Events

How to Optimize Your Career Fair Experience
2025-10-14 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
Interested in attending an upcoming career fair but not sure what to do once you're there? We can help with that!
Join us and hear some quick tips on how to work a career fair. Some of the discussion topics will include:

What should you do to prepare in advance?
How should you engage with recruiters and other attendees?
Are there any practices or strategies to be mindful of before, during, and after?
Plus much more…

Career fairs can be a solid way to engage with recruiters to learn about job and internship opportunities as well as get an idea of what it’s like to work in a field that you might be interested in, and having a better understanding of how to navigate your experience can help make a huge difference. Join us today!

Respond, Don't React: Recognizing and Managing Emotional Triggers
2025-10-14 17:30 - 19:30 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
In a world of nonstop change and pressure, even the most experienced professionals get triggered in ways that throw us off course—hurting performance and straining relationships. In this presentation by the Silicon Valley chapter of the NHRA, we’ll explore what’s really happening when emotions take over, why it matters, and what we can do about it. Through real stories, group discussion, and practical tools, you’ll learn how to spot your own triggers, make space to respond instead of react, and better support others in the process. These tools aren’t just for managing stress—they help build trust, empathy, and stronger teams. You’ll walk away with simple strategies you can use right away for tough conversations, conflict, or just when everything feels like a little too much – both personally and professionally.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• Spot the signs—learn to recognize how your body and brain react when you’re emotionally triggered.
• Get curious about cognitive blind spots—where might triggers be getting in the way of how we show up and lead?
• Build our ability to pause, regroup, and respond instead of react.
• Walk away with simple tools to better support yourself and create more space and trust for others, too.
AGENDA
5:30 PM IN-PERSON NETWORKING (dinner included)
6:00 PM VIRTUAL SESSION BEGINS
6:05 PM LEGAL UPDATES
6:15 PM PROGRAM
7:15 PM Q&A
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Jeff Jacobs
Jeff is a recognized leadership development and organizational effectiveness executive who has facilitated and consulted on 500+ engagements over the past 10 years as an employee of top-tier companies like Adobe and Intuit. His diverse experience expands beyond the corporate world to chairing three non-profit boards, serving as an Assistant Lecturer at Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley, acquiring three certifications in compassionate leadership and mindfulness practices, including from Stanford Medical School, and even years of working with maximum-security inmates in California prisons. Jeff is a Contributing Author to the Amazon Best-Seller, “Leading with Self Awareness, Starting from the Inside Out,” and is working on his own first book, “Still Coming of Age, Cultivating Compassion for Lifelong Flourishing.”
This event is co-sponsored by the UCSC Silicon Valley Professional Education Human Resource Management certificate program.

Festival of Monsters 2025
2025-10-15 00:00 - 2025-10-18 23:59 | Digital Arts Research Center, 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The Festival of Monsters returns for the annual academic conference with public performances, installations, readings, and more. Learn more about the Center for Monster Studies here and refer to the full schedule of events, below, for individual event details.
Co-presented by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies, Department of Performance, Play & Design, The Humanities Institute (THI), and Porter College.
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ADMISSION
– Open to the public
– Some events have required registration; refer to individual event listings in the full schedule of events
– UCSC students, faculty, and staff registration HERE
– Academic conference registration for non-affiliates HERE
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AUDIENCE ADVISORIES
– Mature themes and content
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed. Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m, Museum of Art & History (MAH): David Livingstone Smith Keynote
– Thurs. Oct. 16, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Kim Lau keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Jeffery Jerome Cohen keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center—DARC 108: Monsters Ball (previously advertised location of the Hay Barn was incorrect)
– Sat. Oct. 18, 11:00 a.m, Bookshop Santa Cruz: “Oh! The Horror” Writers Panel
– Sat. Oct. 18, 2:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m, Atlantis Fantasyworld: Cole Lemke, Horror Comic Artist
– Sat. Oct. 18, 6:00 p.m, Game Santa Cruz: “Blood on the Clocktower”
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Creative Interventions (CI) Series
2025-10-15 00:00 - 2025-10-29 23:59 | CA
Creative Interventions (CI) is a community colloquium in contemporary creativity and creative practices that 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 CI 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 our democracy?
The Creative Interventions (CI) Series is co-sponsored by the Arts Division’s Creative Technologies program and Porter College at UC Santa Cruz.
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ADMISSION
– Free and open to UCSC affiliates.
– All events in the series are presented online with registration required.
– Refer to the individual event listings for more information and a link to register.
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed., Oct 15, 4:00 p.m.: “Expensive-Sounding Sounds” with Catherine Provenzano
– Wed., Oct 29, 4:00 p.m.: “Asymptote: Computation, Disillusion, and Enchantment” with Nora Khan
– Additional event dates to be announced on the Creative Interventions events page here
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This program is open to all UC Santa Cruz affiliates consistent with state and federal law.

