Events

Hawthorne, N. (ECE) - An Out-of-the-Incubator Platform for Fluorescent Neural Monitoring and Stimulation Experiments
2025-08-25 09:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
Live-cell fluorescence microscopy enables high-resolution, non-invasive imaging and optical stimulation of biological processes, yet existing systems are often prohibitively expensive, mechanically complex, and poorly suited for wide field-of-view, high-speed, multi-channel experiments—particularly those involving optogenetics. To address these limitations, I developed a low-cost, modular fluorescence microscope constructed from 3D-printed mechanical components and off-the-shelf optics. I also contributed to the engineering of the incubator to support long-term live-cell imaging. The platform accommodates multi-channel fluorescence imaging with simultaneous optogenetic stimulation, features configurable optical paths for different fluorophores, offers motorized positioning via a 3-axis manipulator, enables dual-camera alignment for concurrent imaging, and incorporates integrated brightfield capability.
The system’s performance was demonstrated by imaging mScarlet and GCaMP6f fluorescence in live human forebrain organoids, enabling visualization of single neurons and calcium dynamics. This thesis presents a detailed evaluation of the microscope’s optical, mechanical, and electronic subsystems, alongside biological validation using both the microscope and stage-top incubator. An in-well media perfusion device is proposed to further enhance tissue spheroid experiments. All 3D-print files and component specifications are provided to facilitate replication and adaptation by future researchers. The resulting open and modular platform offers a cost-effective, high-performance alternative for advanced fluorescence microscopy and optogenetic studies, improving tissue culture monitoring and experimental throughput while identifying remaining challenges and opportunities for further innovation in the field.
Event Host: Nico Hawthorne, Ph.D. Candidate, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Learn to build AI Applications
2025-08-25 18:00 | CA
Explore the future of AI with Praveen Krishna
Join Program Chair and AI expert Praveen Krishna for an insider’s look at the University of California’s first certificate in AI Application Development. Learn about the growing number of jobs involving AI, the skills you'll need to build a competitive resume, and the UCSC Silicon Valley classes that will support your development.

Get career-ready AI skills
Taught by Silicon Valley leaders, this program helps you master machine learning, advanced AI techniques, and portfolio-building projects. Whether you're in tech, research, or career transition, this certificate gives you the skills to stand out in a fast-growing field. Don’t miss this chance to learn from the expert guiding the future of AI talent.
This info session event is sponsored by the AI Application Development Certificate program.

Jobscan for Job Seekers: Tools to Help You Get Hired
2025-08-26 17:30 | CA
Make your resume work smarter with Jobscan

Learn how to create tailored resumes and cover letters using Jobscan’s free AI-powered tools. In this hands-on session, you’ll discover how to optimize your application materials for specific job postings, track the positions you’ve applied to, and make the most of Jobscan’s features to stay organized and stand out in your job search.
This session is open exclusively to UCSC and UCSC Extension students.

Educational Therapy – Free fall Info Session
2025-08-26 18:00 | CA
Transform learning with Sharmila Roy
Join Educational Therapy program chair Sharmila Roy for a thoughtful program overview and hear how the uniquely designed curriculum empowers educators and professionals to make a lasting impact– in the classroom and beyond. As one of the few AET-approved programs, you’ll learn to assess learning challenges and apply effective, research-based interventions.
Empower students and build your practice
Gain skills to support students with learning differences like dyslexia, ADHD, and autism using therapeutic and educational strategies. Whether you're working in schools or starting a private practice, this program helps you create individualized plans that foster meaningful progress.
This fall info session is sponsored by the Educational Therapy certificate program.

