Events

Spring Exhibitions at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences
2026-04-18 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-04-19 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-04-22 12:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States
Visit the IAS, UCSC’s premier art galleries, for our spring exhibitions. On view April 10–August 16, 2026 are three diverse and interdisciplinary shows: Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right, the first US solo exhibition by the Colombia-based artist and medical doctor; Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj, a site-specific and immersive exploration of the Haitian kreyol conception of rasanblaj; and Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies, a mixed-media exhibition emerging at the intersections of Black poetics, performance, and visual art.
The IAS Galleries are open Wednesday-Sunday, 12 pm – 5 pm. Admission is free to the public.
Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right
Libia Posada’s first solo exhibition in the United States features installations, sculptures, and drawings meticulously constructed from surgical instruments, gauze bandages, crutches, used books, and domestic picture frames. The new and existing works in the exhibition powerfully stitch together the personal, social, and political disorders and afflictions that currently trouble the world, from the wars that resonate across the globe to the violences of aging in US prisons.
Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj: Origins & Disentanglements
The internationally-lauded work of humanities professor Gina Athena Ulysse is on view as a premier Faculty Spotlight Exhibition. The site-specific installation, produced in community from things collected, found, purchased and donated, centers on the Haitian concept of rasanblaj, a form of assembly and collage that transcends the formal use of materials to draw together people, spirits, and ideas.
Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies
Collage is both a material practice and a structural interrogation in the Faculty Spotlight Exhibition artworks by literature professor Ronaldo V. Wilson. In video, painting, and installation, layers and folds conceal and reveal, delving into the experience, both bodily and emotive, of living in times of violence.

Noir Faire
2026-04-18 13:00 - 17:00 | Oakes Lower Lawn, Oakes College, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The African American Resource & Cultural Center (AARCC) invites you to the Noir Faire. Come join us for an afternoon of fun and connection in a medieval style!
Saturday, April 18th | 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM | Oakes Lower Lawn
For questions or accommodation requests, please contact Mcossio@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.

Native Star Stories Night
2026-04-18 16:00 - 20:30, 2026-04-18 17:00 - 21:00 | Lick Observatory, 7281 Mount Hamilton Road, Mount Hamilton, CA, 95140
Join us for the 5th annual Native Star Stories Night, a free immersive cultural-astronomy night for high school and college students and their families at Lick Observatory, on Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose. The night includes a private tour, free dinner, sunset ceremony, telescope observing, and sharing of traditional star stories from participants’ communities and countries.
Register here.
UCSC students are welcome to register as volunteers (same link) and will be able to participate in all events, but may be asked to facilitate the small-group story sharing.
General public and university staff are welcome to register as participant, but priority will be given to high school and community college students.
This event is made possible by the support of UCO/Lick Observatory, the American Indian Resource Center, and the Osterbrock Leadership Program.

This event is consistent with state and federal law, the UC Nondiscrimination Statement and the Nondiscrimination Policy Statement for University of California Publications Regarding Student-Related Matters.

DRAIN - Quarry Amphitheater (April 18th)
2026-04-18 18:00 - 22:00 | Upper Quarry Amphitheater, 15 McLaughlin Drive, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Tickets are on sale at quarryamphitheater.com, starting at $55.96 for general admission
DRAIN came together in the sleepy, oceanside NorCal climes of Santa Cruz in 2014 when Ciaramitaro met up with guitarist Cody Chavez and drummer Tim Flegal while attending college. “We had no idea or gameplan of what we were trying to do,” says Sammy. “It was more like, ‘Hey, you have a metal band T-shirt, and I got a Downpresser shirt on, and someone likes Municipal Waste. We should all play together.’” While nearby scenes like San Jose and Oakland (known for the legendary Gilman Street venue) had local heat, Drain had to pull up their bootstraps to ignite their own. “We made our own scene in Santa Cruz,” reveals the DIY vocalist proudly; he began booking shows at Café Pergolesi, a local coffee shop that became the town’s hardcore hub.