Campus to Career: Job Talk with Kristen Amicone, Education Program Specialist
2025-10-15 12:30 | CA
Are you curious about careers in education or nonprofits? Join this job talk with UCSC Humanities alum Kristen Amicone, a doctoral student with expertise in nonprofits, educational programming, and leadership. Kristen will share insights from her academic and professional experience, from being a transfer student, to making career transition decisions, to navigating an online graduate school program.
Learn more about Kristen:
Kristen Amicone is a UCSC Feminist Studies and Kresge alumna and a lifelong Californian. Growing up in the Inland Empire, she moved to Santa Cruz to attend UCSC and then to San Diego for her first stint in grad school at SDSU. After working in the nonprofit sector for 15 years, she made the jump to education/government work with the San Diego County Office of Education. Kristen specializes in employee/volunteer engagement and educational programming. She returned to school in 2022, earning her MSNPA from Louisiana State University, Shreveport (LSUS) in 2023 before applying for and getting accepted to the EdD program at the same institution. Her research interests include employee engagement, change confidence, and leadership. She lives in La Mesa, a small town right outside San Diego, and enjoys theatre, movies, and horror novels.

Creative Interventions: Catherine Provenzano
2025-10-15 16:00 - 17:35 | CA
Since the shift to predominantly digital audio recording, manufacturers of software tools have stepped in claiming to make production work faster and easier while unlocking the artist/producer’s creative potential. In 2016, artist Justin Bieber explained to the New York Times Magazine that the way producers Diplo and Skrillex were able to manipulate Ableton on his hit Where Are Ü Now resulted in what he affirmatively coined as “expensive-sounding sounds.” More recent messaging around sounds that “stand out” is surging as most major music software outfits roll out new AI tools meant to do everything from automate the engineer’s vocal chain to help the artist quickly find and tailor samples.
Refusing to take these claims at face value, this talk will consider several songs, advertisements, and demonstration videos from the last 25 years and ask, what makes a technology “creative” in practice? And under what conditions?
This presentation is an interactive listening exercise that brings together conceptions of creative musical production and interrogates the ways software designers lay claim to and promise creativity. Participants are encouraged to assemble examples from their own listening and creative lives and present them for group discussion.
This event is presented as part of the Creative Interventions (CI) Series and is co-sponsored by the Arts Division’s Creative Technologies program and Porter College at UC Santa Cruz.
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ADMISSION
– Free and open to UCSC affiliates.
– This is an online event.
– Registration is required here.
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ADVISORIES
– Participants are encouraged to assemble examples from their own listening and creative lives and be prepared to present them for group discussion during this interactive online event.
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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. More information about the Creative Technologies program.
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This program is open to all UC Santa Cruz affiliates consistent with state and federal law.

Festival of Monsters: David Livingstone Smith Keynote
2025-10-15 17:30 - 20:00 | Museum of Art & History, 705 Front St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060, United States
David Livingstone Smith, author of Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization, opens the 2025 Festival of Monsters with a free public keynote talk 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15 at the Museum of Art and History (705 Front Street). A philosophy professor at University of New England in Maine, Livingstone Smith writes about the ways in which we dehumanize one another — creating our own monsters through pogroms, genocide and massacres. He asks “How do some people come to believe that their enemies are monsters, and therefore easy to kill?” The Festival of Monsters is hosted by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
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AUDIENCE ADVISORIES
– Mature themes and content
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed. Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m, Museum of Art & History (MAH): David Livingstone Smith Keynote
– Thurs. Oct. 16, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Kim Lau keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Jeffery Jerome Cohen keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m, DARC 108 (No longer at the UCSC Cowell Ranch Hay Barn): Monsters Ball
– Sat. Oct. 18, 11:00 a.m, Bookshop Santa Cruz: “Oh! The Horror” Writers Panel
– Sat. Oct. 18, 2:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m, Atlantis Fantasyworld: Cole Lemke, Horror Comic Artist
– Sat. Oct. 18, 6:00 p.m, Game Santa Cruz: “Blood on the Clocktower”
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The Festival of Monsters returns for a three-day academic conference with public performances, installations, readings, and more. Learn more about the Center for Monster Studies here.
This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law

