Visiting Theater Artists 2-Day Residency with Torange Yeghiazarian and Evren Odcikin from MENA
2025-11-12 15:00 - 16:30, 2025-11-13 13:30 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Digital Arts Research Center, 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Visiting theater artists from MENA Theater Makers Alliance—Torange Yeghiazarian and Evren Odcikin—and the Department of Performance, Play & Design’s IRIS LAB invite attendees to participate in the 2-day residency, including a conversation with the artists and a workshop. MENA’s mission is to amplify the voices of Middle Eastern and North African theater makers and expand how stories from and about these communities are told on U.S. stages.
Wed. Nov. 12, 3:00 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
DARC 108 (Digital Arts Research Center at UC Santa Cruz)
“MENA Theater Makers Modeling Possibility and Resistance”
– An Intergenerational conversation with Playwright, Director, Arts Leader Torange Yeghiazarian and Director, Playwright, and Arts Leader Evren Odcikin
– Moderated by Lisa Marie Rollins, Assistant Professor of Playwriting & Black Drama, Department of Performance Play and Design and Artistic Director of The Iris Lab
– This event will be live streamed for those who would prefer to attend online.
Thur. Nov 13, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
DARC 108 (Digital Arts Research Center at UC Santa Cruz)
“Master Class: Theatrical Play, Staging Language and Poetry Creative workshop”
– for theater makers and interdisciplinary performance researchers with Torange Yeghiazarian and Evren Odcikin .
ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Donations to the IRIS LAB are welcomed and appreciated
– Registration required
– Wed. Nov 12: live streamed on Howlround Theater Commons; use THIS LINK to stream and join online.
– Thu. Nov 13: registration is required for the Master Class/Workshop; Register online here
PARKING
– Parking by permit or ParkMobile
– Arts Lot #126 is the closest parking lot to the event
– Visitors with DMV placards or plates may park for free in DMV spaces, Medical spaces, or ParkMobile spaces without additional payment, or in timed zones for longer than the posted time.
– More information provided by UCSC Transportation & Parking Services (TAPS)
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Book Talk with Winnie Wong—VMCC Series
2025-11-12 16:00 - 17:30 | Porter College, D-Building, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
In this public talk, Winnie Wong presents and discusses her most recent book, The Many Names of Anonymity: Portraitists of the Canton Trade. She explores two countervailing urgencies in contemporary cultural politics: the drive to recognize all individuals as artists so that they may be granted the rights and privileges of authorship; and, at the same time, the inadequacy of the modern figure of “the artist” to contain the ingenuity, imagination, and originality of anonymous workers. It does so by focusing on a long marginalized but ubiquitous genre of painting: portraits produced by Chinese artisans in the port of Guangzhou for European merchants at the height of the Qing dynasty. In this relationship, makers are anonymized, while merchants’ lives are preserved in vivid detail, but portraiture occasions the empirical scene of their encounter. This book charts a framework for understanding visual production and trade across overlapping imperial spaces, and demonstrates how contemporary art historical inquiry can yet decouple authorial names from authorial works, a step necessary to looking anew at anonymity, multiplicity, and the ingenuity of nameless artisans.
Winnie Wong is a professor of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. She is an art historian with a special interest in fakes, forgeries and counterfeits.
This event is presented as part of the Visual & Media Cultures Colloquium (VMCC) series.
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ADMISSION
– Open seating/admission (no ticket or registration required)
– FREE and open to the public.
– Located at Porter College D245
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed., Nov 12: Book Talk with Winnie Wong
– Additional dates to be announced
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PARKING
– Lot 124 & 125 are the closest parking lots to the event
– Parking by permit or ParkMobile
– TAPS provides additional parking information
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ABOUT THE SERIES
This event is presented as part of the Visual & Media Cultures Colloquium (VMCC), an annual lecture series that brings cutting-edge scholars to speak on a broad range of subjects related to visual and media culture. The series is co-sponsored with the graduate programs in the History of Art & Visual Culture (HAVC) and the Film & Digital Media departments. Each year, the students and a faculty coordinator are responsible for selecting, inviting and hosting speakers from a list of suggested names submitted by their peers and HAVC faculty. Together they share the unique challenge and opportunity of creating a program that brings to campus an array of cutting-edge scholars to speak on a broad spectrum of subjects.
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Image Credit: Peabody Essex Museum
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Petety, A. (CSE) - New Algorithmic Methods for Uncertain Inputs
2025-11-13 10:00 - 12:00 | CA
This dissertation focuses on designing and proving performance guarantees on algorithms when there is uncertainty in the input. The uncertainty could be from the user being unsure or future inputs that have not arrived yet. We look at different methods in which algorithms can be designed to be competitive against the optimal. One of the assumptions that helps in this is to assume that the input arrival order is completely random. We study the online load/graph balancing problem when the input arrival order is uniformly random. We show lower bounds for the greedy algorithm and the general case. In the next part, we study the online scheduling problem under the assumption that the online algorithm has an additional ϵ speed compared to the machines in offline optimal. We show a meta algorithm generalizing Shortest Remaining Processing Time that gives a scalable algorithm for minimizing total weighted flow time. We show that it achieves scalability for minimizing total weighted flow time when the residual optimum exhibits supermodularity. In the final part we look at the online caching problem when the algorithm has access to ML-augmented predictions. We propose an algorithm that achieves a O(logb k) competitive ratio even when using just b predictions per cache miss. We also prove its robustness and consistency.
Event Host: Aditya Petety, Ph.D. Student, Computer Science and Engineering
Advisor: Sungjin Im

