Events

Learn to use the UCSC Genome Browser
2026-04-02 09:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The UCSC Genome Browser is hosting a free workshop for new and advanced users!

Beginner session starts at 9 and will include:

How to understand genome annotations
How to find annotation data
Overview of training resources

Intermediate + advanced session starts at 10, covering

Custom tracks
Track hubs
BLAT
And more!!

Join us and be the FIRST to see a brand new feature! At the end we’ll have free stickers and a chance to ask the team questions.

Bring your laptop to follow along, and we encourage questions. See you April 2nd in E2 180.

BME 280B Seminar: Small changes, Big consequences: Modulators of Alphavirus Assembly
2026-04-02 11:40 - 13:15 | Biomedical Sciences Building, 575 McLaughlin Drive
Presenter: Dr. Suchetana (Tuli) Mukhopadhyay, Professor, Indiana University
Description: N/A
Bio: Suchetana “Tuli” Mukhopadhyay, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington. She received her B.A. in chemistry from DePauw University and her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Following her doctoral studies, Mukhopadhyay conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, focusing on G-protein mediated signaling. She continued her postdoctoral work at Purdue University in structural virology, where she developed a strong interest in arboviruses. Mukhopadhyay joined Indiana University in 2005, where she established her research program on the assembly and spread of alphaviruses.
Hosted by: Professor Rebecca Dubois, BME Department

Wellness in Action: Healthy Metabolism, Healthy Heart Workshop
2026-04-02 12:00 - 12:30
Thursday, April 2, 12:00 PM -12:30 PM
Register for the Zoom link.
Healthy metabolism and heart health play a key role in overall energy, resilience, and long-term well-being. This workshop will highlight simple, everyday habits that support metabolic function and cardiovascular health.
This new Wellness in Action workshop series is designed to help you improve your health with a short session with simple tips you can try in your own life.
Register here for the Zoom link. The workshop will be recorded, and a link to the recording will be sent out after the first session.
In the follow-up session on Thursday, April 16 from 12:00 PM -12:30 PM, you will have the opportunity to share your experience and learn from others in the group. This session will not be recorded.
For questions, please reach out to Ashley Parker, Health and Well-being Specialist, at aseparke@ucsc.edu.

Digital Accessibility: Presentations and Visual Aids
2026-04-02 12:00 - 13:00 | https://UCOP.zoom.us/meeting/register/NM6IpEiSSWmZmGkUONGYYA
Presenter: Brian McNeilly – Web Accessibility Specialist – UCOP
Presentations often contain a unique hybrid of static documents and an accompanying live presentation or talk. This interface of live discussions along with a displayed visual document creates a unique tension for accessibility. In this session we will discuss ways to ensure not long that your slide deck is accessible, but that the whole presentation experience is as accessible as possible.
Learning Objectives:

Design slides using accessible layouts
Adjust the reading order of content within a slide deck
Ensure sufficient font size & color contrast
Understand how animations should be used for digital accessibility
What to include on screen vs in the spoken presentation