Eat Well, Live Well: Preventing Prediabetes & Type 2 Diabetes
2025-10-16 12:00 | CA
If preventing or delaying prediabetes or type 2 diabetes is a top priority for you—you are not alone. We know that carbs are key players when it comes to controlling blood sugar, but did you know that healthy fats and lean proteins are also just as important when it comes to managing blood sugar? Join our next workshop on how to make smart nutrition choices to support a healthy metabolism. We will also explore how lifestyle habits like physical activity, stress management, and sleep connect with nutrition for a holistic approach to type 2 diabetes prevention. If you have been seeking guidance on how to eat more nutritiously and make lasting lifestyle changes to reach your health goals, this workshop is for you.
To register, please fill out the registration link.
For more information, please visit the Wellness Events Calendar.
For questions, please contact Health and Well-being Specialist, Ashley Parker, at aseparke.ucsc.edu.

Archives 101 for Graduate Students
2025-10-16 13:00 | McHenry Library, 1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Feeling the archival impulse? Come get some hands-on experience with our collections, chat about archives with your fellow grad students, and get your questions answered about archival research at UCSC and beyond.

Curious undergrads are welcome, too!

Space is limited. Please RSVP so we can get an accurate headcount.

Learn more about the Center for Archival Research and Training (CART) and Special Collections & Archives.

Sesnon Salon: History of Art & Visual Culture
2025-10-16 16:00 - 17:00 | Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, Baskin Service Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The Arts Division welcome students, faculty, staff, and the general community to a salon-style gathering presenting the work of UC Santa Cruz’s History of Art and Visual Culture (HAVC) Department.
Assistant Professor Clementine Bordeaux, an enrolled member of the Sičáŋǧu Lakóta Nation (Rosebud Sioux Tribe), grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation (South Dakota). Bordeaux received her Ph.D. in Culture and Performance from the World Arts and Cultures/Dance Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. She works across multi- and interdisciplinary fields and collaborates with artists, cultural bearers, and community activists, and employs Lakota concepts of ikčé, the everyday, and ingenuity, to illustrate a continuum of Očéti Šakówiŋ artistic engagements.
This presentation offers a brief overview of her research, which methodologically and theoretically utilizes relationality as the primary tool to communicate the interrelatedness of Lakota kinship values, a cultural connection to other-than-human beings, and creative practice, as demonstrated through storytelling, poetry, and material culture.
The event will take place outdoors by the Porter Koi Pond. Light refreshments will be served.
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ADMISSION
Free and open to the public.
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Oct 16: History of Art and Visual Culture Department
Nov 20: Music Department
Jan 15: Art Department
Feb 19: Film and Digital Media Department
April 16: Creative Technologies
May 21: Department of Performance, Play & Design
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PARKING
Lot 124 & 125 are the closest parking lots to the event.
Parking via permit or ParkMobile.
See TAPS for parking information.
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Festival of Monsters: Oh, the Horror!
2025-10-18 11:00 - 21:00 | Bookshop Santa Cruz
Authors Alma Katsu (Fiend), Nat Cassidy (When the Wolf Comes Home) and Gretchen McNeil (They Fear Not Men in the Woods) come together 11 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 18, at Bookshop Santa Cruz (1520 Pacific Ave., downtown Santa Cruz) for “Oh, The Horror!”, a panel where they will talk about monsters, horror, and why they write stories that scare. Professor Renée Fox of the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies moderates. RSVP for the free panel at https://bookshopsantacruz.com/2025-festival-of-monsters. Part of the 2025 Festival of Monsters public offerings. Learn more about the Center for Monster Studies here.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Registration required
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AUDIENCE ADVISORIES
– Mature themes and content
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed. Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m, Museum of Art & History (MAH): David Livingstone Smith Keynote
– Thurs. Oct. 16, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Kim Lau keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Jeffery Jerome Cohen keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m, DARC 108 (No longer at the UCSC Cowell Ranch Hay Barn): Monsters Ball
– Sat. Oct. 18, 11:00 a.m, Bookshop Santa Cruz: “Oh! The Horror” Writers Panel
– Sat. Oct. 18, 2:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m, Atlantis Fantasyworld: Cole Lemke, Horror Comic Artist
– Sat. Oct. 18, 6:00 p.m, Game Santa Cruz: “Blood on the Clocktower”
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law