Rakshit, G. (CSE) -Improving Question Answering through Figurativeness Understanding, Semantic Representation and Multi-Agent Conflict Resolution
2025-08-27 11:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Open-domain question answering (ODQA) systems come with diverse challenges — ranging from resolving conflicting information to interpreting figurative expressions and representing meaning in a human-understandable form. This dissertation presents three complementary contributions toward building more robust and interpretable QA systems.
First, we investigate QA model performance on figurative language. Introducing FigurativeQA, a benchmark of yes/no questions with figurative and literal contexts, we demonstrate that popular BERT-based QA systems underperform significantly on figurative text. However, prompting-based approaches like ChatGPT with chain-of-thought reasoning can mitigate this gap, particularly when figurative contexts are automatically simplified.
Second, we present ASQ, a novel tool for automatically generating question-answer meaning representations (QMR) from Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) graphs. ASQ enables scalable and linguistically grounded QA dataset construction, bridging traditional formal semantics with natural language interfaces. We show that ASQ-generated questions exhibit high content fidelity and overlap with existing crowd-annotated resources like QAMR.
Finally, we explore how large language models (LLMs) handle conflicting evidence in ODQA, proposing a multi-agent framework where answers generated by different models are evaluated through a verification step. Experiments using the QACC dataset and state-of-the-art LLMs (GPT-4o, Claude 4, DeepSeek-R1) reveal that model diversity enhances answer quality, though requiring explanations during verification does not always lead to improvements.
Together, these contributions advance the interpretability, robustness, and accuracy of QA systems.
Event Host: Geetanjali Rakshit, Ph.D Candidate, Computer Science & Engineering

Leavitt, J. (BMEB) - Evolutionary Dynamics, Functional Adaptations in Stress Response, and Direct Detection of tRNA modifications in Archaea
2025-08-27 12:00 | Biomedical Sciences Building, 575 McLaughlin Drive
Transfer RNA (tRNA) modifications are essential for structural integrity, decoding fidelity, and stress adaptation, yet their dynamics across phylogenetically distinct archaeal species and their functional roles during stress remain incompletely understood. This dissertation aims to address some of these gaps through a multi-scale investigation that spans the evolutionary dynamics, stress-responsive functions, and direct detection of archaeal tRNA modifications. The first chapter maps this unexplored landscape by applying Ordered Two-Template Relay sequencing (OTTR-seq) across nine archaeal species from diverse and extreme environments. This comparative analysis revealed previously unrecognized, coordinated modification patterns, including mutually exclusive methylation patterns in the acceptor stem of hyperthermophiles. Additional comparisons revealed co-evolution of tRNA modifying enzymes, demonstrating how their domain architectures and substrate specificities have diverged to shape lineage-specific adaptations. Building on these evolutionary observations, the second chapter investigates the functional role of tRNA modifications in the stress responses of the model halophile Haloferax volcanii. This work reveals how tRNA modification dynamics might balance structural stability against flexibility to manage stress, focusing on N2,N2-dimethylguanosine (m22G) at position 26. By integrating tRNA sequencing, proteomics, and codon usage data within a linear mixed-effects model, this work quantifies how the m22G modification status fine-tunes the translation of specific, codon-biased genes, establishing it as a modulator of the adaptive stress response. Addressing limitations of reverse-transcription (RT)-based sequencing methods for detecting modifications, the final chapter explores the use of direct RNA nanopore sequencing. The focus is on archaeosine (G+), a modification unique to Archaea that is inaccessible to RT-based sequencing methods. The resulting custom model accurately detects archaeosine in its native species. However, cross-species comparisons reveal significant challenges with species-specific overfitting, providing insights into development of universally applicable modification callers.
Event Host: Jesse Leavitt, Ph.D Candidate, Biomolecular Engineering & Bioinformatics