OLLI at UCSC Sunday Speaker Meeting
2026-04-19 10:00 - 12:00 | Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis College Multi-purpose Room, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
OLLI Hosts Natalie Batalha, UC Santa Cruz Professor, Astronomy
and Astrophysics
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UC Santa Cruz invites the public to an in-person presentation from 10:00 to noon on Sunday, April 19th, in the Colleges Nine/Lewis Multipurpose Room at UCSC.
Join us for a social hour and a presentation titled, Are We Alone? Thirty Years of Exoplanet Discovery.
Named among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2017 and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Batalha is an eminent planetary astronomer. She served many leadership roles for NASA’s Kepler mission, when she identified planets potentially able to sustain life and led the analysis that confirmed the first rocky planet outside our solar system.
OLLI at UCSC is a community of adults from diverse educational, occupational, and geographic backgrounds who are devoted to the pursuit of learning. This event is free and open to the public. Bring a friend. Coffee and nibbles will be served.
For directions and free parking information, visit: https://olli.ucsc.edu/monthly-gatherings/location-directions-and-parking/
Free and open to the public

Presented by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at UC Santa Cruz.

Visualizing Abolition Screening Series: Beyond Access
2026-04-19 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-04-22 12:00 - 17:00 | Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States
On view in the IAS Screening Room is a selection of short films curated by Visualizing Abolition Visiting Faculty Fellow Dr. Pooja Rangan.
Prisons deny and censor the access of those trapped inside them—to information, to intimacy, to community, to meaningful work, to nourishment of all kinds, and perhaps most cruelly, to care. This program assembles a series of films, including works by filmmakers incarcerated in California as well as others without that lived experience. Together, these works confront the debilitating impacts of these restrictions and reveal how the disabling logic of the prison is extended to other institutional spaces (the hospital, the university), turning access into a scarce commodity by enclosing what should be held in common. Questioning the carceral and state-sponsored productions of disability and accessibility, the short films together reveal the courage of people working despite limitations to produce collective access for one another, described simply and beautifully by disability justice activist Leah-Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha as “revolutionary love without charity.”
Thanh Tran
Dying in Prison, 2022
HD Video (color, sound), 3 minutes
Courtesy of the artist
Carolyn Lazard
Pre-Existing Condition, 2019
HD video (color, sound), 6 minutes
Courtesy of the artist and Trautwein Herleth3
Anthony Alejandrez
Another Rainy Day, 2023
Phone video (color, sound), 3 minutes
Courtesy of the artist
Jordan Lord
After…After… (Access), 2018
HD Video (color, sound), 16 minutes
Courtesy of the artist
Rahsaan “New York” Thomas
Friendly Signs, 2023
Video (color, sound) 21 minutes
Courtesy of Tommy Wickerd, Empowerment Ave & System Impact Media

Building Soil with Microbes: Compost as Biological Infrastructure
2026-04-20 10:00 - 11:00
Keisha Ernst from the Catalyst Bio-Amendments and Compost Academy
In Person Location: ISB 221
Zoom Link
In this talk, Keisha will explore how biologically focused compost production differs from conventional composting systems designed primarily for waste diversion. She will discuss how microbial communities influence soil structure, nutrient cycling, plant resilience, and water dynamics—and how managing compost as a living biological input can shift the way we approach soil fertility. The presentation will also highlight findings from a two-year field trial evaluating microbial applications in landscape and turf systems, including results showing measurable reductions in irrigation needs alongside improvements in soil performance. Designed for growers, land managers, researchers, and soil enthusiasts alike, this talk offers a practical look at how working with soil microbiology can reshape the future of agriculture and land stewardship. Keisha will also give a live demonstration showing different known types of microbiology!

Waste and Cataclysm, Waste as Catalyst: The Politics of Disposability in New Orleans
2026-04-20 13:25 - 14:30
Christopher Lang from the UCSC Environmental Studies Department
In Person Location: ISB 221
Zoom Link
Lang explores the politics of disposability in New Orleans, Louisiana, revealing how pollution intersects with Black community health, waste workers’ lives and livelihoods, and the city’s overall resilience in the face of increasing flood risk. Using a combination of methods – from semi-structured interviews to formalized employment in city government to catch basin content analyses, and more – Lang demonstrates that waste and its management in New Orleans is far from neutral, neither in impact nor procedure; rather, pollution that continually overwhelms the city stems from long-running political choices that reinscribe cultural norms and infrastructures around disposability, which underpins the local and regional economy. Lang examines these consequences of mismanaged and excessive waste at different scales within the city, noting several tensions that exist and impede structural improvements in sustainability and equity pertaining to solid waste: tensions between community and industry, “cleanliness” and job security, economy and the environment, and tradition and adaptation. In a city that simultaneously experiences gentrification, austerity, and population loss (for myriad reasons: quality of life issues, homeowner insurance costs, climate change forecasting etc.), Lang unpacks the stakes of sustainability, or lack thereof, highlighting the power dynamics laden in New Orleans’ throwaway economy as well as those in efforts to “green” a whitening city.