Festival of Monsters: Artist Cole Lemke
2025-10-18 14:00 - 17:00 | Atlantis Fantasyworld
Santa Cruz monster artist Cole Lemke will sign copies of his graphic novel Savior: The Day the Devil Saved the World from 2:00–5:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, at Atlantis Fantasyworld (1020 Cedar St., downtown Santa Cruz). Lemke is the artist behind squid banana and many of the colorful monster stickers found around town. No reservations are needed for this free event, which is part of the 2025 Festival of Monsters public days. The Festival is hosted by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies. Learn more about the Center for Monster Studies here.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
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AUDIENCE ADVISORIES
– Mature themes and content
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed. Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m, Museum of Art & History (MAH): David Livingstone Smith Keynote
– Thurs. Oct. 16, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Kim Lau keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Jeffery Jerome Cohen keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m, DARC 108 (No longer at the UCSC Cowell Ranch Hay Barn): Monsters Ball
– Sat. Oct. 18, 11:00 a.m, Bookshop Santa Cruz: “Oh! The Horror” Writers Panel
– Sat. Oct. 18, 2:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m, Atlantis Fantasyworld: Cole Lemke, Horror Comic Artist
– Sat. Oct. 18, 6:00 p.m, Game Santa Cruz: “Blood on the Clocktower”
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law

Festival of Monsters: Blood on the Clocktower
2025-10-18 18:00 - 19:00 | Game Santa Cruz, 1101 Cedar St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060, United States
It’s a game full of monstrous intentions. Join players 6:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, for Blood on the Clocktower at Game Santa Cruz (1101 Cedar St., downtown Santa Cruz). In this bluffing game, a demon is on the loose, murdering by night and disguised in human form by day. Some players have scraps of information. Others have abilities that fight the evil or protect the innocent. Who is the monster? One has to play to find out. Part of the 2025 Festival of Monsters, hosted by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies. Learn more about the Center for Monster Studies here.
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ADMISSION
– Open to the public
– Tickets $20; purchase HERE
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AUDIENCE ADVISORIES
– Mature themes and content
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed. Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m, Museum of Art & History (MAH): David Livingstone Smith Keynote
– Thurs. Oct. 16, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Kim Lau keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Jeffery Jerome Cohen keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m, DARC 108 (No longer at the UCSC Cowell Ranch Hay Barn): Monsters Ball
– Sat. Oct. 18, 11:00 a.m, Bookshop Santa Cruz: “Oh! The Horror” Writers Panel
– Sat. Oct. 18, 2:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m, Atlantis Fantasyworld: Cole Lemke, Horror Comic Artist
– Sat. Oct. 18, 6:00 p.m, Game Santa Cruz: “Blood on the Clocktower”
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law

ECE 290 Seminar: Biohybrid Electronics Using Extracellular Electron Transfer
2025-10-20 10:40 - 11:45 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Ben Keitz, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Description: Qualities exhibited by living systems, including self-regulation, self-healing, morphology control, and environmental responsiveness, are highly attractive for sensing and computing applications. However, it has been challenging to develop robust and programmable interfaces between living systems and electronic components. Addressing this challenge, our lab employs techniques from microbiology, synthetic biology, and metabolic engineering to control extracellular electron transfer (EET), a form of microbial respiration in which extracellular metals and metal oxides are used as terminal electron acceptors. Using the model electroactive bacterium Shewanella oneidensis, we coopt EET to link cellular metabolism and protein expression to microelectronic device behavior. Specifically, we show that S. oneidensis can interface with organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) through specific electron transfer machinery. The inclusion of living cells endows single transistors with complex logic, short-term plasticity, and other unique properties. We also establish that S. oneidensis can interact with both p-type and n-type conducting polymers to further control transistor performance. Ultimately, our work demonstrates how unique forms of bacterial respiration can be leveraged to merge the advantages of living and traditional computation.
Bio: Benjamin (Keith) Keitz received his PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and completed his postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a native of Austin, TX and is currently an Associate Professor and the Frank A. Liddell Jr. Fellow in Chemical Engineering in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Research in the Keitz lab focuses on the engineering of electroactive bacteria and the applications of extracellular electron transfer in biocatalysis, materials synthesis, synthetic biology, and biosensing. His work has received several awards including an NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award.
Hosted by: Professor Marco Rolandi, ECE Department
Zoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=[REDACTED]
Room: E2-192

AM Seminar: Sampling-Based Adaptive Rank Integrators for Multi-scale Kinetic Models.
2025-10-20 16:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Professor Jingmei Qiu, University of Delaware

