Events

Road Trip! Light in the American West, from Baja to the Yukon
2025-10-31 12:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-01 12:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-03 12:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-04 12:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-05 12:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery, 11 Cowell Service Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The photographs in this exhibition, made between 2004 and 2025, span across the American West from the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico to The Yukon territory in Canada. Paul Schoellhamer’s (Cowell ‘69) color photographs invite us to travel with him and reflect on our relationship to land, the light that shapes it, and the freedom – contested but essential – to move across it.
The exhibition draws on voices across time and perspective that frame the American landscape as more than a stage for beauty and awe. For Chief Satanta of the Kiowa Nation, to roam the land freely was life itself. For N. Scott Momaday, land must be “believed to be seen.” For Eliot Porter, light and reflection imparted magic to Glen Canyon’s waters. For Wallace Stegner, saving natural places meant saving fragments of our collective sanity. For Brook M. Thompson, the Klamath River is recognized with personhood. Alongside these perspectives, Paul’s images press us to see public land not as scenery to extract or aestheticize, but as sustenance and history. Land is alive and contested. To see closely is not to linger on a romanticized vision of the American landscape, but to reckon with responsibility: how we safeguard access, how we imagine “wildness,” and how we hold space for futures beyond our own. For Paul, this exhibition is a call for students to encounter land and light firsthand and let those encounters be their teachers.
Opening Reception
October 4, 2025
1-4pm
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Join us every Friday for Art Fridays.
No experience necessary. Supplies and snacks provided.

Sep 26 Snail Mail/Postcards
Oct 3 Souvenir Keychains
Oct 10 Stamp Magnets
Oct 17 Cyanotype Totebags/Pouches/Pencil cases
Oct 24 Candy Around The World Linocuts
Oct 31 Abstract Felt Collages
Nov 7 Phone Photos/Buttons
Nov 14 Travel Related Patches With Upcycled Materials
Nov 21 Thanksgiving Break! No Art Friday
Nov 28 Unexpected Landscape Surrealist Collage

Please note that the date and the project is subject to change.

Barnstorm presents: At the Hands of Fire & Iron
2025-10-31 19:30 - 21:30 | Theater Arts B100 Studio Theater, 453 Kerr Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Set in a fantasy world, a duo meets a solo traveler on the road, and they band together as they set out on a quest for the Tree of Knowledge. In these two snippets, we watch as Azrael discovers his magic abilities after surviving an exorcism, and as Ripley and Aeron confess their love during both a storm and a fight. Presented by Barnstorm. Written and Directed by Jaden Edson.
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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Thurs. Oct. 30: 7:30 p.m, Theater Arts B100 Studio Theater
– Fri. Oct. 31: 7:30 p.m, Theater Arts B100 Studio Theater
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ADMISSION
– General admission $5–$20 “Pay What You Like”
– Free for UCSC undergrads (ticket required).
– Tickets issued online through Eventbrite only.
– Follow the Dept. of Performance, Play & Design on Eventbrite for notifications and updates.
– Doors are scheduled to open 30 minutes prior to event start time.
– Ticket holders not seated at least 5 minutes before the advertised start time may forfeit their ticket/seat and no refund will be issued.
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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.

Welcome to the City: San Francisco
2025-11-01 09:00 - 13:00 | Candlestick Point SRA, 500 Hunters Point Expy, San Francisco, 94124, United States
Join us for Welcome to the City in San Francisco, hosted in partnership with the California State Parks Foundation at Candlestick Point SRA. The project will be held Saturday, November 1 from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. at Candlestick Point (500 Hunters Point Expy, San Francisco, CA 94124). Please register in advance to help us and our non-profit partner plan accordingly.
Project description:
Help build brand new redwood picnic tables for our park! Volunteers must use proper lifting techniques when working with the heavy redwood planks and moving the tables once assembled. Some volunteers will be asked to use hammers and socket drivers, so proper precautions should be taken to ensure safety. If participants would rather, they can choose to pick up micro-trash and debris from the park. We will provide volunteers with tools and gloves. We recommend wearing long sleeved shirts and a hat. Ages 16 and older are welcome (minors must be accompanied by an adult and bring a waiver signed by their guardian). Snacks will be provided.
Welcome to the City is an annual series of regional events which help alumni connect with their local UCSC community. While the program is designed with recent grads in mind, all are welcome to participate.
Please contact alumni@ucsc.edu with questions.

Fiesta on the Hill
2025-11-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Merrill Cultural Center, 200 McLaughlin Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join Merrill and Crown Programs Offices for an evening of food, fun, and community. Enjoy tamales, Mexican corn, music, and piñata fun while connecting with fellow Slugs.
This festive event also features “Slugs Go Slow,” an initiative focused on making safe choices and building meaningful connections. Come for the food and celebration—stay for the community and good vibes!
You Belong Here: The programs and services described here are open to all, consistent with state and federal law, as well as the University of California’s nondiscrimination policies. Every initiative—whether a student service, faculty program, or community event—is designed to be accessible, inclusive, and respectful of all identities.
To learn more, please visit UC Nondiscrimination Statement or Nondiscrimination Policy for UC Publications.