Shanks, C. (BMEB) - Development and Application of Local Ancestry Methods for Population Genomics
2025-08-28 11:00 | Biomedical Sciences Building, 575 McLaughlin Drive
Local ancestry methods classify the segments of DNA inherited from a specific ancestry (e.g., African, East Asian, European), improving analyses of admixed populations. Aim 1 applies ancestry-specific analysis to more than 1000 whole genome sequences across Polynesia, revealing strong bottlenecks in the voyagers who settled both Hawaiʻi and Rapa Nui, and confirming frequencies of Mendelian disease–causing variants in French Polynesia not found even in large-scale biobanks. Conventional local ancestry methods are only accurate for deeply diverged populations and recent admixture events. In aim 2 I present ARGMix, a new deep-learning approach incorporating ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs), which contains the inferred history of coalescent events with recombination. This method classifies the local ancestry of present day Europeans as originating from early European farmers and hunter gather ancestries. As an application I find evidence of continuity between Ötzi the Iceman and present-day Europeans of similar geography. I further propose to apply ARGMix to trace the TCC/TTC mutational pulse strongest in Europeans across geography and time. In aim 3 I present a method incorporating these ancient local ancestries to improve polygenic risk scores in the UK biobank.
Event Host: Cole Shanks, Ph.D Student, Biomolecular Engineering & Bioinformatics

Faculty & Staff Health and Well-being: Create Calm: Stress Management Tools to Support Well-being
2025-08-28 12:00 | CA
Now more than ever, we need to be equipped with tools and strategies to adapt to stressors both in the workplace and in our personal lives. In this workshop, you will learn simple, science-backed techniques including breathwork, mindfulness, and self-reflection to help manage stress and build better resilience for the future. Then you will discover how a holistic approach utilizing everyday healthy habits can help to proactively support mental well-being and create more space for calm.
To register, please fill out the registration link. This presentation will be recorded and made available after the meeting.
For more information about upcoming workshops and events, please visit the Wellness Event Calendar.
For questions, please contact Health and Well-being Specialist, Ashley Parker, at aseparke@ucsc.edu.

Networking Tools for Your Career
2025-08-28 17:30 | CA
Learn how to grow your professional connections using the UCSC Silicon Valley Extension LinkedIn Alumni Tool. In this interactive session, you’ll discover smart strategies for expanding your network, reaching out with confidence, and asking for informational interviews that lead to real insights—and real opportunities.
This session is open exclusively to UCSC and UCSC Extension students.
Learn more career tips.

Data Science and Data Analytics – Fall Info Session
2025-08-28 18:00 | CA
Master Data with Instructor Partha Padmanabhan
Join us for a conversation with Partha Padmanabhan, Chair of our Data Science and Data Analytics programs, and discover how our DSDA certificate is built to help professionals translate data into smart, strategic business decisions. Get an inside look at the tools, techniques, and real-world AI applications shaping today's fast-moving analytics landscape.
Choose Your Path: Science or Engineering
Whether you're analyzing data or building the systems behind it, you can specialize in Data Science or Data Engineering and earn a digital badge. This program prepares analysts, scientists, and IT professionals to thrive in a data-driven world.
Speaker
Meet Parthasarathy Padmanabhan, M.B.A., principal software engineer at one of Silicon Valley’s leading technology companies, and get your questions answered. Parthasarathy brings more than 25 years of experience in information technology to his role and has worked in data modeling for more than 10 years. He teaches "Data Analysis" and "Business Intelligence Solutions," and began serving as chair of the Data Science and Data Analytics Advisory Board in 2020.
This fall info session is sponsored by the Data Science and Data Analytics Program.

AI Workshop: Model Context Protocol
2025-08-29 10:00 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Welcome to our immersive AI technology workshop series. During these sessions you will be introduced to new and established AI tools that will help you create and manipulate content in new and powerful ways. Each session is led by an industry expert who will guide you through the material and share its real-world implications.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this hybrid-style workshop, you'll be able to:

Explain the core principles and motivations behind the Model Context Protocol (MCP), including its role in AI Agentic system communication and AI model integration.
Identify the structure and components of an MCP message and understand how context is preserved and passed across tasks or AI agents.
Implement simple MCP interactions in a controlled setting using real-world tools and libraries.
Evaluate the strengths and limitations of MCP in current AI Agentic system architectures, including scalability and interoperability.