Haunting Interruptions: Race, Infrastructural Violence, and Spatial Memory in Ferguson, Missouri
2025-11-13 12:00 - 13:15 | Rachel Carson College, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
On Thursday, November 13th from 12:00-1:15pm, join the Sociology Department together with the Center for Critical Urban & Environmental Studies (CUES), The Black Geographies Lab, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, and History in the Rachel Carson College Red Room, to welcome speaker Rashad Timmons (UC PPFP) for a discussion on Race, Infrastructural Violence, and Spatial Memory in Ferguson, Missouri moderated by Camilla Hawthorne (UC Santa Cruz).
This presentation engages the racial politics of infrastructural violence and spatial memory in Ferguson, Missouri—the historically-white suburb of St. Louis and site of the tragic police killing of Black, 18-year-old Michael Brown, Jr. in August 2014. It critically examines the use of blockades, space-based protests, and other forms of infrastructural disruption by Black subjects in Ferguson before and after Michael Brown Jr.’s execution, paying specific attention to the mnemonic work these practices perform. It argues that Black subjects in Ferguson deploy these tactics of spatial intervention not only to claim space in Ferguson’s suburban landscape but to haunt its collective memory. These disruptive practices—what I call “haunting interruptions”—disturb or interfere with the normative function of infrastructures such as roads and highways to reveal, indict, and account for the historical racist logics underlying (sub)urban life. The presentation grounds haunting interruptions in an examination of historical and contemporary protests in the notorious apartment complex where Michael Brown Jr. perished and finds that Black subjects use protest and blockage as spatial tactics not simply to force state, institutional, or corporate entities to act but to surface the memory of persistent racial suffering that exceeds reparation and is acutely sedimented in the suburban geography.
Rashad Arman Timmons (he/him) is a community builder, musician, writer, scholar, and educator from Detroit, Michigan, the ancestral and present homelands of the Anishinaabeg. The proud son of factory workers, he teaches and writes broadly about race, urban infrastructure, mobility, and power in the midwestern United States, es Black people’s longstanding use of the built environment to imagine a freer and more just world. Rashad earned his Ph.D. in African American and African Diaspora Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, where he researched the violent and racist history of infrastructural development (e.g., railways, roads, telecommunications) and policing in Ferguson, Missouri. Rashad is currently a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara, where he is writing a book about the plunder and persistence of Black geographies in Ferguson.
Alongside his scholarly work, Rashad serves and organizes with the Michael Brown Sr. Chosen for Change Organization to uplift the life and legacy of Michael “Mike Mike” Brown Jr. In this role, Rashad leads public history and community engagement projects dedicated to uncovering and preserving Black history in Ferguson and St. Louis. He also writes grants to support the Brown family’s healing and racial justice efforts throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area. As lead grant writer, Rashad has secured more than a half a million dollars of direct funding to the family’s non-profit organization.
Rashad currently lives in Oakland, California—the unceded lands of the Lisjan Ohlone—where he delivers political education to Bay Area youth and supports organizations working to end police terrorism in the U.S. and abroad.
This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Critical Urban & Environmental Studies (CUES) together with The Black Geographies Lab, the Sociology Department, Critical Race and Ethic Studies, and History.

Campus to Career: Job Talk with Kim Angulo, Assistant Public Defender
2025-11-13 12:30 - 13:30 | Humanities 1 Building, 257 Cowell-Stevenson Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Interested in an impact-driven career in law, public policy, or politics? Come hear from UCSC Humanities alum Kim Angulo, an Assistant Public Defender with experience in both law and public policy work. You’ll gain insights into how to enter these fields, considerations for knowing whether they’re a good fit for you, and ideas for how to put your humanistic training to work for public service.
This is a hybrid event and will be hosted both in-person in Humanities 1, Room 210 and on Zoom. All attendees will enter a raffle for a Humanities tumbler, and pizza will be provided for those joining in person!
Register on Handshake here
Learn more about Kim:
Kim Angulo (she/her) graduated from UCSC in 2013 with her BA in Feminist Studies. She worked in the California State Capitol on public policy and politics for three years, focusing on courts, criminal justice, and human services. Kim attended UC Davis Law School from 2016 to 2019, gaining experience in Public Defense, Workers’ Rights, and Civil Rights. Kim has been an Assistant Public Defender representing people who cannot afford to hire an attorney for six years. She has represented hundreds of clients facing criminal charges and conducted misdemeanor and felony jury trials. She currently works in Mental Health Diversion.

Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar Series presents: Giovanni Peri
2025-11-13 13:40 - 15:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar
Date: Thursday, November 13, 2025
Time: 1:40-3:00 p.m.
Location: E2-499

Speaker: Giovanni Peri
Title: C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Professor in International Economics
Affiliation: UC Davis
Host: Gueyon Kim

Seminar title: How the1942 Japanese Exclusion Impacted U.S. Agriculture

ABSTRACT: In the early 1940s, Japanese American farmers and farm workers represented an important part of agriculture-specific human capital in the United States. In 1942 all those living in the “exclusion zone” along the WestCoastwereforcefully relocated to internment camps and most of them never returned to farming. Using county-level panel data from historical agricultural censuses and a triple-difference (DDD) estimation approach we find that, by 1960, counties in the exclusion zone experienced 12% lower cumulative growth in farm value for each percentage point loss of their 1940 share of Japanese farm workers, relative to counties outside the exclusion zone. Farm revenues, farm productivity, adoption of high-value crops, mechanization, and farm wages were also correspondingly lower. Taken together, these findings are consistent with Japanese farmers representing hard-to-replace human capital, rather than replaceable labor, in US agriculture.