Día de los Muertos Ceremonia
2025-11-02 16:00 - 19:30 | CA
When: Sunday, November 2, 2025
Where: Quarry Amphitheater, UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, CA 95064
Time: 5:30-7:30pm, doors open at 4:00pm
El Centro and the Quarry Amphitheater present Día de los Muertos Ceremonia. A space to collectively honor and celebrate the lives of our loved ones. Join us for a night of danza, prayer, food, music, and community. This cultural and family event is FREE! Please email elcentro@ucsc.edu for questions or concerns.
As we prepare for this year’s ceremony, we recognize the pain, loss, and grief caused by violence around the world. The community altar, or ofrenda, is a sacred space that represents a remembrance of the departed, a reminder that life is eternal and that the presence of our loved ones is everlasting. The ofrenda speaks of affection and praise toward the deceased and are an expression of love towards life. We preserve this ceremony as a space to reflect and heal. We ask that everyone respect the honoring of individuals lost and come together as we welcome back their spirits through ceremony, dance, song, and offerings. We also recognize that through all cultures and traditions we express ourselves differently, yet at this time we gather as members of humanity to support one another, to share our emotions of joy and sadness, and to embrace our humility as a community of this campus.
Parking and Check-in: Please allow sufficient time to arrive at the Quarry Amphitheater. You can follow the directional signs from the base of the campus to the parking lots. Parking will be free at the Hahn Parking Lot 101. Overflow parking will be free at the East Remote Lot after Lot 101 has been filled.
Shuttles will be available from the East Remote Lot to the Quarry Plaza. ADA parking is available at Parking Lot 102 near the Quarry with an ADA placard. Please let us know if you need any accommodations and/or ADA parking in the form below.
Covid-19 Guidelines: For the safety of our community, we recommend our guests and volunteers wear masks when they are not eating. We will have masks available at the registration table.
Weather: We encourage you to dress for cold weather (hats, layers, and blankets). Our event is outdoors and although rain is not in the forecast, the temperature is expected to drop to the low 50’s, please wear comfortable shoes and a jacket.
Food: We will be serving food for our guests starting at 4:00pm until 5:30pm when the Ceremonia begins. We encourage you to arrive early if you can. We will serve tamales, pan dulce and refreshments starting at 4:00pm until supplies last.
Community altar: We will be having a community altar, we encourage you to bring an ofrenda to add to the altar (pictures, food items, your loved ones’ favorite items, etc). Please don’t forget to pick up your items from the altar at the end of the event. You may bring candles, but will be unable to light them due to fire safety.
You Belong Here: The programs and services described here are open to all, consistent with state and federal law, as well as the University of California’s nondiscrimination policies. Every initiative—whether a student service, faculty program, or community event—is designed to be accessible, inclusive, and respectful of all identities.
To learn more, please visit UC Nondiscrimination Statement or Nondiscrimination Policy for UC Publications.
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Cuándo: Domingo 2 de noviembre de 2025
Dónde: Anfiteatro Quarry, UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, CA 95064
Hora: 5:30-7:30 pm, las de puertas abren a las 4:00 pm
¡Acompáñanos a nuestra ceremonia comunitaria de Día de Muertos! Habrá comida, música, danza folclórica en vivo y altar comunitaria. Este evento cultural – familiar es totalmente gratuito. El Centro y el Anfiteatro Quarry se complacen en darle la bienvenida a nuestra Ceremonia anual del Día de los Muertos que tendrá lugar el 2 de noviembre del 2025 de 5:30 p. m. a 7:30 p. m., y las puertas se abrirán a las 4:00p.m.
Estacionamiento: Permita suficiente tiempo para llegar al anfiteatro Quarry. Puede seguir las señales direccionales desde la base del campus hasta los estacionamientos. El estacionamiento será gratuito en el estacionamiento lote 101. El estacionamiento adicional será gratuito en el lote East Remote después de que se haya llenado el lote 101. El estacionamiento ADA está disponible en el lote 102 cerca del anfiteatro con un cartel ADA. Por favor, hágame saber si necesita estacionamiento ADA.
Covid-19: Para la seguridad de nuestra comunidad, recomendamos que nuestros invitados y voluntarios usen máscaras cuando no estén comiendo. Tendremos mascarillas disponibles en la mesa de registro.
Clima: Le recomendamos venir abrigados debido al clima frío (gorros, capas y chaqueta). Nuestro evento es afuera al aire libre y, aunque no se pronostica lluvia, se espera que la temperatura baje a mediados de los 40, use zapatos cómodos y una chaqueta.
Comida: Estaremos sirviendo comida para nuestros invitados desde las 4:00 p.m. hasta las 5:30 p.m. cuando comienza la Ceremonia. Le recomendamos que llegue temprano si puede. Serviremos tamales, pan dulce y refrescos a partir de las 5:00 pm hasta agotar.
Ofrenda comunitaria: Tendremos un altar comunitario, si gustan por favor traigan una ofrenda para agregar al altar (fotos, alimentos, los artículos favoritos de sus seres queridos, etc.). No olvide recoger sus artículos del altar al final del evento.
Para mas informacion o preguntas, mande un correo electronico a elcentro@ucsc.edu o llame a (831) 459-5608.