Description: In this talk, we introduce a sampling-based semi-Lagrangian adaptive rank (SLAR) method, which leverages a cross approximation strategy—also known as CUR or pseudo-skeleton decomposition—to efficiently represent low-rank structures in kinetic solutions. The method dynamically adapts the rank of the solution while ensuring numerical stability through singular value truncation and mass-conservative projections. By combining the advantages of semi-Lagrangian integration with low-rank approximations, SLAR enables significantly larger time steps compared to conventional methods and is extended to nonlinear systems such as the Vlasov-Poisson equations using a Runge-Kutta exponential integrator. Building on this framework, we further develop the SLAR method for the multi-scale BGK equation, introducing an asymptotically accurate approach that eliminates the need for low-rank decompositions of the local Maxwellian in the collision operator. To enforce conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, we propose a novel locally macroscopic conservative (LoMaC) technique, which discretizes the macroscopic system using high-order DIRK methods. Additionally, a dynamic closure strategy is employed to self-consistently adjust macroscopic moments, enabling robust simulations across both kinetic and hydrodynamic regimes, even in the presence of shocks and discontinuities. We validate our method through extensive benchmark tests on linear advection, unto 3D3V nonlinear Vlasov-Poisson, and multi-scale kinetic problems, demonstrating its accuracy, stability, and computational efficiency. The Sampling-Based Adaptive Rank framework offers a promising pathway for overcoming the curse of dimensionality in high-dimensional multi-scale kinetic problems.

Bio: Dr. Jingmei Qiu is a Unidel Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on the design, analysis, and application of high-order structure-preserving computational algorithms for complex systems characterized by multi-scale, multi-physics, and high-dimensional features. Dr. Qiu’s work includes developing low-rank tensor approximations for high-dimensional, time-dependent problems with structure preservation, as well as Eulerian-Lagrangian high-order numerical methods for fluid and kinetic applications.

Hosted by: Professor Julie Simons

Statistics Seminar: Distance-to-set regularization for inference under constraints
2025-10-20 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
Presenter: Jason Xu, Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, UCLA
Description: We consider a penalty framework based on regularizing the squared distance to set-based constraints for several core statistical tasks. These distance-to-set penalties provide a simple and flexible way to cast constrained optimization problems in more tractable unconstrained forms. We will see that they often avoid drawbacks that arise from popular alternatives such as shrinkage methods. We discuss a general strategy for eliciting effective algorithms in this framework using majorization-minimization (MM), the general principle behind EM that transfers difficult problems onto a sequence of more manageable subproblems. We showcase new progress on classical problems including sparse covariance estimation using this approach, and discuss connections to Bayesian inference. In particular, analogous ideas lead to constraint relaxation and generalized profile likelihood to include optimization subproblems, leading to methods that are amenable to gradient-based posterior computation.
Bio: Jason Xu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of California Los Angeles. Before joining the faculty at UCLA, he was a faculty member in the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Xu’s research program focuses on stochastic modeling and computational challenges in dynamic, dependent, and missing data settings, and he contributes tools at the interface of optimization and Bayesian approaches
Hosted by: Professor Paul Parker

Joshua McFadden, Six Seasons of Pasta
2025-10-21 19:00 - 20:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Bookshop Santa Cruz welcomes James Beard Award-winning author Joshua McFadden for a discussion and signing of his highly anticipated new cookbook Six Seasons of Pasta. In his follow-up to Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, McFadden teaches home cooks how to use storebought dried pasta to create seasonal, restaurant-quality dishes at home.
Get tickets

CSE Colloquium - The C++11 Concurrency Memory Model: Remaining Challenges
2025-10-22 11:00 - 12:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Hans Boehm, Google
Abstract: C++11 extended the language to include threads, defining a concurrency memory model to specify the semantics of shared variables, including “atomic” variables that can be accessed without mutual exclusion. Although this followed Posix threads by more than a decade, and the revision of the Java memory model by a few years, it still helped to resolve some very fundamental points of confusion about the semantics and validity of compiler optimizations in multi-threaded programs. The C definition largely copied it, and several other programming languages and systems, as well as later versions of Java, built on it.
These shared variable semantics provide a clean solution for concurrent programming for which a small amount of extra synchronization-related overhead is acceptable. However, C++ programmers pride themselves in squeezing out the last bit of performance, even if it involves living on the edge. Although the C++ memory model attempts to address those cases, issues remain. In particular, so-called “relaxed” atomics do not have clean semantics, for reasons that appear more and more fundamental. And the discovery that well-motivated hardware characteristics are incompatible with the original model required complicating it. On the other hand, hardware improvements have greatly reduced the need for the now deprecated “memory_order_consume” facility.
We’ll start with an overview of the C++ memory model, and then outline some of the remaining challenges. We’ll give an example to illustrate why “memory_order_relaxed”, which attempts to just expose machine load and store instructions, is inherently much harder to define at the programming language level than it is at the hardware level.
Bio: Hans Boehm works primarily on concurrency issues in the Android platform. He was the initial chair of the ISO C++ Concurrency Study Group, where he led the addition of threads and associated concurrency semantics to the language. He occasionally gets sidetracked into other topics, including work on arithmetic in the Google Calculator app.