Topics Include

MCP Basics: What is Model Context Protocol and why does it matter in AI pipelines and agent interoperability?
Message Anatomy: Structure, metadata, tokens, and temporal context.
Live Demo: Walking through an MCP message lifecycle-create, modify, pass, and interpret.
Hands-On Lab: Building a mini MCP-based interaction (e.g., agent-to-agent communication or contextual memory pass).
Challenges & Use Cases: Real-world applications, common pitfalls, and current limitations.

Prerequisites: Knowledge of LLM and AI Agents.
Note: Please bring a laptop and have Google, GitHub and Hugging Face accounts to participate in hands-on exercises.

[SOLD OUT] Avocado Production Workshop: From Planting to Harvest
2025-08-30 10:00 | CA
Join us for a workshop focused on successfully growing avocados in the greater Santa Cruz area. We'll cover the particulars of avocado care, with an emphasis on variety selection for the Central Coast, A-B flowering types, pollination demystification, soils and site selection, irrigation, fertilizers, pruning, and seasonal care. There will also be a troubleshooting / Q&A segment to provide all levels of the avocado-obsessed with the information necessary to set you on your way toward monstrous avocado harvests, as well as a seasonal tasting of around a half dozen varieties to help find which variety might be perfect for you.

Community Day: Free Admission at the Arboretum
2025-09-02 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.

Seminar Featuring Dr. Robert Blasiak, Sept 3 at 11 am
2025-09-03 11:00 | Coastal Biology Building, 130 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060
Please join us for a special seminar with Dr. Robert Blasiak on Wednesday, Sept 3 at 11 am. Dr. Blasiak is an Associate Professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University. The seminar will be held in person at CBB Rm 110 and on Zoom (details below).
Talk Title:
The peacebuilding potential of international ocean science cooperation
Abstract:
A historical perspective provides a rich catalogue of examples of ocean science collaboration flourishing even in parts of the world facing a perfect storm of geopolitical tensions, overlapping and rapidly expanding ocean uses, unresolved maritime boundaries, and outright conflict. How do these collaborations emerge? How do they persist? And how can we understand their capacity to mitigate conflict? This talk will draw on environmental peacebuilding literature to suggest that such collaborations are a meaningful contribution to a more peaceful world, and will open into a discussion of how to build and foster collaboration in a polarized world.
To join by Zoom, please register here: https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/fQ8g_axCRX6gff7DUtP3aA

What to Expect as a Science Student in Your First Year
2025-09-03 17:00 | CA
This comprehensive session covers what you need to know to feel prepared for your first year in the sciences. We’ll explore course formats (lectures, labs, tutorials), academic expectations, time management strategies, and support systems. Learn how to navigate challenges and make the most of your university experience, both inside and outside the classroom. To receive a Zoom link, register here.

Human Resource Management Info Session
2025-09-03 18:00 | CA
Build Stronger Teams and a Smarter HR Strategy

What does it take to grow and lead high-performing teams in today’s AI-enhanced workplace? Hear from Philip Ziman, chair of the Human Resource Management certificate program at UCSC Silicon Valley Extension. Learn about the practical, people-focused program designed for current and aspiring HR professionals.
Topics

Connect HR strategy with business outcomes
Use people analytics to inform decision-making
Sharpen your skills in talent acquisition, leadership development, and employee engagement.

Earn HRCI and SHRM recertification credit + PDUs in a program that is both career-ready and future-focused.
This fall info session is hosted by the at UCSC Silicon Valley Extension.

Marketing Management Info Session
2025-09-04 18:00 | CA
Customer-Driven Marketing: Build the Skills Today’s Marketers Need
In a world where buyers expect personalization, speed, and relevance, staying ahead means mastering modern, AI-enhanced marketing strategies. Explore how UCSC Silicon Valley’s Marketing Management certificate helps you align marketing and sales, harness the power of social selling, and launch data-driven, multi-channel campaigns that truly connect with your audience.
Shape Your Career, Your Way
With electives in digital marketing and strategy, you can tailor your learning to sharpen skills in campaign execution, data analysis, and brand communication. Discover how to integrate cutting-edge tools and programmatic approaches to increase your marketing impact in an ever-evolving landscape.
Marketing Management program chair Ly Pham, a seasoned marketing executive with deep insight into what today’s professionals need to succeed will lead this fall info session.