M.F.A. Exhibition for Environmental Art & Social Practice (EASP)—"Picking up Shells Amid a Tsunami"
2026-04-02 12:00 - 2026-05-02 17:00 | Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, Baskin Service Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The culminating exhibition of the Environmental Art and Social Practice (EASP) M.F.A. program at UC Santa Cruz presents new projects—Picking up Shells Amid a Tsunami 쓰나미가 밀려오는데, 조개나 줍고 있네—developed through concentrated inquiry over a two-year period and offers a window into the artists’ unique long-term research projects that expand beyond the gallery space.
—
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Ongoing Exhibition: Thurs.., April 2–Sat., May 2, 2026
– Opening Celebration: Thurs., April 2, 5:00–7:00 p.m.
– Artist Roundtable: Thurs., April 23, 5:00–6:00 p.m.
—
ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Gallery hours are Tues.–Sun.noon–5:00 p.m (closed Mondays)
—
PARKING
– Lot 124 & 125 are the closest parking lots to the event.
– Parking is by permit or ParkMobile.
– Refer to TAPS for more parking information.
—
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Notes from the EASP cohort:
“The phrase evokes a scene in which, amid an approaching catastrophe, someone appears to be idly picking up seashells. In South Korea, it gained political currency during the 2017 presidential impeachment protests, when feminist, disability rights, and animal rights groups were criticized for bringing their demands into the demonstrations. Their interventions were dismissed as distractions—acts of “picking up shells” at a moment when the sole priority was said to be the president’s removal.
“We choose to pick up shells nonetheless. Not because the crisis is small, but because the shells matter. They are the body of the future, what accumulates slowly, what endures. One day, shells become mountains, and mountains become home. To pick up shells is not to turn away from urgency, but to insist on a future beyond it.
“This exhibition comes together through an insistence on the opposite premise: that picking up shells while disaster is at our doorstep is not a distraction, but a necessity. What gets dismissed as marginal, secondary, a mere luxury, or mistimed, is precisely where social and political life becomes livable and where dreams, desire and the imagination open lines of flight towards other worlds.
“Waves can level buildings once on the shore, dragging and revealing the damage as they recede. Rather than turning away from the storm, we acknowledge the multilayered and epistemic devastation caused by centuries of colonial, patriarchal, racist violence upon people, earth and more than human life. We witness the ongoing bifurcation of human and nature that is sedimented into our lives, languages and social, material, infrastructures.
“The act of bending down to gather shells, ردم, fragments, sounds, 뼈, blue bottles, grotta, relationships, bodies, cries—composes a score that moves towards forms of care through minor gestures, embodiment, ritual, ofrendas, listening and beholding. Mundane and everyday poetics do not negate the scale of devastation and loss, nor do they refuse engagement. Rather, they bear witness. They reveal pathways towards endurance, negotiation, memory and imagination beyond colonial catastrophe. In this sense, the exhibition reframes the tsunami not as a singular event or metaphor, but an invitation us to behold, actively look, to sit within the textures of tectonic plates and energy flows, at the conjuncture where plates meet, in the flow of energy through tempo, liquid, movement, land, sound, ecotone.
“The wave does not demand one unified response. It forms part of a condition, a form of everyday accretion, a movement in and out of different temporalities. Picking up shells while the tsunami unfolds, amid the tsunami, alongside the water’s ebbs and flows, calls us to pay attention to overlooked lives, stories, bodies, memories, flows and relations, to transform materials so that they become reconstituted and are able to hold new and ongoing narratives that refuse to remain silent.”

Beyond public and private: Collaborative governance in global education reform with Antoni Verger and René Espinoza Kissell
2026-04-02 17:00 - 18:30 | McHenry Library, 1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
We are excited to invite you to join us for a hybrid research talk on collaborative governance with international education scholar and sociologist Dr. Antoni Verger (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) in conversation with Dr. René Espinoza Kissell (UCSC) on Thursday, April 2, 2026 at 5pm.
Neoliberal educational policies aimed at efficiency through competition have often resulted in greater inequality and fragmentation. Can empowering new stakeholders through collaborative networks challenge market logics? Professor of Sociology Antoni Verger will present evidence on international cases of collaborative governance, where education leaders aim to convene stakeholders, co-design supports, and steer improvement collaboratively. Assistant Professor of Education René Espinoza Kissell will provide a local case study of school choice markets in Oakland, California, examining the racial politics of school closures and charter school regulation. This will be followed by a discussion on the opportunities and contradictions in global governance shifts, as well as the tensions between public and private coordination in addressing enduring political challenges.
Thursday, April 2nd, 2026, 5-6:30PM
: McHenry 3170 or via Zoom (Meeting ID: 980 6836 8045; Passcode: [REDACTED]
Please complete this RSVP form if you plan to attend (food will be provided).

About the Speakers:
Antoni Verger is Professor of Sociology at the UAB and research fellow at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). With a cross-disciplinary training in sociology and education studies, his research examines the relationship between global governance institutions and education policy – i.e. how education policies are internationally disseminated and enacted in different institutional settings, and what effects this has on education quality and equity. In recent years, he has specialized in the study of public-private partnerships, school autonomy and accountability policies in education. He is one of the lead editors of the World Yearbook of Education and the Journal of Education Policy, and academic director of the Erasmus Plus awarded Master programme Education Policies for Global Development – GLOBED.
René Espinoza Kissell is an Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her scholarship brings together policy, politics, and political economy to study issues of power and governance in education. Drawing on critical theories and qualitative methods, her work centers on school choice and community engagement, as well as the creation, management, and racialized surveillance of school district debt. She recently served as a research expert for the 2025 international evaluation of New Public Education Reform/La Nueva Educación Pública (NEP) in Chile. Her research has been published in Journal of Education Policy, Educational Policy, Urban Education, and Educational Administration Quarterly.
We hope you can join us in welcoming international education scholar Antoni Verger to the UCSC campus!