Hans is best known as the original primary author of bdwgc, a garbage collector for C. He has published extensively on memory management and concurrent programming. He holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University. He is a former chair of ACM SIGPLAN, an ACM Fellow, and the recipient of the 2020 ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award.
Hosted by: Professor Mohsen Lesani
Location: Engineering 2, E2-180
*Refreshments such as coffee and pastries will be provided.
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=[REDACTED]

Enoughness in the Age of Comparison
2025-10-22 12:00 - 13:00 | CA
What does “enough” look like in your life—and who gets to decide? In a world that constantly pushes us to do, earn, and be more, this webinar invites you to pause and reflect. Join a panel of UC alumni and financial wellness experts for a meaningful conversation about redefining financial success—not as accumulation, but as alignment with your personal values. Discover practical strategies for building a life of sufficiency, intention, and peace of mind.
Hosted by UC Alumni Career Network, and open to UC alumni at all career stages.

Penumbra de la memoria: Brown Bag with Maya Scherr-Willson
2025-10-22 12:00 - 13:00 | Huerta Center Conference Room (Casa Latina), 641 Merrill Rd, Santa Cruz,, CA, 95064
During this presentation, Maya Scherr-Willson (PhD Student in the Film and Media Department) will show material and reflect on insights from a research trip that laid the groundwork for Penumbra de la memoria, a feature documentary to be shot this summer. The project reunites eight women fifty years after they were held as political prisoners together during Argentina’s last military dictatorship to film an adaptation from memory of their prison-era performance of The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca. The group, engaged in collective work, will be the protagonist of the film that chronicles the political memory that erupts through their creative process.

BME 280B Seminar: Computational Models of Biological Systems
2025-10-23 11:40 - 13:15 | Physical Sciences Building, Physical Sciences Building, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Chen-Hsiang Yeang, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Statistical Science of Academia Sinica
Description: Computational models are roughly categorized into two types: describing the patterns of the phenomenon or data (description-driven models) and explaining the phenomenon or data with simpler, comprehensible rules (explanation-driven models). When building a model, the choice of the mixture ingredients of these two classes depends on the nature of the problem, availability of the knowledge and data of the underlying system. In this talk, I will give an overview of five models with varying combinations of descriptive and explanatory elements on different biological problems. First, I will introduce a joint model to capture irreversible and reversible drug resistance mechanisms of cancers and a dynamic treatment strategy to tackle drug resistance. Second, I will introduce a backward deconvolution algorithm based on probabilistic graphical models to unravel the cell type heterogeneity of the RNASeq data. Third, I will introduce a deep neural network model to integrate direct and indirect associations of genotypes and images with phenotypes. Fourth, I will introduce an experimental and computational framework to predict protein stability and discover motifs at C-terminals. Fifth, I will introduce three algorithms to demarcate independent holes of specified dimensions in large networks. These works illustrate how “model selection” should be tailored for specific biological problems.
Bio: Chen-Hsiang Yeang is currently an associate research fellow at the Institute of Statistical Science of Academia Sinica. His research interests focus on several areas in computational biology and data science: 1) cancer genomics, 2) cancer treatment, 3) molecular evolution, 4) network topology, and 5) machine learning.
Hosted by: Professor Josh Stuart, BME Department
Room: PSB-240

Elevator Pitch Competition
2025-10-23 12:00 - 13:00 | CA
Are you ready to showcase your communication and persuasion skills? We’re excited to invite you to our Elevator Pitch Competition, where you’ll have the chance to:

Craft and practice concise, compelling, personal pitches that highlight your skills, experiences, and career aspirations – key for acing interviews!
Deliver a 60-second pitch that wows the judges.
Compete for amazing prizes, including gift cards, exclusive networking opportunities, & company swag.
Gain valuable feedback and insight into sales from industry professionals.

Prizes: $100 Amazon Gift Card and company swag!
This is your chance to show off your skills, connect with recruiters, and learn more about our exciting full-time sales opportunities!
Space is limited, so don’t miss out! If you have questions, feel free to reach out!
Snacks provided!
We can’t wait to see how you pitch!

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.