Snow Wonder
2025-11-03 08:00 - 2025-12-14 17:00 | CA
The Faculty & Staff Health and Well-being Program presents Snow Wonder, a UC systemwide wellness challenge!
Registration opens November 3 – November 24
Challenge runs Monday, November 17 – Sunday, December 14
Join this 2025 UC Snow Wonder Challenge! Picture yourself having a healthier, happier holiday season. Form teams with your colleagues and motivate each other and celebrate your healthy habit accomplishments to end the year on a healthy high note and head into 2026 feeling your best!
Visit the UCSC Snow Wonder webpage to learn more. Register to create a new account and choose UC Santa Cruz as your location. Please note that space for this challenge is limited, so sign up early.

Successful Slug Workshop: Reading & Notetaking Strategies
2025-11-03 11:30 - 12:30 | Academic Resources Center (ARC), 408 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Reading & Notetaking Strategies
Monday, November 3, 11:40 a.m.–12:25 p.m.
Location: ARCenter 203
Learn reading and note-taking methods and why they work to help you learn.
Successful Slug Workshop Series
Join Learning Support Services (LSS) for Successful Slug Workshops on Mondays at 11:40 a.m. and Wednesdays at 2:05 p.m.
These 45-minute workshops are open to all UCSC students and offer tools and strategies to support your academic success. Each session highlights best practices for effective, long-lasting learning and is led by LSS professional staff.
To get first priority, sign up on TutorHub or simply drop in. You can also sign up on TutorHub to receive email reminders.
Learn more and sign up: learningsupport.ucsc.edu/programs/workshops/

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

Info Session: Global Seminar Latin American Spain
2025-11-03 12:00 - 13:00 | CA
Location: Zoom

Date: Nov 03, 2025 12:00 pm PST to Nov 03, 2025 01:00 pm PST

Event Description:

Learn more at our upcoming Information Session: Monday, November 3rd, 2025 at 12:00-1:00 pm via Zoom. Zoom link is listed here.
Earn 6 units on a summer program on the UCSC Global Seminar: Latin American Spain in Madrid this summer. This program is taught by Catherine S. Ramírez, Chair of the UCSC Latin American and Latino Studies Department.
Quick Facts:

Location: Madrid, Spain
Courses: LALS 184S: Latin American Spain (6 UC quarter units)
Led by: Catherine S. Ramírez
Eligibility: Good academic and disciplinary standing, Min Age: 18, 45 units completed at time of departure, Minimum GPA- 2.3 cumulative GPA or higher
Dates: Summer Session 1
Finances: Financial aid applies and is packaged at your home UC campus.
How to apply: Visit here for instructions. Applications open on December 1, 2025 and close on March 2, 2026.
Get in touch: Email your questions to globallearning@ucsc.edu.

Program Description:
What would gazpacho be without the tomato? What would LaLiga be without Messi? What would agriculture, restaurants, construction, and child and elder care be without migrants? Exploring subjects as varied as food, soccer, music, labor, and fascism, this course addresses these questions by examining Spain’s legacy as an imperial power in the Americas and the ways Latin Americans are transforming Spanish society and culture. This 6-unit Global Seminar fulfills UC Santa Cruz’s Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC) General Education requirement and is for undergraduates with a desire to learn about Spain’s diversity and dynamism from a Latin American and Latinx studies perspective. Students from any major who meet the standard eligibility requirements are welcome. The ability to speak Spanish is helpful, but not required. Discover more here.

CM Seminar - "Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine"
2025-11-03 12:30 - 13:30 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presented by: Chaim Gingold

Description: As play is intrinsic to humanity, it should come as no surprise that the history of computing is veined with playful simulations and games of all kinds. From the Balinese cockfight to Los Alamos’s Monte Carlo simulations, play and games, in all their kaleidoscopic glory, reflect the diverse cultures and communities of those who make and play them.
This talk focuses upon SimCity, the genre-defying urban planning hit from 1989, and the people who made it. We’ll examine how SimCity’s design counts urban planning, videogames, graphical user interfaces, and complexity science among its many influences. This set the stage for SimCity’s reception and enabled Maxis, SimCity’s developer, to establish relationships with wide-ranging communities: Nintendo, the Santa Fe Institute, Wall Street venture capitalists, and more.
Focusing on people such as developers, managers, and investors sheds light on the messy process of software development—a negotiation between individuals, their aspirations and worldviews, and shape-shifting technologies. Springing forth from this mess came The Sims, which required an extraordinary amount of research and development. But this same mess also thwarted Maxis’s solvency and its attempts to bring The Sims to market. Ultimately, we’ll see how SimCity, Maxis, and The Sims—like games, play, and software more generally—reflect their time and place, and the people who make them.

Bio: Chaim Gingold is the author of Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine (MIT Press), which Stewart Brand called “one of the best origin stories ever told and the best account I’ve seen of how innovation actually occurs in computerdom.” Gingold began his design career apprenticed to Will Wright on Spore, where his chief accomplishment was designing the critically acclaimed Spore Creature Creator. His projects, like Earth: A Primer, a science book made of interactive toys, have been featured by Wired, CNN, and the New York Times.