Using AI in UX: Explore the latest tools
2025-09-05 18:00 | CA
Creating the Experience: UX, AI, and Responsive Design
Join us for a dynamic UX info session that blends creativity, technology, and collaboration. Discover how UX and AI work together, explore the principles of user-centered design, and see how advanced CSS brings responsive, visually stunning interfaces to life.
We’ll highlight 3 engaging courses

Collaborative Design: Enhancing UX with AI
an introduction to tools like Figma and Miro in agile team settings
User Experience Design Fundamentals
a look at design thinking and strategies for creating impactful products
Designing with Cascading Style Sheets, Advanced
showcasing techniques for sleek, mobile-ready websites.

Whether you’re exploring UX for the first time or expanding your knowledge, this event will spark new ideas and possibilities.
This virtual info session series event is sponsored by the User Experience and Web Design Certificate program at UCSC Silicon Valley Extension.

Farm to Fork Benefit Dinner
2025-09-06 16:00 | UCSC Farm, 152 Farm Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join the Center for Agroecology for an evening at the Farm
Enjoy a reception and benefit dinner on the UCSC Farm followed by dancing in the Hay Barn! This event will feature music, appetizers, tours, and local wine followed by a four-course, family-style dinner on the farm provided by Feel Good Foods. As the sun sets, head down to the Hay Barn for music, dancing, and dessert.
Want to skip dinner and join us for dancing and dessert in the Hay Barn only? Tickets for the barn dance portion only are available for $30.
Wine and beer provided by local winemakers and breweries. Vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options will be available.
The evening’s program:
4:00pm: Reception and farm tours followed by dinner
7:00pm: Dancing in th﻿e Hay Barn

19th Conference on Neurosymbolic Learning and Reasoning (NeSy 2025)
2025-09-08 09:30 | Jack Baskin Auditorium, 191 Baskin Cir, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The NeSy series is the longest standing gathering for the presentation and discussion of cutting-edge research in neurosymbolic AI. NeSy is the annual meeting of the Neurosymbolic Learning and Reasoning Association, which has organised NeSy since 2005, back then as a workshop.

Silicon Chip Design & Semiconductor Engineering– Free info session
2025-09-08 17:00 | CA
Design the Future of Semiconductors with Arvind Vidyarthi
Curious about where a career in chip design can take you? Join Program Chair Arvind Vidyarthi for an inside look at our Silicon Chip Design & Semiconductor Engineering certificate—a program built for engineers who want to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.
Whether you're drawn to Front-End logic and verification or the Back-End world of physical design, this program offers hands-on training with industry-standard EDA tools and a curriculum shaped by real Silicon Valley demand. Get the skills employers are looking for—and the confidence to step into your next big opportunity.
Hosted by the Silicon Chip Design and Semiconductor Engineering Program at UCSC Silicon Valley Extension.

September Slugs and Steins with Professor Javier González-Rocha
2025-09-08 18:30 | CA
How can flying robots help us track the air we breathe—and the pollutants we can't see? In this talk, I’ll share how our team uses aerial robotic systems—commonly known as drones—to measure wind patterns and detect airborne pollutants in places that are hard to reach with traditional monitoring equipment. These systems are helping us better understand how toxic and climate pollutants move through the atmosphere, and how they affect both human health and the environment.
From wildfire smoke drifting across communities to methane leaks from dairy farms and oil fields, these emissions are often poorly monitored—especially in rural or overburdened areas. Our low-cost, adaptable drone systems offer a new way to fill that gap. By combining real-time flight data, environmental sensors, and advanced modeling, we can generate targeted, on-demand measurements that inform air quality assessments and improve emissions tracking.
This work sits at the intersection of engineering, environmental science, and community collaboration—with the goal of building tools that empower people and support climate resilience from the ground up.