A Conversation on Black Ecologies
2025-10-23 12:00 - 13:15 | Rachel Carson College, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join the Sociology Department together with the Center for Critical Urban & Environmental Studies (CUES), The Black Geographies Lab, and Critical Race and Ethic Studies in the Rachel Carson College Red Room, to welcome speakers Tianna Bruno and Justin Hosbey (UC Berkeley) for a conversation on Black Ecologies.
Tianna Bruno is an Assistant Professor of Geography at UC Berkeley.
Justin Hosbey is an Assistant Professor of City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley.
Lindsey Dillon is an Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz.
This event is part of a series co-sponsored by the Center for Critical Urban & Environmental Studies (CUES) together with the Sociology Department, The Black Geographies Lab, and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies.

Behavioral, Econometrics and Theory Seminar Series Presents: Kevin Chen
2025-10-23 13:40 - 15:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Economics Behavioral, Econometrics, & Theory Seminar
Date: Thursday, October 23, 2025
Time: 1:40-3:00 p.m.
Location: Engineering 2, Rm 499

Speaker: Kevin Chen
Title: Assistant Professor of Economics
Affiliation: Stanford University
Host: Michael Leung

Seminar title: Compound Selection Decisions: An Almost SURE Approach

ABSTRACT: This paper proposes methods for producing compound selection decisions in a Gaussian sequence model. Given unknown, fixed parameters µ_{1:n} and known σ_{1:n} with observations Yᵢ ∼ 𝒩(μᵢ, σᵢ²), the aim is to select a subset of units S to maximize utility Σ_{i∈S}(μᵢ − Kᵢ) for known costs Kᵢ. Inspired by Stein’s unbiased risk estimate (SURE), we introduce an almost unbiased estimator, ASSURE, for the expected utility of a proposed decision rule. ASSURE allows a user to choose a welfare-maximizing rule from a pre-specified class by optimizing the estimated welfare, thereby producing selection decisions that borrow strength across noisy estimates. We show that ASSURE yields decision rules that are asymptotically no worse than the optimal but infeasible rule in the pre-specified class. We apply ASSURE to p-value decision procedures in A/B testing, selecting Census tracts for economic opportunity, and identifying discriminating firms.

Robots that Know What They Do Not Know: Assured AI-enabled Autonomy in Unknown Environments
2025-10-23 14:00 - 15:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Speaker: Yiannis Kantaros, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Systems Engineering at WashU in St. Louis.
Title: Robots that Know What They Do Not Know: Assured AI-enabled Autonomy in Unknown Environments.
Time: Thursday, Oct 23rd, 2025, 2:00-3:00 pm.
Location: E2-553 or Zoom.
Abstract: Designing robots that navigate unfamiliar environments to execute natural language (NL) commands is a cornerstone of advanced embodied intelligence. While recent AI-enabled architectures have made impressive empirical progress, they often lack introspection, leading to systems that act with unwarranted confidence, unaware of their own limitations or whether they have successfully completed their tasks. As a result, these systems offer limited performance and safety guarantees, restricting their deployment in safety-critical settings.
In this talk, I will present an introspective, neuro-symbolic autonomy architecture that enables robots to complete NL tasks in unknown environments with assurance guarantees by explicitly quantifying their own uncertainty using uncertainty quantification (UQ) tools. The neural component employs large language models (LLMs) to translate NL commands into temporal logic specifications, while leveraging conformal prediction, a UQ tool, to calibrate and quantify prediction uncertainty arising from LLM imperfections and potential NL ambiguity. When uncertainty exceeds user-defined thresholds, uncertainty-aware feedback is solicited from auxiliary LLMs—or, if necessary, from human operators. We provide theoretical guarantees, supported by empirical case studies, that the proposed uncertainty-aware translation framework, called ConformalNL2LTL, achieves user-specified translation success rates under certain distributional settings. The symbolic component generates plans for mobile robots with AI-enabled perception systems to satisfy temporal logic tasks while explicitly reasoning over perceptual and environmental uncertainty. This allows robots to decide when to proceed confidently and when to actively gather additional sensor data, ensuring task completion with the desired probability. Notably, the developed planners are agnostic to specific sensor models or noise characteristics. The talk will conclude with case studies and demonstrations, followed by a discussion of limitations and open problems.
Speaker Bio: Yiannis Kantaros is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), St. Louis, MO, USA. He earned a Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2012 from the University of Patras, Greece, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University, Durham, NC, in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Prior to joining WashU, he was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. His current research interests include machine learning, distributed control and optimization, and formal methods with applications in robotics. He received the Best Student Paper Award at the 2nd IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP) in 2014 and was a finalist for the Best Multi-Robot Systems Paper at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in 2024 and a finalist for the Best Paper Award at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-physical Systems (CPSWeek-ICCPS) in 2025. He also received the 2017-18 Outstanding Dissertation Research Award from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University and a 2024 NSF CAREER Award.