Opening Celebration for EASP M.F.A. Exhibition—"Picking up Shells Amid a Tsunami"
2026-04-02 17:00 - 19:00 | Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, Baskin Service Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The culminating exhibition of the Environmental Art and Social Practice (EASP) M.F.A. program at UC Santa Cruz presents new projects—Picking up Shells Amid a Tsunami 쓰나미가 밀려오는데, 조개나 줍고 있네—developed through concentrated inquiry over a two-year period and offers a window into the artists’ unique long-term research projects that expand beyond the gallery space.
—
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Ongoing Exhibition: Thurs.., April 2–Sat., May 2, 2026
– Opening Celebration: Thurs., April 2, 5:00–7:00 p.m.
– Artist Roundtable: Thurs., April 23, 5:00–6:00 p.m.
—
ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Gallery hours are Tues.–Sun.noon–5:00 p.m (closed Mondays)
—
PARKING
– Lot 124 & 125 are the closest parking lots to the event.
– Parking is by permit or ParkMobile.
– Refer to TAPS for more parking information.
—
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
– More exhibition information here.
—
This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

The toughest challenges in advanced IC development
2026-04-02 18:00 - 19:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Explore the expanding career opportunities in semiconductors
The modern economy is powered by silicon and the demand for skilled professionals in semiconductor design and engineering continues to grow.
In this live-online discussion with Jignesh Shah, principal STA & CAD engineer and UCSC Extension instructor, we’ll explore how Timing Closure in Silicon IC Design prepares engineers to meet one of the toughest challenges in advanced IC development.
Our expert instructors and carefully designed courses are here to help you achieve your career goals. Bring your questions about how AI is transforming the industry and gain insights into the essential skills needed to build a standout resume.
This info session is sponsored by the Silicon Chip Design & Semiconductor Engineering Certificate program at UCSC Silicon Valley Extension.
Claim your seat!

Colm Toibin – The News From Dublin
2026-04-02 19:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Bookshop Santa Cruz and The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz welcome acclaimed author Colm Tóibín (Long Island, Brooklyn) for a discussion about The News from Dublin, a brilliant collection of nine short stories, many never-before-published, set across Ireland, Spain, and America—about the complexities of family, longing, loss, and love.

Celebrated as “his generation’s most gifted writer of love’s complicated, contradictory power” ( Los Angeles Times), Colm Tóibín is a master of short fiction as well as the novel, able to summon an extraordinary intensity of emotion in a brief tale. The eleven stories transport readers across continents and eras.
In The Journey to Galway, a mother who has learned of the death of her son, a fighter pilot in World War I, travels to Galway to inform his wife and their three now fatherless children. “Sleep,” originally published in The New Yorker, explores the rift between two lovers as one of them cannot reckon with his grief and fear after the death of his brother. Death, again, is a central character in the title story, “The News from Dublin,” as Maurice Webster travels to Dublin to try to save his younger brother who is dying of tuberculosis. Maurice must petition the health minister for access to a new experimental drug, and this is the only hope.
Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah’s Book Club Pick; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; and Nora Webster, winner of the Hawthornden Prize, as well as three story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the 2022–2024 Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature.
More information at: Bookshop Santa Cruz – Colm Tóibín

Co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz.

Movie Night Under the Stars: Screening "Castle in the Sky"
2026-04-02 20:00 - 22:00 | Oakes Lower Lawn, Oakes College, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The DSAS Office of Leadership and Involvement invite you to join us for our Movie Night Under the Stars event screening the Studio Ghibli movie “Castle in the Sky”:

Date: Thursday, April 2nd
Screening Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Oakes Lower Lawn

*Bring your own blanket*
There will be free ramen, candy, drinks and activities! For any questions or accommodations, please email involved@ucsc.edu
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.

Oceans of Dissent: Towards a Feminist Commons Workshop
2026-04-03 00:00 - 2026-04-04 23:59 | Humanities 1 Building, 257 Cowell-Stevenson Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
We gather to forge new vernaculars of the geopolitical, to assemble spatial imaginaries of the “oceanic” that refuse rather than relent to the insistent march of capital and empire. To dissent here is an invitation to think more about the messiness and stuckness of our intellectual labors across histories of slavery, indenture, colonialism and more. This event is open to the campus community. Further details about registration to come. With questions email Sadie Lynn at sklynn@ucsc.edu
This workshop put on by the chair of Feminist Studies. Co-sponsored by the Humanities Division, the Center for South Asian Studies, and the Center for the Middle East and North Africa.