Slugs at Sundown -- Humanity at the Helm: Thriving in an AI-Driven World
2025-11-13 17:30 - 19:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we work, live, and connect — but it doesn’t define the future. What matters most are the skills and strengths that only humans bring: creativity, empathy, adaptability, and big-picture thinking. Join fellow UC Santa Cruz alumni for an evening of conversation and connection as we explore how to stay relevant, resilient, and future-ready in an AI-driven world.

ECE 290 Seminar: Low-Power and Miniaturized Medical Electronics for in vivo Localization and Tracking
2025-11-17 10:40 - 11:45 | CA
Presenter: Dr. Saransh Sharma, Postdoctoral Scholar, MIT
Description: Accurate in vivo localization of medical devices is central to applications ranging from ingestible pills in the GI tract to endovascular and minimally invasive procedures. However, current clinical methods rely on endoscopy or repeated ionizing imaging (CT/X-ray), and are poorly suited for continuous or out-of-hospital use. In this talk, I will present a radiation-free platform for high-precision localization of wireless miniaturized devices in vivo, using engineered magnetic field gradients. We design battery-less ingestible microdevices that measure and transmit their local magnetic field, while planar coils generate monotonically varying fields in X, Y, and Z. This architecture uniquely encodes spatial position and achieves <100 μm 3D accuracy—to our knowledge, the highest reported. We then translate this to in vivo large-animal studies to localize ingestible devices in the GI tract in real time with mm-scale resolution, without radiation or hospital-grade imaging. This enables continuous monitoring relevant to constipation, incontinence, motility disorders, medication adherence, and quantitative GI transit-time. Next, I will show how this platform generalizes to surgical navigation. By embedding the same localization architecture into catheters and guidewires, we can track device position without fluoroscopy, offering a pathway toward image-free vascular navigation and minimally invasive interventions. Finally, to further shrink devices and power, I developed a monolithic 3D magnetic sensor in 65 nm CMOS (4 mm², 14.8 μW, <10 μT_rms noise). This fully CMOS-compatible architecture enables high-sensitivity magnetic sensing at μW power, and can serve as the core for future miniaturized, radiation-free localization systems.
Bio: Dr. Saransh Sharma received the B.Tech. degree in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, India, in 2017, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA, in 2018 and 2023, respectively. He is currently a postdoctoral research scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA, working on low-power analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits and system design for bio-medical applications. Dr. Sharma was a recipient of the Wilts Prize and the Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Award for outstanding Ph.D. thesis in Electrical Engineering, Biotechnology and related fields at Caltech, Lewis Winner Award for outstanding paper at ISSCC 2024, Best Student Paper Award at CICC 2025, Charles Lee Powell Fellowship at Caltech, and Excellence in Mentorship Award at Caltech for mentoring undergraduate and graduate students.
Hosted by: Professor Soumya Bose, ECE Department
Zoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=[REDACTED]

Global Learning Alumni Panel: Study Abroad & Away Experiences
2025-11-17 12:00 - 13:00 | CA
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to study abroad or participate in a domestic study away program?
Join us for a virtual alumni panel where past participants of global learning programs will share their unique experiences, personal stories, and advice for making the most of your journey. This is your chance to ask questions, get inspired, and connect with alumni who have been where you’re headed. Don’t miss out!
Register here for the Global Learning Alumni Panel
Date: Monday, November 17
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
Location: Zoom
This event is part of UCSC’s International Education Week. If you have any questions, please contact us at globallearning@ucsc.edu.

CM Seminar: "Playful Design to Empower Climate Adaptation - What are we missing for real-life impact?"
2025-11-17 12:30 - 13:30 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presented by: Linda Hirsch

Description: “Games and playful interventions have been researched to increase awareness of climate change impacts and educate about mitigation and adaptation measures. However, besides increased awareness, what real-life impact and adapted behaviors can we actually observe from such interventions? In this talk, I will reflect on the differences between short-term and long-term community empowerment through playful interventions and discuss three outstanding research directions for designing real-life climate adaptation.”
Bio: Linda Hirsch is a postdoctoral researcher at Computational Media, UCSC, under the supervision of Katherine Isbister. She holds a magna cum laude doctoral degree in Media Informatics from LMU Munich, Germany. Her research focuses on exploring, conceptualizing, and creating meaningful human-environment interactions to strengthen communities toward increased climate resilience. Linda Hirsch has been an elected executive committee member of the German group “Be-greifbare Interaktion” since 2021, an expert research group within the German Society of Information Technology regarding topics for tangible and embedded interfaces.

Hosted by: Professor Katherine Isbister
When: Monday, November 17, 2025 from 12:30PM to 1:30PM
Location:
IN-PERSON @ UCSC Main Campus, E2-280.
Viewing room @ SVC 3212.
LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED AT BOTH LOCATIONS! Faculty and students are highly encouraged to attend.