Statistics Seminar: Hierarchical Clustering with Confidence
2026-04-20 16:00 - 17:00
Presenter: Snigdha Panigrahi, Associate Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Michigan
Description:Agglomerative hierarchical clustering is one of the most widely used approaches for exploring how observations in a dataset relate to each other. However, its greedy nature makes it highly sensitive to small perturbations in the data, often producing different clustering results and making it difficult to separate genuine structure from spurious patterns. In this talk, I will show how randomizing hierarchical clustering can be useful not just for measuring stability but also for designing valid hypothesis testing procedures based on the clustering results. We propose a simple randomization scheme to construct valid p-values at each node of a hierarchical clustering dendrogram, quantifying evidence against greedy merges while controlling the Type I error rate. Our method applies to any linkage without case-specific derivations, is substantially more powerful than existing selective inference approaches, and provides an estimate of the number of clusters with a probabilistic guarantee on overestimation.
Bio:Snigdha Panigrahi is an Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Michigan, where she also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Biostatistics. She received her PhD in Statistics from Stanford University in 2018 and has been a faculty member at Michigan since then. Her research focuses on converting purely predictive machine learning algorithms into principled inferential methods. She is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and her work has been recognized with an NSF CAREER Award and the Bernoulli New Researcher’s Award. Her editorial service, past and present, includes Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, Bernoulli, and Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B.
Hosted by: Statistics Department

AM Seminar: Variational Inference and Density Estimation with Non-Negative Tensor Train
2026-04-20 16:00 - 17:00
Presenter: Dr. Xun Tang, Stanford University
Description: This talk covers an efficient numerical approach for compressing a high-dimensional discrete distribution function into a non-negative tensor train (NTT) format. The two settings we consider are variational inference and density estimation, whereby one has access to either the unnormalized analytic formula of the distribution or the samples generated from the distribution. In particular, the compression is done through a two-stage approach. In the first stage, we use existing subroutines to encode the distribution function in a tensor train format. In the second stage, we use an NTT ansatz to fit the obtained tensor train. For the NTT fitting procedure, we use a log barrier term to ensure the positivity of each tensor component, and then utilize a second-order alternating minimization scheme to accelerate convergence. In practice, we observe that the proposed NTT fitting procedure exhibits drastically faster convergence than an alternative multiplicative update method that has been previously proposed. Through challenging numerical experiments, we show that our approach can accurately compress target distribution functions.
Bio: Xun Tang is a postdoc in Stanford University, department of mathematics, hosted by Prof. Lexing Ying. Xun works on tensor network methods for scientific computing and data science, and Xun also works on optimal transport algorithms. Xun will join HKUST department of mathematics in August 2026 as an incoming assistant professor.
Hosted by: Applied Mathematics Department

Aziz Abu Sarah & Maoz Inon – The Future is Peace
2026-04-20 19:00 - 20:00 | Temple Beth El, 3055 Porter Gulch Road, Aptos, 95003, United States
Two lifelong peace activists and guides to Israel/Palestine, both of whom have lost family in the conflict, take readers on a revealing life-changing journey across this holy, bloodstained land and discover the mythic, political, and personal history that divides but also binds them and their peoples.
In The Future Is Peace, Sarah and Inon take readers on a transformative weeklong journey across a sacred and bloodstained land. Facing competing narratives, they explore how compassion and unity can pull humanity back from the precipice of blind hatred. Throughout their travels, they have been constantly asked: In the face of so much loss, how can we ever find hope? Their answer is always the same. One cannot find hope. We must create it.

Aziz Abu Sarah is Co-CEO of InterAct International, a nonprofit dedicated to Middle East Peace. He is a peacebuilder, entrepreneur, National Geographic Explorer, TED Fellow, and renowned speaker and trainer on conflict resolution and responsible travel. Aziz is the co-founder of MEJDI Tours, a travel company on a mission to transform tourism into a global force of citizen diplomacy. He has won numerous awards, including from the United Nations, Institute of International Education, and The Explorers Club. Aziz is consistently named one of the world’s 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Jordan. He has written opinion pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Al-Quds, and Haaretz.
Maoz Inon is Co-CEO of InterAct International, a nonprofit dedicated to Middle East Peace. He is an Israeli peace activist and entrepreneur. He was honored with the prestigious Franco-German Human Rights Prize and the Shared Living Award from Abraham Initiatives. He has spoken on Capitol Hill, at U.S. universities, and the European Parliament. He has written pieces for The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and more. He has founded several peace-focused initiatives within Israel and the Middle East, including the Jesus Trail, Fauzi Azar Inn, and Abraham Hostel & Tour brands.
Douglas Abrams is a multiple New York Times-bestselling author, as well as an editor, literary agent, and film producer. He is the founder and president of Idea Architects, a creative book and media agency helping visionaries create a wiser, healthier, and more just world. He co-wrote The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu which inspired the film MISSION: JOY. Doug served as the interviewer in the film as well as an Executive Producer. As an editor and literary agent, he has also worked with other Nobel Laureates including Nelson Mandela, Jody Williams, and Elizabeth Blackburn and worked with many visionary scientists including Stephen Hawking.