BME 80G Seminar: To Infinity and Beyond? Ethical, legal, and social issues of human research in space”
2026-04-03 13:20 - 14:25 | Jack Baskin Auditorium, 191 Baskin Cir, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Vaso Rahimzadeh, Assistant Professor, Baylor College of Medicine
Description: As humans venture farther into outer space, new scientific discovery awaits including in genomics; but so do new ethical dilemmas. Who bears the risks (and rewards) of space exploration and how should humanity ethically expand beyond our planet? This session will have students think critically about the ethical, legal, and social issues of human genomic research in space and offer frameworks for analyzing them. Students will learn about the contemporary challenges and opportunities of genomic research for the upcoming lunar missions, and in anticipation of future Mars exploration.
Bio: I am Assistant Professor at the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. In my National Institutes of Health-funded research, I investigate the ethical, legal, and social issues of health data sharing on earth and in space. I aim to inform policy and practice in ways that maximize the scientific value of data while respecting the rights and interests of individuals and communities. I director the METEORS program (Mission to Enhance eThics Education, Outreach, and Research in Space) and serve on the Bioethics Advisory Panel for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). I am a proud UC alum, earning my BS in Microbial Biology from UC Berkeley in 2012, and hold a PhD from McGill University with a specialization in biomedical ethics. You can read more about my background and read my work here.
Hosted by: Professor Karen Miga, BME Department

UC Santa Cruz Alumni at the Sacramento Kings
2026-04-03 19:00 - 22:00 | Golden1 Center, 500 David J Stern Walk, Sacramento, 95814, United States
Head to a Sacramento Kings game with fellow UC Santa Cruz alumni on Friday, April 3. Sit together, cheer loudly, and connect with Sacramento Slugs at Golden1 Center!
Click here to purchase tickets in our section.

The Garden - Quarry Amphitheater (April 3rd)
2026-04-03 19:00 - 23:00 | Upper Quarry Amphitheater, 15 McLaughlin Drive, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Tickets are on sale at quarryamphitheater.com, starting at $49.04 for general admission, and $72.11 VIP seating.
THE GARDEN IS A CONSTANTLY EVOLVING BAND ORIGINALLY FROM ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. ESTABLISHED IN 2011 BY WYATT AND FLETCHER SHEARS. THEY HAVE BEEN TOURING SINCE 2012 AND HAVE PLAYED IN DIFFERENT REGIONS INCLUDING THE UNITED KINGDOM, EUROPE, UNITED STATES, ASIA, AUSTRALIA, MEXICO & CANADA, THEY CREATED THE TERM, “VADA VADA” IN 2011 TO REPRESENT THEIR MUSIC AND OTHER CREATIONS. VADA VADA IS A TERM THAT REPRESENTS TOTAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION WITHOUT BOUNDARIES OR GUIDELINES OF ANY SORT. THEY HAVE BECOME KNOWN FOR THEIR ENERGETIC AND OFF THE WALL PERFORMANCES AROUND THE WORLD, AND ARE PROLIFICALLY TOURING, RELEASING MUSIC AND OTHER CONTENT.

Suzanne Simard – When the Forest Breathes
2026-04-04 14:00 - 15:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Bookshop Santa Cruz welcomes bestselling author Suzanne Simard (Finding the Mother Tree), a scientist who pioneered the concept of sophisticated communication between trees. Simard will share her highly anticipated new book When the Forest Breathes, in which she offers a powerful vision for saving our forests based on nature’s deep-rooted cycles of renewal.
“A masterclass on the inner workings of forests. . . . This is science as an act of love for the world.” —Zoë Schlanger, author of The Light Eaters

Raised in a family of loggers committed to sensible forest stewardship, trailblazing ecologist Suzanne Simard has watched as timber companies leave forests at higher risk for wildfires, water crises, and plant and animal extinction. But her research has the potential to chart a new course. The forest, she reveals, is a symphony of finely honed cycles of regeneration—from mushrooms breaking down logs to dying elder trees passing their genetic knowledge to younger ones—that hold the key to protecting our forests. Working closely with local Indigenous communities, whose models of responsible forestry have been largely dismissed, Simard examines how human interventions—particularly destruction of the overstory’s mother trees—endanger new growth and longevity. If we can honor the tools that trees have honed for sharing intergenerational wisdom, she argues, we can protect these sacred places for many years to come.
Dr. Suzanne Simard is the New York Times bestselling author of Finding the Mother Tree. She is a Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia, where she leads The Mother Tree Project and co-directs the Belowground Ecosystem Group. Dr. Simard has earned a global reputation for pioneering research on tree connectivity and communication and the productivity, health, and biodiversity of forests. Her work has been published widely, with over 170 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Ecology, and Global Biology, and she has co-authored the book Climate Change and Variability. Her research has been communicated broadly through three TED Talks, TED Experiences, as well as articles and interviews in The New Yorker, National Geographic, NPR, CNN, and many more. She lives with her family in the mountains around Nelson, British Columbia.
More information at: Bookshop Santa Cruz – Suzanne Simard
This event is cosponsored by the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum & Botanic Garden and The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz

Film Screening: Sotong and Against this Messy World
2026-04-06 14:00 - 16:00 | Humanities 1 Building, 257 Cowell-Stevenson Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
On April 6, 2026, the Graduate Training in Southeast Asia (GETSEA) consortium and UCSC’s Center for Southeast Asian Coastal Interactions will host two short films highlighting the challenges to art and expression in Malaysia’s complex political, legal, and societal landscape.
Sotong follows four fierce local drag queens who were part of the 2022 Halloween party raided by the authorities. One of them, Juan, was arrested for ‘a man dressing up as a woman’. Two years later, they revisit on the fallout of that night as they continue to perform underground and nurture the Malaysian drag scene in all its beauty, joy, and pain.
Against This Messy World is a deeply introspective and visually captivating short documentary that delves into the heart and soul of artistic expression in Malaysia. A personal exploration, narrated by Malaysian artists, this documentary takes viewers on an evocative journey to understand the essence and purpose of being an artist in a world marked by chaos and uncertainty and piece together conversations and unfiltered moments in their lives.
Universities from across North America will come together to watch the films simultaneously, then connect via Zoom with the filmmakers for a post-screening discussion. Please join us in conversation!

Book Talk with independent Indian journalist Neha Dixit! The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian
2026-04-06 14:30 - 16:00 | Rachel Carson College Red Room
Save the date! On Monday April 6th, you are invited to meet with Neha Dixit, an independent Indian journalist and author based in New Delhi.
From 2:30-4:00 PM in the Rachel Carson College Red Room, join the Sociology Department together with the Center for South Asian Studies, Center for Labor and Community, and Sikh and Punjabi Studies, who will hear about Neha’s new book The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian (Footnote, 2025). The book would be of interest to urban studies and labor studies scholars, students and staff as well as, of course, those interested in South Asia and the Global South more generally.
Join the Sociology Department together with the Center for South Asian Studies, Center for Labor and Community, and Sikh and Punjabi Studies, in the Rachel Carson College Red Room, who will meet with Neha Dixit, an independent Indian journalist and author based in New Delhi . We’ll hear about her new book The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian (Footnote, 2025).
About The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian
What does the life of an ordinary working-class Indian look and feel like? In this book, the award-winning journalist Neha Dixit traces the story of one such faceless Indian woman, from the early 1990s to the present day. What emerges is a picture of a life lived under constant corrosive tension. Syeda X, a weaver left Benares for Delhi with her alcoholic husband and three small children in the aftermath of riots triggered by the demolition of the Babri Masjid. In Delhi, she settled into the life of a poor migrant, juggling multiple jobs a day — from trimming the loose threads of jeans to cooking namkeen, and from shelling almonds to making tea strainers. Syeda has done over 50 types of unskilled work in three decades, earning paltry sums in the process. And if she ever took leave, to nurse an illness or to attend a school PTA meeting, her job would be lost to another faceless migrant fighting to take her place.
Researched for close to a decade, in this book, we meet an unforgettable cast of characters: from a rickshaw driver in Chandni Chowk who ends up tragically dead in a terrorist blast to a slumlord, who grew ‘too big’ for his own good, and is shot by rival landlords. From a doctor who gets arrested for pre-natal sex determination to a gow rakshak whose daughter elopes with Syeda’s son. From corrupt policemen who delight in beating young Muslim men to a cheerful band of home-based working women who look out for each other.
In the end, things come to a grotesque full circle for Syeda. Her life is upturned for the umpteenth time as the Delhi riots of 2020 caused another cataclysmic displacement. But displacement, tragedy and hardship are something she is used to — being poor and Muslim and a woman. Written with deep insight, The Many Lives of Syeda X is a portal to a messy world hidden away from elite Indians. It is the story of untold millions and a searing account of urban life in New India.
Get Your Copy
Published in 2024 by Juggernaut Books in South Asia, in 2025 by Footnote, an imprint of Bonner Book UK worldwide excluding North America. The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian can be purchased from Footnote.
About Neha Dixit
Neha Dixit is an independent journalist and author based in New Delhi. She has covered politics, gender, and social justice for two decades. Most of her work is investigative, narrative and long-form. She reports for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, Caravan, The Wire and other notable publications.
She has investigated and exposed a wide range of human rights violations including extrajudicial killings by police, hate crimes, human trafficking involving Sangh organisations, clinical trials on the marginalised by big pharma and sectarian majoritarian violence in South Asia. She has also written political profiles and looked at intersections of labour under majoritarian governments.
She has won over a dozen international and national journalism awards including the International Press Freedom Award 2019 from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Woman Journalist 2017, Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism from the European Commission, 2011 among others. She has contributed to many non-fiction anthologies.
‘The Many Lives of Syeda X’ published her debut non-fiction book. It looks at the last 30 years of India through the eyes of a working-class, migrant Muslim woman in Delhi who becomes a part of the cheap female labour economy and takes up over 50 jobs in three decades without once getting paid a minimum wage. Researched for close to a decade, it is a portal to a messy world hidden away from elite Indians. It is the story of untold millions and a searing account of urban life in New India.
The book was selected as the book of the year 2024 by The Hindu and Deccan Herald. Neha won the Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman award and Kalinga Literary best debut award for this book. The book also received an Honorable Mention by the CG Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing in 2026.
Honourable Mention by CG Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing, 2026
Faced with a record number of high-quality submissions and a remarkable shortlist, the Jury would like to recognise another very close contender for the prize. An Honourable Mention goes to The Many Lives of Syeda X by Neha Dixit (Footnote Press, India), an examination of the life of an ordinary, working-class Muslim woman in modern India. Syeda’s story is told through her 50 different jobs across 30 years of constant corrosive tension. Her many challenges illustrate the universality of the human rights abuses that much of the world’s population face in their daily lives.