Hosted by: Professor Nathan Altice
When: Monday, November 3, 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/95438112782?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 954 3811 2782
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Statistics Seminar: Topological Clustering: from Multilayer Networks to Climate Resiliency and Beyond
2025-11-03 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
Presenter: Professor Yulia R. Gel, Virginia Tech
Description: Multilayer networks continue to gain significant attention in many areas of study, particularly, due to their high utility in modeling interdependent systems such as critical infrastructures, human brain connectome, and socio-environmental ecosystems. However, clustering of multilayer networks, especially, using the information on higher order interactions of the system entities, yet remains in its infancy. We discuss a new topological approach for multilayer network clustering, based on the rationale to group nodes not using the pairwise connectivity patterns or relationships between observations recorded at two individual nodes, but based on how similar in shape their local neighborhoods are at various resolution scales. We quantify shapes of local node neighborhoods using persistence diagrams and then consider either single linkage or k-means forms of topological clustering, which allows us to systematically account for the important heterogeneous higher-order properties of node interactions within and in-between network layers and to integrate information from the node neighbors. In case of topological k-means, we also show that casting it into an empirical risk minimization framework using reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces allows us to derive clustering stability guarantees, similarly to the Euclidean k-means, i.e., property that most existing topological clustering methods lack. We illustrate our topological clustering methods in application to assessing climate-induced risks in insurance and COVID-19 biosurveillance.
Bio: Yulia R. Gel is a Professor in the Department of Statistics at Virginia Tech. Her research interests focus on mathematical and statistical foundations of data science, topological and geometric methods in artificial intelligence and machine learning, risk analytics, and graph learning, with applications to assessing resilience of complex systems, digital twins, and early warning mechanisms. She holds a Ph.D in Mathematics, followed by a postdoctoral position in Statistics at the University of Washington. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, she was a tenured faculty member at the University of Waterloo, Canada and University of Texas at Dallas. She also held visiting positions at Johns Hopkins University, University of California, Berkeley, and the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge University, UK. In her recent stint (2021-2025) as Program Director in National Science Foundation (NSF) at the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) and Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP), she has served as a cognizant officer for various inter-agency interdisciplinary research programs at the interface of mathematical sciences and artificial intelligence, including the NSF-FDA-NIH Foundations for Digital Twins as Catalyzers of Biomedical Technological Innovation (FDT-BioTech) and the NSF-NIH Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science (SCH). She has authored more than 150 publications in top statistical, data mining and machine learning venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, KDD, IJCAI, and PNAS and served as senior area chair for ICML and NeurIPS. Her research has been continuously supported by ONR, NASA, and NSF. She is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), recipient of the NSF2023 Director’s Award, NSF STARS Awards, and has multiple Best Paper Awards from the ASA Section on Statistics for Defense and National Security.
Hosted by: Professor Paul Parker

AM Seminar: In Search of Stratified Turbulence
2025-11-03 16:00 - 17:00 | CA
Presenter: Colm-cille Patrick Caulfield, Professor, DAMTP, University of Cambridge
Description: Statically stable density stratification is ubiquitous in geophysical flows, with the atmosphere, lakes and oceans all typically having an average density distribution that decreases upwards in a gravitational field. Due to the associated stabilising effect of the buoyancy force, it would seem intuitive that such statically stable density distributions should suppress vertical motions, relative to horizontal motions. Such inevitable anisotropy complicates even further developing an understanding of turbulence in density-stratified fluids. Stratified turbulence is not just a fascinating (and inherently complicated) research challenge in classical physics, but also a key component of the global climate system, as stratified turbulence has a leading order effect on the transport of heat and other scalars such as carbon dioxide, pollutants etc in the world’s oceans and atmosphere. Indeed, how stratified turbulence can actually be `born’ and then `survive’ for a significant period, hence irreversibly mixing significant scalar quantities, are open questions, associated with ongoing controversy in the global research community. In this talk, I will review some recent studies by my collaborators that have advanced our understanding of various key properties of stratified turbulence and mixing, while also demonstrating that there is still much more to learn about this fascinating and vitally important class of fluid flows.

Bio: Colm-cille P. Caulfield is Professor of Environmental and Industrial Fluid Dynamics in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge, and a faculty member of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows (IEEF). He is also a Professorial Fellow in Mathematics at Churchill College, Cambridge, and the Co-Director (Science) of the University’s Institute of Computing for Climate Science (ICCS), which studies and supports the role of software engineering, computer science, AI and data science within climate science. Prof. Caulfield’s personal research interests include instability, turbulence transition and turbulent mixing processes in stratified flows, with particular focus on understanding and improving the modelling of heat transport in the world’s oceans. His undergraduate studies were at the University of Ulster at Coleraine, graduating with a BSc in Mathematics in 1987. He then studied for his Masters and PhD in Fluid Mechanics at DAMTP under the supervision of Prof Paul Linden FRS, defending his thesis on stratified shear instabilities in 1991. Following postdoctoral training in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto and the Department of Engineering Science at Hokkaido University, he was a lecturer in the School of Mathematics at the University of Bristol from January 1995 to June 1999. Prof. Caulfield subsequently joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego for the period July 1999 to June 2005. Following tenure at UCSD, Prof. Caulfield joined the BP Institute (now IEEF) and DAMTP in July 2005. Prof. Caulfield is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, the Chair of the European Mechanics Society (Euromech) Turbulence Conference Committee, and served as the Head (ie Dept Chair) of DAMTP January 2020-September 2025. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (Division of Fluid Dynamics) in 2014.