Narcan Training for Faculty and Staff
2025-09-09 10:00 | CA
Narcan is a life-saving opioid overdose reversal drug. Join us in this workshop as we learn the following:

How to use Narcan

When to use Narcan

Narcan FAQs

Where to find Narcan locally

To register, click on the following registration link.
To learn more, please visit the Narcan wellness initiative webpage.

Managing Your Time and Increasing Your Productivity Webinar
2025-09-09 12:00 | CA
It seems we always have too much to do at work in too little time. Join us as we explore innovative approaches to thinking and operating, while also engaging with proven best practices in time management and productivity. You’ll come away from this knowing how to prioritize competing tasks, minimize interruptions, communicate boundaries to colleagues, and maintain your sanity. Be ready to share your winning strategies with others and learn new ones in this fast-paced, practical course.
About the Speaker:
Holly Hoeksema is a Career Engagement Specialist at UC Santa Cruz and the Owner of Ignite Consulting. With over 25 years of experience in leadership development, team building, and executive coaching, she has guided thousands nationwide—from extensive training sessions to one-on-one coaching—in helping them find their “why” to ignite purpose and excellence. Certified in life coaching, course management, and servant leadership, Holly is also skilled in personality assessments and vocational tools. Her background as a culinary instructor and wellness advisor adds a unique lens rooted in plant-based nutrition and holistic growth.

Transfer Scholars Pathways (TSP) Majors and Career Exploration
2025-09-09 14:00 | CA
During this event, participants will have the opportunity to connect with academic advisors, faculty, and peer advisors to discuss:

major requirements
tips on how to smoothly transfer into the respective major
various career pathways alumni from their department have pursued

AI Business Practices Fall Info Session
2025-09-09 18:00 | CA
Practical AI for workplace automation
Discover how nontechnical professionals can harness the power of AI in everyday work. Join program chair Hien Luu for an inside look at AI Business Practices—a hands-on specialization designed to help you boost efficiency with free, easy-to-use AI tools and smart prompt strategies.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Learn how to streamline tasks like presentations, reports, and project planning while gaining practical skills in prompt engineering, AI agent setup, and ethical AI use. This program is built for real-world impact—no coding required.
This fall info session is sponsored by the AI Business Practices Specialization.

Professional Certificates for International Students
2025-09-10 08:00 | CA
Interested in a professional certificate at UCSC Silicon Valley Extension?
A professional certificate is a fantastic way to develop your career, learn from industry experts, and experience Silicon Valley. We offer numerous exciting programs in technology and business.
Visit our International site for more information.
Prospective international students
Please click here to schedule an online meeting with an advisor.

Mondays, 5-7 p.m. (PT)
Wednesdays, 8–10 a.m. (PT)

Current international students
Already studying with us? Please email us: extensioninternational@ucsc.edu to meet with an international advisor in person or online.
Call: +1 (408) 450-4945 | extensioninternational@ucsc.edu

Doganyigit, K. (BMEB) - Reimagining the petri dish, automated incubator-free organoid culture system for long term organoid maintenance and disease modeling
2025-09-10 11:00 | CA
Organoids offer strong in vitro models for studying development and disease; however, traditional incubator-based culture methods hinder environmental regulation, elevate evaporation rates, and limit imaging and instrumentation access—restricting their effectiveness for prolonged, physiologically relevant research. To address these challenges, we created a compact, automated culture system that eliminates the need for an incubator by integrating microfluidic recirculation with gas exchange inspired by artificial lungs in intensive care medicine. The system employs a fluid impermeable gas-exchange membrane along with an aqueous buffer to passively stabilize oxygen, pH, and osmolarity. Automated media transfer and integrated sensing enable consistent, multi-week live imaging and accurate environmental control.