AM Seminar: The Thinking Eye: AI That Sees, Reads, and Reasons in Medicine
2026-04-06 16:00 - 17:00
Presenter: Yuyin Zhou, Assistant Professor, UCSC
Description: Medical AI is undergoing a profound transformation, evolving from simple pattern recognition to systems capable of complex clinical reasoning. This talk will chart this evolution across three dimensions: data, models, and evaluation. I will first highlight the shift from limited, unimodal datasets to massive multimodal resources. In particular, I will introduce MedTrinity-25M—a novel collection of over 25 million richly annotated medical images that serves as a foundation for multimodal tasks such as visual question answering and report generation. Building on this, I will describe how grounding decision processes in a structured medical knowledge graph enables the generation of high-fidelity reasoning chains. Using these chains, we construct a large-scale medical reasoning dataset, which in turn allows us to develop a new class of reasoning models. These models not only achieve state-of-the-art performance on multiple clinical Q&A benchmarks but also produce reasoning outputs that physicians across seven specialties have independently verified as clinically reliable, interpretable, and more factually accurate than existing large language models. Finally, the talk will offer a deep dive into the critical evaluation of these advanced models, moving beyond standard benchmarks to expose their current limitations—particularly in interpreting dynamic clinical scenarios such as tracking disease progression from temporal image sequences. To foster a holistic understanding of the mechanisms underlying these reasoning models, I will introduce a new evaluation framework that examines performance from two complementary perspectives: their grasp of static knowledge versus their capacity for dynamic reasoning. Together, these advances point toward a future where AI systems can holistically analyze patient information and function as true collaborative partners in complex medical decision-making.
Bio: Yuyin Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. Her research interests lie at the intersection of machine learning and computer vision, with a primary focus on AI for healthcare and scientific discovery. Her work (70+ peered-reviewed publications with18,000+ citations) has been recognized with honors including 2025 Google Research Scholar Award, Best Paper Award at KDD 2025 Health Day and at Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics 2024, 2023 Hellman Fellowship, Best Paper Honorable Mention at DART 2022, and finalist recognition for the MICCAI Young Scientist Publication Impact Award in 2022. Beyond her research, Yuyin has organized over 20 workshops and tutorials at major conferences including ICML, MICCAI, ML4H, ICCV, CVPR, and ECCV, with coverage in media outlets such as ICCV Daily and Computer Vision News. She serves as a regular Area Chair for CVPR, ICLR, MICCAI, CHIL, and ISBI, an associate editor for SPIE medical imaging, Image and Vision Computing, and was the Doctoral Consortium Chair for WACV 2025.
Hosted by: Applied Mathematics Department