Hosted by: Professor Julie Simons

Community Day: Free Admission at the Arboretum
2025-11-04 09:00 - 17:00 | Arboretum, 122 Arboretum Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The first Tuesday of each month, the Arboretum is open without charge to visitors. See dates and times UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanic Garden is open. NOTE: Due to limited parking at the Arboretum and the popularity of Community Day, we greatly encourage visitors to carpool, bike, walk or use public transportation as much as possible.

Stand Out in Your Job Search: Tips from Veeva
2025-11-04 11:00 - 13:00 | CA
Are you an upcoming grad passionate about purpose-driven work?
Come join Katie Groth, a University Recruiter at Veeva, as she shares valuable insights on how to make your resume, job applications, and interviews stand out. You’ll also have the chance to ask your own questions and get personalized advice on these topics.
During the session, Katie will also provide insight into the Engineering Development Program, a unique program at Veeva designed to support new grads entering the software engineering space.
If you’re exploring full-time or internship opportunities for Summer 2026, this is a great chance to connect with us!
What we look for:

Bachelor’s Degree with a 3.0 GPA or higher
Strong computer science fundamentals, including operating systems, compilers, and algorithms
Proficiency in Java

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.

Western Regional Hub: Undergraduate Success Group Meeting
2025-11-04 12:00 - 13:00 | CA
Members of the hub’s working group focused on Undergraduate student success will meet to share ideas and strategize.
If you would like to be involved in the hub’s work, please contact Richard Raygoza at riraygoz@ucsc.edu

Yoga as Healing Series
2025-11-04 17:30 - 19:15 | Health Center (Student Health Center), 525 McLaughlin Drive, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Yoga as Healing is an offering for students at UC Santa Cruz who identify as survivors of interpersonal violence. Together, we will practice gentle body movement, breathwork, meditation, and more—all from a trauma-informed lens.
This 7-week program is limited to 8–10 participants in each cohort and is intended to provide a safe and predictable environment for survivors to build community.
At the beginning of each session, participants will have time to share their progress and personal experiences with the class. This will be followed by asana practice (physical postures), and the class will close with journaling, art, and reflection.
CARE will provide yoga mats, blocks, and a blanket for each participant. You are encouraged to wear comfortable clothing and bring a water bottle for hydration.
Participants are welcome to join Yoga as Healing for any of the sessions; attendance at the orientation is not required. The sessions run from October 7 through November 25, with no session on November 11.
This event is open to all UC Santa Cruz students. Fill out an interest form to sign up.

Drop-In Figure Drawing
2025-11-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Elena Baskin Visual Arts Center, Baskin Service Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Drop-In Draw provides a live model and room monitor. There is no formal lesson and only dry media is allowed (no paints).
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ADVISORIES
– These events contain mature content and nudity.
– Drop-In Draw is subject to the possibility of last-minute cancellation without notification, and sessions are not guaranteed.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– UCSC Art Department Room L-101
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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
This series occurs weekly on Tuesday evenings during fall quarter, including the following:
– Tue., Sep. 30, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Oct. 7, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Oct. 14, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Oct. 21, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Oct. 28, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Nov. 4, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Nov. 18, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Nov. 25, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
Additional dates to be announced for winter and spring quarter.
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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.

Giving Day
2025-11-05 00:00 - 23:59 | CA
On November 5, 2025, UC Santa Cruz will celebrate the 10th anniversary of Giving Day, our signature 24-hour fundraising event that unites Slugs around the world in support of student success, research, and community programs.
Over the past decade, thousands of donors have raised millions to provide scholarships, fuel groundbreaking research, strengthen basic needs programs, and ensure every student has the resources to thrive.
This milestone year is our chance to reflect on what we’ve achieved together and take bold steps forward. Giving Day 2025 will feature hundreds of campus projects, exciting matches and challenges that amplify every gift, and a global community of Slugs rallying for one cause: expanding opportunity. Mark your calendar, sign up to be an Advocate, and join us as we make the 10th year of Giving Day our most impactful yet.

Top Grad Schools in International Relations
2025-11-05 10:00 - 11:00 | Cervantes and Velasquez Conference Room – Bay Tree Conference Center, 420 Hagar Dr, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Georgetown SFS, Columbia SIPA, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and Tufts Fletcher will be visiting UCSC! This is a great opportunity for students to hear from all four schools at the same time. We will cover the following topics:

The Graduate School Application Process (how to stand out in your applications, and what grad schools are looking for)
Admissions Requirements & Timeline
Financial Aid and Scholarships
Career Opportunities in Public Policy & International Affairs

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.