Mary Roach - Replaceable You
2025-10-23 19:00 - 20:00 | London Nelson Community Center, 301 Center St., Santa Cruz, United States
Bookshop Santa Cruz welcomes #1 New York Times bestselling author Mary Roach for a discussion about Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy. In this irrepressible new work, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina?

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available–sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet? Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you. This event is cosponsored by The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz.
Mary Roach is the author of seven best-selling works of nonfiction, including Grunt, Stiff, and, most recently, Fuzz. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications. She lives in California.

Science & Justice Training Program Informational Meeting
2025-10-24 14:00 - 15:00 | Register at: https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u6h-cJvDQBiscaNIJpzVUw
Join the Science & Justice Research Center on Friday, October 24th at 2PM on Zoom for an Informational Meeting on our internationally recognized interdisciplinary Graduate Training and Certificate Program.
Register at: https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u6h-cJvDQBiscaNIJpzVUw.
Our Science & Justice Training Program (SJTP) is a globally unique initiative that trains doctoral students to work across the disciplinary boundaries of the natural and social sciences, engineering, humanities and the arts. Through the SJTP we at UC Santa Cruz currently teach new generations of PhD students the skills of interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical deliberation, and public communication. Students in the program design collaborative research projects oriented around questions of science and justice. These research projects not only contribute to positive outcomes in the wider world, they also become the templates for new forms of problem-based and collaborative inquiry within and beyond the university.
As SJTP students graduate they take the skills and experience they gained in the training program into the next stage of their career in universities, industry, non-profits, and government.
Opportunities include graduate Certificate Program, experience organizing and hosting colloquia series about the research projects, mentorship, potential for additional research funding and training in conducting interdisciplinary research at the intersections of science and society.
WINTER 2026 / WINTER 2027 COURSE SERIES:
Science & Justice: Experiments in Collaboration, taught by Associate Professor of Critical Race Science and Technology Studies Kriti Sharma is scheduled for Tuesday’s 1:00-4:00 pm. Science and Justice Research Seminar will be offered in Winter 2027. Enrollment in the courses is required for participating in the Training Program. Attending the informational meeting is strongly encouraged, but not required.
Students from all disciplines are encouraged to attend. Prior graduate fellows have come from every campus Division and have represented 24 departments.
Past collaborative research projects have included:

Physicists working with small scale farmers to develop solar greenhouses scaled to local farming needs.
Colloquia about the social and political consequences of scientific uncertainties surrounding topics such as climate change research, food studies, genomics and identity.
Examining how art can empower justice movements.
Working with local publics to improve African fishery science.

For more information on the Science & Justice Training Program, visit: https://scijust.ucsc.edu/about-sjrc/sjtp/.

Campus Debt is a Labor Issue
2025-10-24 14:00 - 16:00 | Rachel Carson College, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join the Center for Labor and Community on Friday, October 24, from 2-4pm at the Rachel Carson Red Room for a conversation on campus debt, austerity, and labor organizing in higher education.
Drawing from his book, Lend and Rule: Fighting Shadow Financialization of Public Universities (2024), Jason Wozniak, of the Debt Collective and the Coalition Against Campus Debt, will describe how institutional debt drives the erosion of public higher education and disciplines labor.
This event is FREE and open to the public. RSVP today!

Elevate Your Interviews: Strategies for Success
2025-10-25 09:00 - 16:30 | CA
Job interviews can be challenging, even for seasoned professionals. Preparation and practice are key. This one-day workshop for the PMI Silicon Valley Chapter, led by communications coach Karen Schiff, will teach you the skills you need to ace your next interview.
Throughout the day, you’ll learn how to craft your responses, both the organization and the content, so you sound clear and look confident. Practice with your peers and get personalized feedback from Karen in a supportive space. You’ll leave with actionable insights and a toolkit of techniques to set you apart from the competition.
Learning Outcomes:

Structure. Find out which speaking structures are the most effective for different question types
Content. Learn the most impressive content to use in your responses to seven key questions.
Presentation. See how to look and sound your best on video, phone, and in person.

Registration

Student Discount: UCSC Extension students receive 50% off registration.
Early bird registration: $200 for members, $250 for non-members
Regular registration: $250 for members, $300 for non-members

This event is co-sponsored by the UCSC Silicon Valley Professional Education Project and Program Management certificate program.

Santa Cruz Pickwick Club presents: Bleak House
2025-10-26 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.