Statistics Seminar: Some Recent Results on Transfer Learning
2026-04-06 16:00 - 17:00
Presenter: Oscar Hernan Madrid Padilla, Assistant Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Description: In the first part of the talk, I will introduce TRansfer leArning via guideD horseshoE prioR (TRADER), a novel approach enabling multi-source transfer through pre-trained models in high-dimensional linear regression. TRADER shrinks target parameters towards a weighted average of source estimates, accommodating sources with different scales. Theoretical investigation shows that TRADER achieves faster posterior contraction rates than standard continuous shrinkage priors when sources align well with the target while preventing negative transfer from heterogeneous sources. Extensive numerical studies and a real-data application demonstrate that TRADER improves estimation and inference accuracy over state-of-the-art transfer learning methods. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss some ongoing work involving transfer learning in nonparametric regression with ReLU networks
Bio: Oscar Madrid Padilla is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Previously, from July 2017 to June 2019, he was a Neyman Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Before that, he earned his Ph.D. in Statistics from The University of Texas at Austin in May 2017 under the supervision of Professor James Scott. He completed his undergraduate degree, a B.S. in Mathematics, at CIMAT in Mexico in April 2013.
Hosted by: Statistics Department

Coffee with Provost Aims
2026-04-07 09:00 - 11:00 | Merrill College Office, 641 Merrill Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Warm greetings and hot coffee are served by Provost Aims and Poppy the Merrill Chihuahua each Tuesday in April. Breakfast snacks, tea, and cocoa too.
Stop by and say “hi”
Outside of the Merrill Mailroom, Merrill College

Next Wave of Faculty in Genomics Symposium
2026-04-07 11:40 - 13:15 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The BME Department and Genomics Institute are once again hosting our annual Next Wave of Faculty in Genomics Symposium, which will be held on April 7th from 11:40–1:15 in E2 180. Please join us to hear cutting-edge genomics talks from outstanding postdocs from around the country!
A burrito reception catered by Alebrije’s will follow immediately after the talks. Registration is free, but required, so please RSVP HERE!
This year’s speakers include:

Dr. Yutong Wang, UC San Francisco
Talk title: “A genome-wide CRISPR activation screen of surface protein expression in primary human CD4 T cells”
Dr. Ian Traniello, Princeton
Talk title: “The Making of a Queen: Neurogenomic Building Blocks of Social Dominance in Bee Societies”
Dr. Alex Cope, Vanderbilt University
Talk title: “Unlocking the rules of proteome evolution by integrating evolutionary theory, mechanistic models, and functional genomics”
Dr. Conner Langeberg, UC Berkeley
Talk title: “Interpreting RNA Foundation Models to Reveal Structure, Function, and Biological Organization”

The Art of Attar: A SWANA Fragrance Workshop
2026-04-07 17:00 - 18:30 | Rachel Carson College Red Room
The Asian American/Pacific Islander Resource Center is celebrating SWANA Heritage Month with a series of events! Learn about the origins of perfumery and its cultural relevance in SWANA culture, as you create your own custom fragrance and enjoy Dave’s Hot Chicken.
Tuesday, April 7th
Time: 5-6:30 PM
Rachel Carson’s Red Room
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.

Indigenous Language Revitalization
2026-04-07 17:30 - 19:30 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Join the American Indian Resource Center for Indigenous Language Revitalization on April 7, 2026, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn. This presentation explores the history of land, language, and cultural loss, alongside current efforts in revitalization and everyday practice. We will share perspectives on language curriculum, cultural resurgence, and mechanisms sustaining this work. Featuring speakers Tracy Eastman and Dr. Sandhya Narayanan, the session will transition into a panel conversation on pre-colonial transcontinental trade, communication, and their relevance today.
Register for the Indigenous Language Revitalization event

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.

History of Science Lecture with Jennifer Derr
2026-04-07 17:30 - 20:00 | Music Center Recital Hall, 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
World Wounds: The Damming of the Nile River and the Transformation of Medicine
The damming of the Nile River transformed agriculture and human health in 20th-century Egypt. While dams enabled year-round irrigation and provided hydroelectricity, the prevalence of parasitic disease also skyrocketed. Professor Derr explores the effects of damming the Nile on the health of Egyptians and the impact of large-scale environmental transformation on the knowledge and practice that made medicine during the 20th century.
Register to attend in-person or virtual
In Person Reception: 5:30 p.m.
Lecture 6 p.m.
In-person and virtual
Free and open to the public
Parking is $6

The 2026 Nauenberg History of Science Lecture is presented by the UC Santa Cruz Emeriti Association and co-sponsored by the Center for the Middle East and North Africa, History Department, Humanities Division, Environmental Studies Department, Science and Justice Research Center, and The Humanities Institute.