Zoom info:
https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97750591512?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 977 5059 1512
Passcode: [REDACTED]

AM Seminar: Dynamo Action Inside the Giant Planets
2025-11-17 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
Presenter: Dr. Paula Wulff, UCLA
Description: Our solar system hosts six unique planetary magnetic fields. Intrinsic magnetic fields are generated deep inside planets by dynamo action. This process requires regions of electrically conducting material and energy sources to maintain the dynamo. Thus, we can learn about the deep interiors of planets, including their structures and dynamics, by investigating their magnetic fields. In this talk, I’ll explore some of the interesting questions and possible answers about planetary interiors that have come from studies of planetary magnetism, in particular through 3-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations.
Bio: Paula Wulff completed her PhD with Uli Christensen at the Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Science, in Goettingen, Germany, after her undergrad at Cambridge (UK). While working with Uli, she studied zonal flows on Gas Giants, in particular on Jupiter. She used the gravity measurements made by Juno to infer their depth, and numerical modelling to investigate their truncation mechanism at depth. After her PhD, she moved to California to work with Hao Cao and Jon Aurnou at UCLA’s EPSS department. During the postdoc she has continued to work on 3-D MHD modelling to study the dynamo mechanisms in the interiors of various planets in our solar system.
Hosted by: Professor Julie Simons

Statistics Seminar: Beyond the Average Treatment Effect: Causal Mediation Methods for Understanding Intervention Mechanisms
2025-11-17 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
Presenter: Hanna Kim, Assistant Professor, Psychology Department, UCSC
Description: Understanding how an intervention works is a central question in behavioral and social research, following the demonstration of its overall effect. Traditional mediation analysis techniques often assume a homogeneous mechanism of effects, overlooking both validity concerns and subgroup variation in causal pathways. In this talk, I present a series of developments in causal mediation methods aimed at identifying and estimating natural direct and indirect effects, addressing challenges such as unobserved confounding and heterogeneity across subpopulations. I illustrate these approaches using data from early childhood education programs and online course participation, showing how causal mediation analysis can reveal diverse mechanisms of change. The talk concludes with current directions for integrating mixture modeling and clustered data analysis with causal inference to enhance both robustness and interpretability at the interface of statistics and applied research.
Bio: Hanna Kim is an Assistant Professor of Quantitative Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research centers on advancing causal inference and mediation methods to investigate how educational programs influence child development and how effects differ across subpopulations. She also integrates latent variable modeling with dyadic data analysis to study interpersonal dynamics. Her work bridges psychology and statistics to address methodological challenges in applied research, with publications in Psychological Methods, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment, and the Asian Journal of Education.

Hosted by: Professor Paul Parker

Macroeconomics & International Finance Seminar Series Presents: Yuriy Gorodnichenko
2025-11-18 13:40 - 15:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Macroeconomics and International Finance Seminar
Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Time: 1:40-3:00 p.m.
Location: E2-499

Speaker: Yuriy Gorodnichenko
Title: Quantedge Presidential Professor of Economics
Affiliation: UC Berkeley
Host: Pascal Michaillat

Seminar title: How costly are business cycle volatility and inflation? A Vox Populi approach

ABSTRACT: Using surveys of households across thirteen countries, we study how much individuals would be willing to pay to eliminate business cycles. These direct estimates are much higher than traditional measures following Lucas (2003): on average, households would be prepared to sacrifice around 5-6% of their lifetime consumption eliminate business cycle fluctuations. A similar result holds for inflation: to bring inflation to their desired rate, individuals would be willing to sacrifice around 5% of their consumption. Willingness to pay to eliminate business cycles and inflation is generally higher for those whose consumption is more pro-cyclical, those who are more uncertain about the economic outlook, and those who live in countries with greater historical volatility.

The Role of Corporations in Adapting to or Avoiding a +3ºC World
2025-11-18 14:00 - 15:30 | Interdisciplinary Sciences Building, 7487 Red Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
2-3:10 PM Tues Nov 18 in Interdisciplinary Sciences Building Room 102
THE ROLE OF CORPORATIONS IN ADAPTING TO OR AVOIDING A +3ºC WORLD
How will corporations act in our warming world? Can they help us slow warming and better adapt to it? Or will they only make things worse? Learn from (and interrogate) our panelists about crowdfunding solar, greenwashing, blue bonds, structured finance, market shaping, the Salton Sea lithium fight, and more, as we approach a +3ºC world.

Panelists

Moderator: Dan Friedman, UCSC Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics
Lily Hsueh, Arizona State University Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy, on tour for her new book, Corporations at Climate Crossroads, will discuss how corporations respond to climate threats and opportunities.

Galina Hale, UCSC Professor of Economics, will explain how structured finance and market shaping works for climate-related projects, e.g., Belize Blue Bonds.

Will Wiseman, 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 and CEO & Co-Founder at Climatize, a Santa-Cruz based NGO whose Funding Portal enables everyone to invest in community-based solar and energy efficiency projects, will explain crowdfunding for climate-related projects.

Chris Benner, UCSC Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship and Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at UCSC, will present on a case study of the corporate/community dynamics surrounding lithium extraction in the Salton Sea Geothermal Resource Area, as an illustration of broader dynamics we see around the globe (e.g. https://leadthecharge.org/)

Sponsored by the Earth Futures Institute and UCSC Climate Action Now

The Role of Corporations in Adapting to or Avoiding a +3ºC World
2025-11-18 14:00 - 15:30 | Interdisciplinary Sciences Building, 7487 Red Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
THE ROLE OF CORPORATIONS IN ADAPTING TO OR AVOIDING A +3ºC WORLD
PANEL DISCUSSION 2-3:10 pm Tues Nov 18 via ZOOM @ bit.ly/CorporationCrossroads
How will corporations act in our warming world? Can they help us slow warming and better adapt to it? Or will they only make things worse? Learn from (and interrogate) our panelists about crowdfunding solar, greenwashing, blue bonds, structured finance, market shaping, the Salton Sea lithium fight, and more, as we approach a +3ºC world.

Panelists

Moderator: Dan Friedman, UCSC Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics
Lily Hsueh, Arizona State University Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy, on tour for her new book, Corporations at Climate Crossroads, will discuss how corporations respond to climate threats and opportunities.