CSE Colloquium: Mitigating Data Scarcity via Simulation by Roozbeh Mottaghi
2025-11-05 11:00 - 12:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Roozbeh Mottaghi, University of Washington
Abstract: Data has revolutionized progress across AI fields like natural language processing and computer vision. Yet, in robotics, data collection remains a significant challenge: robots must interact with complex, dynamic environments, making the process slow, costly, and difficult to scale. In this talk, I will discuss how simulation is transforming the landscape of robotics research by addressing these data bottlenecks. I will introduce Habitat 3.0, a 3D simulator designed for training and evaluating robotic agents in dynamic environments that include human interactions. Focusing on collaborative human-robot tasks, I will present PARTNR, a simulation benchmark designed to rigorously evaluate planning and reasoning in interactive settings. I will share key insights from this benchmark, revealing both the impressive capabilities of current LLMs and the significant challenges they encounter when faced with the complexities of real-world environments.
Bio: Roozbeh Mottaghi is a Senior Research Scientist Manager at FAIR and an Affiliate Associate Professor in Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. Prior to joining FAIR, he was the Research Manager of the Perceptual Reasoning and Interaction Research (PRIOR) group at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2). He obtained his PhD in Computer Science in 2013 from the University of California, Los Angeles. After PhD, he joined the Computer Science Department at Stanford University as a post-doctoral researcher. His research mainly focuses on embodied AI, reasoning via perception, and learning via interaction, and his work on large-scale Embodied AI received the Outstanding Paper Award at NeurIPS 2022.

Faculty Host: 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]

Honoring Patrick Orozco Luncheon
2025-11-05 12:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Amah-Ka-Tura: “People of the Land”
We gather in recognition of Amah-Ka-Tura, a symbol of the enduring legacy and successful efforts of Patrick Orozco and the Pajaro Valley Ohlone Indian Council. Today, we honor Patrick’s unwavering commitment to protecting the sacred lands along Lee Road, a site of deep cultural and spiritual significance.
This event marks the 50th anniversary of what has come to be known as “Wounded Lee” — a pivotal moment in the struggle to preserve Ohlone heritage. Patrick Orozco’s dedication to the protection, remembrance, and revitalization of the cultural traditions of the Ohlone People, the Chumash People and other Indigenous People continues to inspire generations.
We gather in gratitude and remembrance, acknowledging his role as a cultural bearer, a protector of the land, and a voice for the ancestors.

Joint Senate/Admin Forum — Development of Achievement Relative to Opportunity (ARO) Guidelines for UC Santa Cruz Personnel Review
2025-11-05 15:00 - 17:00 | https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IUD4vjdJHS6XDiBo5hTVE9iS3oCmJubXTY2xkYhffwg/edit?tab=t.0
The Committee on Academic Personnel (CAP), VPAA Ravelo, and iCP/EVC Koch will host a working Forum on the Development of Achievement Relative to Opportunity (ARO) Guidelines for UC Santa Cruz Personnel Review on November 5, 2025 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm via Zoom. Please see this document for history, context, and draft proposals for ARO guidelines.
With stakeholder feedback from this forum, CAP, the VPAA, and the iCP/EVC aim to develop comprehensive guidelines for ARO in the personnel review process that consider disruptive, external impacts on academic advancement. This online Senate forum will gather broad input from Senate faculty on a preliminary proposal for ARO guidelines with the goal of implementing the guidelines in review cycles beginning fall quarter 2026. Please join us for this working forum to share your valuable input and feedback, and assist us in creating a set of guidelines that best serves our campus and faculty. We hope you will bring examples of impacts and thoughts on how we can best assess impacted work.

American Agitators Screening at Cabrillo
2025-11-05 16:30 - 19:00 | Cabrillo College, 6500 Soquel Dr., Aptos, CA, 95003, United States
American Agitators comes to Santa Cruz! We cordially invite you to the screening of American Agitators with a discussion and a Free Dinner! Spaces are limited, so RSVP today!
Sponsored by Santa Cruz Local, Cabrillo College, COPA, UCSC Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas, UCSC Center for Labor and Community, and UCSC Institute for Social Transformation.
AMERICAN AGITATORS captures the remarkable story of organizing for social change in the U.S. through the work Fred Ross Sr. and many others such as iconic organizers Dolores Huerta and Fred Ross Jr. as well as current ones, all of whom have devoted their lives to the pursuit of justice and equality.
For over 50 years Ross led a groundbreaking organizing approach that improved the lives of thousands and reverberates in organizing strategies today. From organizing Dust Bowl refugees to helping Japanese-Americans find jobs and housing after release from the internment camps to challenging KKK activity by organizing civil unity leagues in California that led to the integration of local school boards across California’s Citrus Belt, Ross’ work with the Mendez case laid the foundation for the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown vs Board of Education and his mentorship of legendary organizers Cesar Chavez and Huerta led to the success of the United Farmworkers.
Generations of organizers and activists, many of whom are featured in AMERICAN AGITATORS, stand on the shoulders of Ross and his innovative organizing tactics. Evidence of Ross’ impact is illustrated in the case examples the film explores: in Atlanta, where Fight For 15 organizers demand an increased minimum wage and the unionization of workers across the Southern states; in Las Vegas where hotel workers organize for fair wages and to get out the vote; in Oakland, where teachers, families and community members forged a fair contract with the Oakland school district.
The documentary demonstrates the efficacy of member-led movements built through patience and by listening.
Award-winning filmmaker Raymond Telles has made American Agitators to illustrate how collective action can create long term, positive change especially at a critical moment in American history.
“Bringing Fred’s life to the screen is the medicine our society needs right now. He empowered people to be engaged in the democratic process.”
-Dolores Huerta, February 2022
View: American Agitators Premier Trailer
Check us out: American Agitators