Jennifer Derr is an associate professor in the History Department at UC Santa Cruz. Her first book, The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt, won the Middle East Political Economy Book Prize. In 2019, the National Science Foundation awarded Derr a History of Science at the Interface of Biomedical and Environmental Concerns CAREER grant to support her research. In 2024-25, she was a fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Research Lunch & Learn: SBIR/STTR
2026-04-08 12:00 - 13:00 | https://events.ucsc.edu/event/research-lunch-learn-sbir-sttr/
Join us on April 8, 2026, 12-1 p.m. for a session led by Benjamin Legum, Director, New Venture Development. Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) grants are offered by most federal agencies to foster the translation of high-tech solutions to commercial applications. This session provides a comprehensive introduction to the federal SBIR/STTR programs that offer non-dilutive funding to help small businesses develop and commercialize high-impact technologies. Participants will learn the fundamental differences between the two programs, including eligibility requirements, the three-phase funding structure, and best practices for identifying agency-specific opportunities that align with their innovative research.
Join: Zoom link for this session.

Global Cafe: Spring 2026
2026-04-08 14:00 - 16:00 | Classroom Unit, Classroom Unit, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, Select a Country:
International Student Services & Programming invites you to our monthly Global Cafe, a space for all international-minded community members to connect. Swing by for some refreshments and an opportunity to meet other international students and scholars, as well as Global Engagement staff. Feel free to drop in at any time between 14:00 – 16:00 and stay for as long as you’d like.
Our spring Global Cafe dates:

Wednesday, April 8
Wednesday, May 6
Wednesday, June 3

Your Next Degree: Health Professionals
2026-04-08 17:00 - 18:30
Considering a career in healthcare as an alum? This webinar will explore graduate pathways in dental, pharmacy, nursing, and optometry programs. Admissions representatives from UCLA and other prominent schools will share insights into the application process, admissions expectations, and how prospective students can prepare to apply successfully.
Whether you are early in your exploration or beginning to plan your application, this session will provide valuable guidance and an opportunity to ask questions directly with admissions professionals.
This program, hosted by UCLA, is open to UC alumni from all 10 campuses.
Website for additional information
Registration link

What's new in AI?
2026-04-08 18:00 - 19:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Lead innovation as a machine learning engineer
Want to learn what’s new in AI? Join Praveen Krishna, chair of the Artificial Intelligence Application Development certificate program, in an informal discussion about the AI topic of the month and an open Q&A. You’ll get an insider’s look at what you need to know for where you want to go. Bring your questions. Share your experience. Plan your learning.
Every 2nd Wednesday | Online
Visit our program page for a closer look at our AI App Development courses and offerings.
Register.

Ticknor, B. (STAT) - Clustering and Tractable Multivariate Inference for Extremes
2026-04-09 10:00 - 12:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Modeling environmental extremes often involves large collections of spatial or temporal records where both clustering similar series and modeling dependence among extremes are challenging tasks. This Ph.D. proposal addresses several related problems in extreme value analysis. In particular, we study how to cluster many time series based on their extremal behavior using strategies defined via univariate extremal models, motivated by an application to 975 coastal wave-height records. We also investigate the development of scalable multivariate models for dependent extremes. A tractable construction based on a latent multivariate $t$ process with generalized extreme value margins is proposed, together with a regularization strategy that encourages extremal dependence consistent with a max-stable limit while preserving likelihood-based inference. Together, these efforts aim to provide practical tools for analyzing large collections of environmental extremes.
Event Host: Benjamin Ticknor, Ph.D. Student, Statistical Science
Advisor: Robert Lund
Zoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/94347069554?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode- 822764

Survivor Circles: Healing After Trauma
2026-04-09 10:30 - 12:00 | Hahn Student Services, Hahn Student Services, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
CARE’s Healing After Trauma survivor circles are an in-person, drop-in space to share and connect on the glimmers & struggles of recovering from harmful sexual experiences. Guided and led by CARE advocates, each week’s session will offer an opportunity to engage with a different alternative healing modality – from sound healing, to art therapy, collective rest, and more.

Fill out an Interest Form for more information.

Please note: The interest form is not required for attendance, nor a registration form – registration is not necessary for these events.

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.