Galina Hale, UCSC Professor of Economics, will explain how structured finance and market shaping works for climate-related projects, e.g., Belize Blue Bonds.

Will Wiseman, 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 and CEO & Co-Founder at Climatize, a Santa-Cruz based NGO whose Funding Portal enables everyone to invest in community-based solar and energy efficiency projects, will explain crowdfunding for climate-related projects.

Chris Benner, UCSC Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship and Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at UCSC, will present on a case study of the corporate/community dynamics surrounding lithium extraction in the Salton Sea Geothermal Resource Area, as an illustration of broader dynamics we see around the globe (e.g. https://leadthecharge.org/)

Sponsored by the Earth Futures Institute and UCSC Climate Action Now

Corporations at Climate Crossroads: Book Talk with Lily Hsueh
2025-11-18 17:00 - 18:30 | Interdisciplinary Sciences Building, 7487 Red Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
With climate risks growing, climate action facing political headwinds in many countries, and international cooperation increasingly challenged, Lily Hsueh’s Corporations at Climate Crossroads illuminates how and under what conditions the world’s largest corporations have taken proactive action on climate change during the years leading up to and after the Paris Agreement.
Drawing on insights from economics, political science, and management, the author uncovers how corporations and their leaders are key players in a nested structure of climate change governance. Hsueh shows that corporate leaders’ climate actions are shaped by bottom-up and top-down institutions and incentives involving firm, regulatory, and global governance. To navigate uncertainty, corporate responses to the climate challenge are therefore an interplay of internal firm leadership, complementary capabilities in adjacent areas, and strategic and proactive engagement with regulatory process and global governance. Sophisticated large-N statistical analyses of global businesses’ climate mitigation and performance from 2011 to 2020 and illustrative company case studies substantiate the demand for, and supply of, global businesses’ climate mitigation, across sectors, and in developed and developing countries.
Please join us for this book talk in-person at the Interdisciplinary Sciences Building (ISB 102). Open to all.
Join online at: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/98816465544?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 988 1646 5544
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Preceded by a panel “The Role of Corporations in a+3ºC World” to be held on Zoom at 2 p.m. on November 18.
Meeting ID: 684 546 2150
Passcode: [REDACTED]
Sponsored by
Institute for Social Transformation and Earth Futures Institute
About the author: Dr. Lily Hsueh, PhD
Lily Hsueh is Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Arizona State University, where she is also a Senior Global Futures Scientist at the ASU Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. She is an affiliate scholar at the Stanford Woods
Institute for the Environment. She is the author of Corporations at Climate Crossroads: Multilevel Governance, Public Policy, and Global Climate Action (MIT Press, 2025), and numerous scholarly articles on business and public policy, environmental economics, policy, and governance, and political economy. Her work has been featured in the Financial Times, Fortune, PBS NewsHour, among other media outlets. Before academia, she was a Senior Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco where she was part of the team that prepared briefings for the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee meetings. She holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree from University College London, and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington
Book discount codes

Use code MITP30 on PenguinRandomHouse.com on September 2 (publication day) to receive 30% off Corporations at Climate Crossroads.
Use code READMIT20 on PenguinRandomHouse.com anytime after publication to receive 20% off Corporations at Climate Crossroads.

CSE Colloquium - Flux: Refinement Types for Verified Rust Systems
2025-11-19 11:00 - 12:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Ranjit Jhala, UCSD

Abstract: Rust has risen as a language of choice for new systems code — from OS kernels to hypervisors, firmware and run-times — as it is memory safe and provides the sort of abstractions needed for efficient low-level systems implementation. We present Flux, a refinement type checker for Rust that shows how logical refinements can work in tandem with Rust’s ownership mechanisms to yield ergonomic type-based verification of low-level systems code. We then present a case study showing how Flux was used to formally verify process isolation in Tock: a microcontroller OS used in security-critical systems like the Google Security Chip (GSC) and Microsoft’s Pluton security processor. Our verification effort unearthed multiple subtle bugs that broke isolation, allowing malicious applications to compromise the OS to potentially steal sensitive data or brick or take control of the OS. We describe how Flux helped design and implement a new granular process abstraction that is both simpler, more efficient, and yields formally verified security guarantees.

Bio:
Ranjit Jhala is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He works on algorithms and tools that help engineer reliable computer systems. His work draws from and contributes to the areas of Model Checking, Program Analysis, and Automated Deduction, and Type Systems. He helped create several influential and award winning systems including the BLAST software model checker and Liquid Types, received ACM SIGPLAN’s Robin Milner Young Researcher Award, and is a Fellow of the ACM.

Hosted by: Professor Mohsen Lesani

Location: Engineering 2, Room E2-180
*Refreshments such as coffee and pastries will be provided.