The UC Santa Cruz Kraw Lecture Series presents: Stars to Soil: A Journey from the Big Bang to Planet Earth
2025-11-05 17:30 - 19:30 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
In this Kraw lecture, Professor Alexie Leauthaud will present the latest results on the nature of our universe, including groundbreaking and prize-winning new results on the nature of dark energy. Leauthaud will discuss our current understanding of the basic ingredients of our Universe and will explain why recent results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Collaboration (DESI) collaboration made international headline news earlier this year. She will speculate on what this might mean for the future of our Universe. Zooming into planet Earth, Professor Leauthaud will then explain why astronomers are increasingly becoming involved in the fight against climate change. She will discuss her own journey in recognizing the predicament of life on this blue planet will conclude with a big picture view of the challenges that lie ahead.

In-Person Reception: 5:30 p.m.
Lecture: 6–7 p.m.

Register Now

A Joyful Noise—video, music, panel discussion, and fellowship
2025-11-05 19:30 - 21:30 | Music Center Recital Hall, 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Audiences are invited to listen, share, and express ideas and feelings about individual and collective struggles in this interdisciplinary event featuring music, arts, science, and creative videography:

Video screening (Art)
Musical interlude
Video screening (STEM)
Panel discussion with Q&A
Light refreshments with continued conversation/fellowship in the lobby

This event features live performances—Karlton Hester (tenor sax and composer of electronic score), akua naru (word), Tammy Hall (piano), Pierpaolo Polzonetti (clarinet; guest professor from UC Davis), and Jing Zhou (Guzheng)—and videography by Patricia Saucedo, Katarina Fink, and Nanaiya Hester. Video participants include Karlton Hester (electronic music score and tenor saxophone), Fahima Ife and Renaldo Wilson (UCSC Critical Race & Ethnic Studies), akua naru (UCSC Music Department), Mandjou Kone (UCSC Department of Performance, Play & Design), Angel Riotutor (director of the American Indian Resource Center and People of Color Sustainability Collective), and Chari Glogovac-Smith (UCSC Film and Digital Media Department).
This event is presented as a collaboration between Arts Division and STEM Associate Deans of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), including: Marcella Gomez, associate professor/associate dean for DEI with the Jack Baskin School of Engineering; Pedro Morales-Almazan, associate teaching professor/associate dean for DEI with the Division of Physical and Biological Sciences (PBSci); Karlton Hester, professor/associate dean for DEI with the Arts Division; and Anju Reejhsinghani, vice chancellor and chief diversity officer at UC Santa Cruz.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Doors are scheduled to open 30 minutes prior to event start time
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VISITOR PARKING
– Parking by permit, ParkMobile, or $5 cash/credit via the on-site parking attendant
– 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.