The First Aim of this proposal addresses the creation and execution of this organoid culture platform that does not require an incubator. In Aim 2, I validate the system utilizing mouse cerebral cortex organoids grown in the system, evaluating metabolic viability, tissue structure, and electrophysiological activity in comparison to shaker-incubator controls. I will also employ RNA sequencing to further analyze cell-type composition and transcriptional stress profiles. In Aim 3, I will modify the platform to simulate the prenatal stroke penumbra by incorporating spatially localized hypoxia and hypoglycemia through pressure-modulated perfusion. Combining real-time hypoxia imaging with transcriptomic analysis to facilitate investigation of ischemic damage and recovery within a regulated organoid model. Overall, this research seeks to create a flexible, and physiologically appropriate culture system that enhances experimental access and facilitates a better environment for new models of organoid development and disease research.
Event Host: Kivilcim Doganyigit, Ph.D Student, Biomolecular Engineering & Bioinformatics
Advisor: David Haussler

Research Lunch & Learn - Budgeting and Budget Management 101
2025-09-10 12:00 | CA
Comprehensive, timely, and accurate financial management is foundational for effective research portfolio support and decision-making. In this session, Office of Research and divisional experts will focus on ways to identify commonly missed budget items and how to better track variances from the budget. Join Jen Huber, OR Senior Research Accountant, Melissa DiOrio, Manager of Proposal Administration, and a divisional research accountant on September 10, 12-1 p.m., for a discussion about projection sandboxes that can be shared with PIs, as well as PI-centered ways to discuss spending.

Mavrogiannakis, A. (CSE) - Scalable Oblivious Databases and Systems
2025-09-10 14:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Modern applications are increasingly designed with a strong emphasis on scalability and performance, as systems are expected to process ever-growing volumes of data and deliver results with minimal latency. Techniques such as distributed architectures, in-memory computation, and optimized data structures are routinely adopted to meet these performance-driven demands. However, in the pursuit of speed and efficiency, security is often treated as a secondary concern or an afterthought. This oversight can lead to critical vulnerabilities, as even the most performant systems remain fundamentally insecure if sensitive information can be leaked or exploited. As data becomes more valuable and privacy regulations grow stricter, ensuring robust security measures is not merely desirable but strictly necessary—an essential requirement that must stand alongside scalability and performance as a first-class design goal.
To meet security requirements, many applications adopt end-to-end encryption to protect data stored in the cloud. While this prevents external adversaries from accessing sensitive information, prior work [CITE] has demonstrated that encryption alone is insufficient: an untrusted server can still exploit execution patterns and access behaviors to gradually reconstruct the underlying database in plaintext. As an alternative, other applications rely on Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), which offer strong guarantees through memory encryption, isolation, and integrity checks. TEEs are particularly appealing due to their ease of use and high performance, often approaching that of non-encrypted systems. However, TEEs are not without limitations [CITE]. They remain vulnerable to leakage-abuse attacks and side-channel vulnerabilities [CITE], which can undermine their security guarantees in practice.
In my research, I combine TEEs with oblivious computation to achieve stronger security guarantees without sacrificing practicality. Specifically, my work focuses on designing, analyzing, and implementing oblivious algorithms for databases and systems. A central theme of my research is bridging the gap between security and performance, developing scalable algorithms that approach the efficiency of plaintext execution. For example, in our first project, Obliviator (to appear at USENIX Security ’25), we introduced oblivious implementations of fundamental database operators—such as filtering, aggregation, and joins—in a shared-memory setting, achieving efficiency at scale on datasets up to hundreds of gigabytes. Building on this foundation, our subsequent work extends these operators to distributed environments, addressing challenges such as secure execution under weaker trust assumptions and reducing communication overhead, both in terms of rounds and data exchanged. We also introduced frameworks that enable parallelism in oblivious computation, further enhancing performance. My current work focuses on extending these techniques to multi-way joins, where combining multiple tables introduces new challenges in both efficiency and security. In parallel, I am exploring query optimization strategies tailored to the oblivious setting, with the goal of pushing oblivious database systems closer to the performance of traditional plaintext systems.
Event Host: Apostolos Mavrogiannakis, Ph.D Student, Computer Science & Engineering