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

Jorquera, Z. (CSE) - Quantum Entanglement Bounds and the Approximation Algorithms That Use Them
2025-11-20 09:00 - 10:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
One of the central challenges in quantum computing is finding or approximating the ground-state energy of a local Hamiltonian, a quantum analogue of classical constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs). Among these, the Quantum Max-Cut problem serves as a canonical example, paralleling the classical Max-Cut problem. Despite its foundational importance in both theoretical computer science and condensed matter physics, our understanding of approximation algorithms for Quantum Max-Cut and related local Hamiltonian problems remains limited, primarily due to the difficulty of representing and optimizing over entangled quantum states.
In this advancement talk, we introduce the quantum information background needed to contextualize the results and the significance of the proposed future work by drawing an analogy to classical optimization. We then investigate approximation algorithms for 2-local Hamiltonians beyond qubit systems, focusing on higher-dimensional qudit analogues, such as Quantum Max-d-Cut and a new problem we introduce: the Maximal Entanglement problem. We establish new entanglement upper bounds for these problems based on the star bound, a key tool for analyzing entanglement monogamy in Hamiltonian optimization. For the Maximal Entanglement problem, we show that these bounds can be efficiently certified via semidefinite programs (SDPs) and that they directly admit a (1/d + O(1/D))-approximation algorithm (where D is the degree of the interaction graph), which beats random assignment. For Quantum Max-d-Cut, the star bound gives a more complicated notion of entanglement, for which we show that the basic SDP can verify this bound for all reduced marginals on up to five vertices when d=3, but likely fails for larger subgraphs. We further propose that b-matchings, with b = d-1, capture the appropriate notion of entanglement for these higher-dimensional Quantum Max-d-Cut systems, analogous to matchings in the qubit/Quantum Max-Cut case. Leveraging this insight, we design a novel 2-matching-based algorithm that outperforms existing approaches for Quantum Max-3-Cut, giving an approximation ratio of 0.555.
The present work advances the theoretical framework for understanding approximations in qudit Hamiltonians and highlights open directions for certifying quantum upper bounds as well as finding lower bounds via approximation algorithms.

Event Host: Zack Jorquera, Ph.D. Student, Computer Science and Engineering
Advisor: Alexandra Kolla
Zoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/98034235739?pwd=[REDACTED]

Chinese Names Pronunciation Workshop
2025-11-20 12:00 - 13:00 | CA
Learn the fundamentals of reading Chinese pinyin names and practice with native speaking staff members and students from Global Engagement. Hosted by Chunling Hu (International Student Advisor) and Global Leaders.
Register here for the Chinese Names Pronunciation Workshop
Date: Thursday, November 20
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
Location: Zoom
This event is part of UCSC’s International Education Week. If you have any questions, please contact us at iprogramming@ucsc.edu.

Job search strategies in a competitive market
2025-11-20 18:00 - 19:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Join Dean PK Agarwal for this free, in-person and online event as he provides actionable tips on navigating today’s dynamic job market — from leveraging LinkedIn and digital portfolios to networking effectively and positioning yourself as a must-hire candidate. Ideal for career changers, recent grads, and mid-career professionals.
In this session you’ll:

Learn proven strategies for standing out to recruiters and hiring managers
Build a compelling digital presence, including LinkedIn and online portfolios
Apply smart networking to open doors and build lasting connections

This session is part of Pathways to Professional Success, a new conversation series hosted by Dean P.K. Agarwal.

Claim your seat!

Ellen Bass: Morton Marcus Poetry Reading
2025-11-20 18:00 - 19:30 | Merrill Cultural Center, 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join us for the 15th annual Morton Marcus Poetry Reading, featuring honored guest Ellen Bass. Poet Gary Young will host the program, and the evening will include an announcement of the winner of the Morton Marcus Poetry Contest (recipient receives a $1,000 prize).
Ellen Bass’s most recent collection, Indigo, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Among her other books are Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Her poems appear frequently in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and many other journals. Among her awards are Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, and The California Arts Council, The Lambda Literary Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. She co-edited with Florence Howe the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks!, and her nonfiction books include the groundbreaking The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth. A chancellor emerita of the Academy of American Poets, Bass founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz, California jails, and teaches in the MFA writing program at Pacific University
Gary Young is the author of several collections of poetry. His most recent books are That’s What I Thought, winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award from Persea Books, and Precious Mirror, translations from the Japanese. His other books include Even So: New and Selected Poems; Pleasure; No Other Life, winner of the William Carlos Williams Award; Braver Deeds, winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize; Days; The Dream of a Moral Life, which won the James D. Phelan Award; and Hands. He has received a Pushcart Prize, and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Vogelstein Foundation, among others. In 2009 he received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. Young was the first Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, and in 2012 he was named Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year. Since 1975 he has designed, illustrated, and printed limited edition letterpress books and broadsides at his Greenhouse Review Press. His fine print work is represented in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Getty Museum, and special collection libraries throughout the U.S. and Europe. He teaches creative writing and directs the Cowell Press at UC Santa Cruz.
This event is a part of the Fall UCSC Living Writers course, which features poets, novelists, academics, curators, and artists in conversation with one another, in person, across genre and media.
Purchase both poets’ works at: www.bookshopsantacruz.com

Parking Information
The Merrill Cultural Center is located in Merrill College, in the northeast corner of the campus core. Those walking or arriving by Metro bus or campus shuttle can take the steep path heading northeast from the Crown/Merrill bus stop.
For those driving from the Main Entrance, stay on Coolidge Drive. Shortly after Coolidge turns left and becomes McLaughlin Drive, turn right at the sign for Merrill College. At the top of the hill, veer right. There are ParkMobile parking spaces along the left side of the lot, and parking for “A,” “B,” and “C” permits along the right. There are two accessible parking spaces if you turn left at the top of the hill and two more if you turn right. Parking attendants will be on site to sell parking permits to event attendees.