BME 280B Seminar: Anne Nakamoto, Alan Zhang, Shelbi Russell
2025-11-06 11:40 - 13:15 | Physical Sciences Building, Physical Sciences Building, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter 1: Anne Nakamoto, BME PhD Candidate, Corbett-Detig Lab, UC Santa Cruz
Talk: Investigating deleterious mutation burden across populations and landscapes in the California Conservation Genomics Project
Description: Biodiversity is being lost at an accelerated rate due in part to anthropogenic forces, posing a threat to the sustainability of Earth’s ecosystems as well as to human health. A major goal of conservation genomics is to use genomic data to understand population health, which can inform management decisions for the preservation of biodiversity. The California Conservation Genomics Project (CCGP) is an extensive dataset containing species of conservation interest sampled across California, allowing a landscape genomics approach to conservation. Among the many metrics that can be used to assess population health is genetic load, which refers to the reduction in fitness imposed by deleterious mutations. In this work, we construct a bioinformatic analysis framework to identify deleterious genomic variants in CCGP species based on evolutionary constraint. This allows us to investigate patterns in genetic burden across populations and the landscape of California.
Presenter 2: Alan Zhang, BME PhD Candidate, Corbett-Detig Lab, UC Santa Cruz
Talk: Scalable Strain-Level Metagenomic Deconvolution and Assembly Using Pangenome Mutation-Annotated Networks
Description: Strain-level deconvolution of metagenomic samples is essential for pathogen surveillance, mixed infection diagnosis, and evolutionary genomics, yet remains computationally challenging as genomic databases expand. Existing methods scale poorly with database size or rely exclusively on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) information. SNP-based approaches rely on mutation-annotated trees and thus require well-established reference genomes, limiting their applicability to divergent species that lack alignable root references. We present panMAMA (panMAN Metagenomic Assignment and Metagenomic Assembly), a method that leverages the pangenome Mutation-Annotated Network (panMAN) data structure to enable accurate strain-level quantification across both closely related and divergent genomes. By employing k-min-mer-based pseudo-chaining with a seed-annotated tree index, panMAMA achieves substantial computational speedup compared to existing k-mer-based tools while maintaining high accuracy. We demonstrate that panMAMA accurately deconvolves both closely related SARS-CoV-2 genomes and divergent HIV and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) genomes, outperforming existing tools including Freyja on simulated wastewater samples. Through a hybrid heuristic and maximum likelihood approach for read assignment and consensus calling, panMAMA effectively recovers variant genomes from low-heterogeneity samples of divergent species. These results establish panMAMA as a scalable and accurate platform that extends strain-level metagenomic analysis to previously intractable highly divergent species.
Presenter 3: Shelbi Russell, PhD, UC Santa Cruz, Ph.D., Organismic & Evol Bio, Harvard, PostDoc MCDB, UC Santa Cruz
Description: Many animals harbor bacterial symbionts that manipulate host reproduction to enhance bacterial survival and transmission. Obligate intracellular symbionts, such as Wolbachia pipientis, are particularly adept at host manipulation, influencing reproductive biology and even blocking viral replication. These bacterially induced traits have been harnessed in field studies to control mosquito populations and limit the spread of human pathogens like Dengue and Zika viruses. Despite these promising applications, the molecular mechanisms underlying Wolbachia’s interactions with host cells remain poorly understood. Furthermore, even less is known about the implications of these symbionts spreading to non-target hosts in the ecosystem. Previous work from my lab tackled these questions in vivo: we discovered that the wMel strain of Wolbachia can enhance host fertility and we discovered that even extremely low rates of horizontal symbiont transmission among hosts can influence bacterial genome evolution. However, in vivo systems offer limited resolution to identify the precise cellular mechanisms of fertility enhancement and the real-time genomic impacts of horizontal transmission. Here, we use an in vitro Drosophila system to 1) identify the cell type-specific impacts of Wolbachia infection on host-microbe interactions and 2) characterize how strains interact within host tissues during mixed infections. This simplified, easy to sample system enabled us to concentrate the effects of host cell type on Wolbachia gene expression and to control de novo strain infections and mixtures. Through these experiments, we discovered that different host cell types induce differential Wolbachia gene expression that feeds back to alter host gene expression and epigenetic silencing. These findings have motivated on-going single cell RNAseq work to resolve the process at the single cell level, during de novo infections. Results from the experimental mixed infections revealed highly reproducible strain and cell type-specific dynamics. We will leverage these discoveries to understand strain-specific tissue tropisms and how multiple strains can co-exist as superinfections in nature, which will inform future biocontrol strategies.
Bio: Shelbi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomolecular Engineering at UCSC. She started her lab in 2022, after completing her PhD at Harvard University in 2016 and performing her postdoctoral work at UCSC. Her passion for studying symbiotic systems began as an undergraduate researcher at the University of Kansas describing new tapeworm species. She transitioned to studying the evolutionary genomics of bacterial-animal mutualisms in her PhD and was awarded the UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship and the NIH Career Development Award (K99) to test genomic hypotheses in the Wolbachia-Drosophila model system during her postdoc. As faculty, she is working to learn how hosts and microbes function and evolve so we can engineer associations for biological control. She has authored 24 papers and obtained $2.75 million in funding. Her interdisciplinary training makes her uniquely qualified to lead these investigations and has enabled novel breakthroughs in our understanding of symbiont evolution and microbe-induced host phenotypes.
Hosted by: Professor Josh Stuart, BME Department
Room: PSB-240

Campus to Career: Job Talk with Rebecca Hernandez, Community Archivist
2025-11-06 12:00 - 13:00 | https://events.ucsc.edu/event/campus-to-career-job-talk-with-rebecca-hernandez-community-archivist/
Wondering what you can do with your Arts or Humanities degree? Come hear from a real professional on our campus with a background in both. Rebecca Hernandez is the inaugural Community Archivist at the UCSC University Library. In this job talk, she will tell us about her educational journey as a first-generation transfer student and share insights and reflections from her professional path. If you are interested in careers in higher education, museums, or archives, this event is for you!
Register on Handshake here
Learn more about Rebecca:
Rebecca Hernandez earned a PhD in American Studies, specializing in American Indian art and material culture. She also holds an MA in American Indian Studies and an MFA in Exhibition Design and Museum Studies. With a wealth of experience in higher education, Rebecca has worked as both an administrator and a student affairs professional. Currently serving as the inaugural Community Archivist at the UC Santa Cruz University Library, she collaborates with community members to preserve the rich history and cultural heritage of Santa Cruz County.
Hosted by UCSC Humanities Division and UCSC Arts Division
