone into management or leadership. As organizations grow more complex—and AI makes execution easier to replicate—doing your job well is no longer enough. Advancement depends on how your work connects to the broader mission, how it’s perceived, and whether you’re already operating at the next level.
This session offers an inside look at why capable people plateau—and why others accelerate.
Bring your thoughts and experiences. This is a discussion-based workshop—please come ready to engage.
This event is part of the Dean Conversations: Pathways to professional success series.
Claim your seat!

Electroacoustic Performance and Artist Talk with the Whale Liberation Front
2026-02-26 18:00 - 19:30 | Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States
Experience a performance and talk by composers and sound artists Corey Diane and Peter J. Bowling, two members of the Whale Liberation Front.
The Intersections of Climate Change Series is organized with the Friedlaender Lab in conjunction with Weather and the Whale.
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ADDITIONAL SERIES EVENTS
– Thurs. Feb. 5, 6:00 p.m: Intersections of Climate Change Lecture: Climate Justice and the Moss Landing Battery Fire
– Wed. Feb. 11, 6:00 p.m: The California Firefighter Cancer Research Study with Shehnaz Hussain and Fire Captain Jamie Gabriel
– Thurs. Feb. 26, 6:00 p.m: Intersections of Climate Change Performance: Electroacoustic Performance and Artist Talk with the Whale Liberation Front
– Wed. March 4, 6:00 p.m: Unexpected Returns: The Historic Entanglements of Fire, Settlement, and Stewardship in the Santa Cruz Mountains
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
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PARKING
– The entrance to the Institute of the Arts and Sciences Galleries is on Delaware Street and has an accessibility ramp.
– Convenient and free self-parking is available on Panetta Avenue and High Road, immediately adjacent to the galleries.
– Accessible parking is on High Road.
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Will Work for Food
2026-02-26 18:00 - 20:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Join us for a conversation on labor, food, and justice with Will Work for Food co-author Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and regional food production and service workers Veronica Rodriguez (Dole, Soledad), and X (Verve, Santa Cruz). Together, they will explore the often-overlooked role of labor in building a more just food system. Free and open to the public. Translation provided.