The Morton Marcus Poetry Reading honors poet, teacher, and film critic Morton Marcus (1936–2009). Marcus was the 1999 Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year and a recipient of the 2007 Gail Rich Award. Among his published works are eleven volumes of poetry, including The Santa Cruz Mountain Poems, Pages from a Scrapbook of Immigrants, Moments Without Names, Shouting Down the Silence, Pursuing the Dream Bone and The Dark Figure In The Doorway; a novel, The Brezhnev Memo; and a literary memoir, Striking Through the Masks. He taught English and Film at Cabrillo College for thirty years, was the co-host of the radio program, The Poetry Show, and was the co-host of the television film review show, Cinema Scene. Learn more at: www.mortonmarcus.com
The Morton Marcus Poetry Archive can be found at UCSC Special Collections. Mort’s personal papers, manuscripts, and recordings reflect his legacy as a poet and educator, and his collection of poetry books, broadsides, literary magazines and correspondence with other poets and writers illuminate his deep involvement in, and passion for, the literary art of poetry.
Organizing Committee: Danusha Laméris, Donna Mekis, Mark Ong, Maggie Paul, Farnaz Fatemi, David Sullivan, Irena Polić, Teresa Mora, and Gary Young.
Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Contest: Every year, the annual reading coincides with the The Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Prize, a national poetry contest which honors Morton Marcus, “whose life and work inspired the writing of many students, friends, and emerging poets.” The contest is hosted by The Hive Poetry Collective. The Hive is a group of Santa Cruz poets creating a weekly radio show and live poetry events featuring a diverse roster of poets and seeks to bring a diverse community together in appreciation of all kinds of poetry by all kinds of people. This year’s contest will be judged by Nancy Miller Gomez. For more information visit: https://hivepoetry.org/morton-marcus-prize/
Support Poetry in Santa Cruz: The Annual Morton Marcus Poetry Reading is made possible due to campus and community co-sponsorships and generous contributions from members of our community, like you. To ensure we can continue to offer this poetry reading free and open to the public in honor and memory of Morton Marcus, and to have our lives deeply enriched by exceptional poetry, please consider making a gift to The Morton Marcus Poetry Reading Fund: thi.ucsc.edu/projects/morton-marcus-poetry-reading.
This community event is presented by the The Humanities Institute and co-sponsored by:
Bookshop Santa Cruz
Cabrillo College English Department
Cowell College
Donna F. Mekis
The Hive Poetry Collective
Living Writers Series
Ow Family Properties
Merrill College
Poetry Santa Cruz
Porter Hitchcock Modern Poetry Fund
Porter College
Santa Cruz Writes
Side By Side Press
Special Collections & Archives
If you have disability-related needs, please contact us at thi@ucsc.edu or call 831-459-1274 by October 31.
Photo by: Irene Young

Ramollari, H. (ECE) - An Optofluidic Spectrometer and Applications in Biosensing
2025-11-21 12:30 - 14:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Miniaturized spectrometers have the potential to replace bulky and expensive benchtop models. We have previously demonstrated a multimode interference (MMI) waveguide-based spectrometer that achieves high performance while minimizing its footprint.
In this talk, the integration of the MMI spectrometer into an optofluidic device is proposed. This integration opens up applications such as the detection of single particle fluorescence spectra and absorption spectra.
Moreover, adding a metasurface to the spectrometer waveguide is expected to enhance the sensitivity of single particle detection and simplify the analysis methods.
Finally, to improve the MMI waveguide spectrometer a new nanophotonic platform is proposed.
Event Host: Helio Ramollari, Ph.D. Student, Electrical Engineering
Advisor: Holger Schmidt
Zoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/99623652977?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode- 576057

Torres, S. (ECE) - An Integrated Platform for Real-time Monitoring and Support of 3D Tissue Growth
2025-11-21 14:00 - 16:00
Organoids are three-dimensional tissue cultures that model real organs and serve as valuable tools for studying development, disease, and treatment response. Traditional methods, which rely on manual handling and incubators, limit consistency and real-time monitoring. To address these issues, we developed a modular microfluidic platform that integrates automated feeding, live fluorescence imaging, and environmental control without the need for a standard incubator. The core of the system is a vertically oriented PDMS-glass chip that enables precise media delivery and continuous imaging of small 3D structures such as organoids. Using fluorescent dyes to mimic molecules, such as nutrients or drugs, we tracked their movement through tissue in real time without invasive sensors. This setup maintains metabolic stability and provides detailed insight into molecular transport, which improves applications in disease modeling, drug testing, and personalized medicine.

Event Host- Sebastián Torres, Ph.D. Candidate, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Advisor: Mircea Teodorescu

Zoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/2333595627?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode- 579836

Santa Cruz Pickwick Club presents: Bleak House
2025-11-23 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.

Chen, Q. (CSE) - New Approximation and Online Algorithms using Novel Combinatorial Structures
2025-11-24 09:30 - 11:30
Most optimization problems face the challenge of computing an optimum solution requiring superpolynomial time. In particular, they are classified as NP-hard problems that have no polynomial-time algorithm to date. Instead, computer scientists turn to find an approximate solution and create numerous elegant algorithms. However, in the modern era, computational environments have changed drastically, and we are not able to afford to design new algorithms for each new problem via repeated trial and error. Therefore, systematic ways to understand the possibilities and limitations of these problems are desired. This dissertation studies several central combinatorial optimization problems, focusing on understanding the key structural obstacles and developing unified frameworks. Mainly, we study two types of combinatorial optimization problems:
(1) Scheduling. The problem is associated with limited resources, and our target is to find an allocation method to complete all jobs over time that minimizes the overall budget cost.
(2) Network Design. Different from scheduling problems. In this problem, we aim to find a minimum-cost topological network that supports routing for demanding communications.
Our first work is focused on a group-to-group survivable network design problem that generalizes the classic point-to-point network to support routing between any pair of subsets of nodes. Previous research stops at limited faults, and the difficulty comes from the way to compress the graph into a tree. We propose a new framework via capacitated tree embeddings against arbitrary faults in the network, which gives the first polylogarithmic approximation algorithm. Further, this framework captures nearly all the recent models proposed in the area.
In contrast to the offline optimization problems mentioned above, online algorithms are natural adaptations that have been found in tremendous real applications. In online algorithms, the algorithm wants to compete against arbitrary uncertainty, which means the instance is unknown at first and revealed over time. We study various scheduling problems and focus on some important metrics – average flow time, which measures the average time a job stays in the system from its arrival to completion. Real-world demands give online scheduling problems enormously different settings. Computer scientists need to repeat errors and trials to find a provably good solution. We find the key required combinatorial property is supermodularity for the residual objective, which measures the average completion time for all alive jobs assuming they have the same arrival time. Further, we relate supermodularity with gross-substitute/linear-substitute (GS/LS), which is a well-studied definition in economics. Finally, we propose a meta-algorithm that solves all captured problems in one shot.
Event Host: Qingyun Chen, Ph.D. Student, Computer Science and Engineering
Advisor: Sungjin Im
Zoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/94376536164?pwd=[REDACTED]

ECE 290 Seminar: Fundamental Nanopower Analog Circuits
2025-11-24 10:40 - 11:45 | CA
Presenter: Joey Sankman, Analog/Power Designer, Analog Devices
Description: With the rising interest in edge computing, and the addition of AI/ML functionality, nanopower circuits are in great demand to reduce the quiescent power consumption of remote sensors. In this tutorial, fundamental building blocks for nanopower circuits will be covered, including startup-less low-voltage references, low-frequency clocks, and LDO regulators. Attendees can expect a deep dive into fundamental and practical analog techniques to design nanopower systems.
Bio: Joey Sankman received the B.S. degree from the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, and Ph.D. degree from the University of Texas at Dallas, TX in electrical engineering in 2010 and 2014, respectively. At the University of Texas at Dallas, his research included energy harvesting circuits and systems as well as high-performance switch mode power converters. He is currently an analog/power designer at Analog Devices, Principal Member of Technical Staff, working on automotive PMICs. Previously, he was an Analog R&D Engineer working on audio amplifiers, ultra-low power circuits, and radhard gate drivers at Kilby Labs, TI, Dallas, TX. He was the recipient of the U.S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the 2011 Texas Instruments/Semiconductor Research Corporation Graduate Fellowship. He has authored or co-authored 20 publications in various IEEE journals and conferences. He currently serves on the IEEE ISSCC power subcommittee.
Hosted by: Professor Soumya Bose, ECE Department
Zoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=[REDACTED]

AM Seminar: Linear Stochastic Emulators of the Ocean Circulation based on Balanced Truncation: A Caution, perhaps, for Machine Learning?
2025-11-24 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
Presenter: Professor Andy Moore, UCSC Ocean Sciences
Description: Linear inverse models have enjoyed considerable popularity in the geosciences, particularly in the arena of climate research and climate prediction, for several decades as a straightforward approach to dimension reduction and streamlining computational efficiency. The most common approach is to truncate the system by retaining the leading Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) which represent the left singular vectors of the transition matrix. While singular value decomposition is the best low rank approximation of the transition matrix, ignoring information contained in the right singular vectors, as is commonly done in linear inverse models, has consequences for the dynamics that approximate the system. Dimension reduction based on balanced truncation simultaneously preserves information from the right and left singular vectors. This talk will review some of these ideas and present examples from the ocean. Since EOF decomposition is quite commonly used for dimension reduction in some machine learning approaches, there may be some lessons here for the machine learning community to consider.
Bio: Professor at UCSC since 2016.
Hosted by: Professor Julie Simons

Macroeconomics & International Finance Seminar Series Presents: Helen Popper
2025-11-25 13:40 - 15:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Macroeconomics and International Finance Seminar
Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Time: 1:40-3:00 p.m.
Location: E2-499

Speaker: Helen Popper
Title: Professor of Economics
Affiliation: Santa Clara University
Host: Galina Hale

Seminar title: Artificial Intelligence and Macroeconomic Dynamics: Growth, Pricing, and Distribution

ABSTRACT: This paper builds a simple general equilibrium model in which an AI producer is a monopolist who both learns by doing and uses AI recursively as an input. These mechanisms link today’s scale to tomorrow’s costs, so pricing is dynamic: the firm sets a price below the static monopoly benchmark to expand capacity and speed learning. Final goods are produced by monopolistic competitors with constant returns to scale each period. We first use Cobb–Douglas technologies to solve for a generalized balanced growth path that pins down the condition for stable, nonexplosive growth. On this path, AI output grows faster than final output, the relative price of AI falls persistently, real wages rise with overall output, and the specialized–to–nonspecialized wage ratio is flat. We then analyze CES versions of both sectors and derive a closed form effective demand elasticity for AI that combines input substitution in production with final-goods market substitution across varieties. Finally, simulations link adoption and distribution to elasticities, and they allow us to explore the dynamics. When final-goods inputs are complements, adoption is learning-first and capital-light before scaling; when they are substitutes, adoption is scale-first and the two-phase pattern attenuates. On the distribution side, the specialized–to–nonspecialized wage premium is lowest with complements and rises with substitutes. Greater substitutability in AI production amplifies these patterns without changing their sign.

Dried Wreath Workshop
2025-11-30 10:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Learn how to create beautiful, long-lasting dried flower holiday wreaths with instructor Beth Benjamin. She will demonstrate the mechanics of putting everything together and will have a couple examples to guide your inspiration. Personal artistic style is highly encouraged! You’ll be able to choose from a wide selection of dried materials from the UCSC Farm and other sources. With care, your wreath will last for years. Light refreshments will be served and the atmosphere promises to be jovial, creative and social.

Register