The Tallest Dwarf—film screening and talk with Julie Wyman
2026-04-20 19:00 - 21:30 | Communications Building, 7487 Red Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
UC Santa Cruz affiliates are invited to a screening and discussion with filmmaker Julie Forrest Wyman. The Tallest Dwarf charts the filmmaker’s quest to find her place within the little people (LP) community at a moment when dwarf identity is poised to radically change. Wyman’s work engages issues of embodiment, body image, and the possibilities and problematics of media spectatorship—all informed by her experience of living with hypochondroplasia dwarfism. Julie Wyman will be in conversation after the screening with Pooja Rangan (Professor of English and Film and Media Studies at Amherst College and Visiting Scholar of Visualizing Abolition) and Cynthia Ling Lee (Associate Professor of Performance, Play & Design, UC Santa Cruz).
Co-organized/co-sponsored by the Arts Division’s Film & Digital Media Department, “Abolition Medicine and Disability Justice“—a collaborative initiative of five UC campuses, including Riverside, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco, to addresses health disparities in institutions and policy—and The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz.
—
ADMISSION
– Free and open to UC Santa Cruz affiliates only
– Attend in person at Communications Studio C
—
PARKING
– Parking via UCSC permit or ParkMobile
– Core West is the lot closest to the event
—
ABOUT THE FILM
As Wyman unpacks the rumors of “partial dwarfism” in her family, she finds that hers is the last of a body type she has inherited. She joins forces with a group of dwarf artists to confront the legacy of being fetishized and put on display. Together they create films that reclaim a complicated history and speak back to the echoes of eugenics in the newly emerging pharmaceutical interventions that make little people taller. Through its personal and expanding perspective, the film invites audiences to a new way of seeing.
—
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Julie Forrest Wyman’s 2012 documentary STRONG! premiered at AFI Silverdocs and was broadcast nationally on PBS’s Emmy award-winning series, Independent Lens, where it won the series’ Audience Award. Wyman’s work has been awarded support from Sundance, Sandbox, IDA, SF Film Society, Points North, ITVS, the Creative Capital Foundation, The Princess Grace Foundation, California Humanities, and NEH. She has been a fellow at the UC Davis Feminist Research Institute and a resident of SF Film Society’s Filmhouse, Siena Art Institute, Logan Nonfiction and Points North. Her films, including FatMob (2016), Buoyant (2005), and A Boy Named Sue (2000), have aired on Showtime, MTV’s LOGO-TV, and have been exhibited on five continents. She serves as Associate Professor of Cinema and Digital Media at UC Davis.
—
Download and share the event flyer here.
—
photographer credit: Gabriella Garcia-Pardo; image description: A group of six LP (little people) performers regard their paper body cut outs on the wall.

Field Trip to ALBA
2026-04-21 08:00 - 14:00 | MJ Organic Farms, 1700 Old Stage Rd, Salinas, California, 93908
Join us for an opportunity to visit the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) in Salinas!
ALBA is a non-profit whose mission is to create economic opportunity for aspiring organic farmers and ag professionals — many of whom are local field workers and first-generation college students — through land-based education in the heart of the Salinas Valley. On this field trip we will learn about their programs which cover: organic farm production, nutrient management and irrigation, farm business, and marketing. If time allows there may also be a harvesting activity.
Lunch will be provided after the tour (please see food order section to place your order)

OVERVIEW:
We will meet at the Hay Barn parking lot at 8:00am, departing at 8:10am. We’ll arrive at ALBA in Salinas at 9am. After our tour we will have lunch at 12pm (provided). At 1pm we’ll get back on the road and be back on campus by 2/2:30pm (depending on traffic)
DRIVING/TRANSPORTATION: (Two options)

Group ride in rental van
Driving yourself to ALBA (If you prefer to drive yourself to Salinas, please arrive at 1700 Old Stage Rd, Salinas, California 93908, by 9am; Google Map)

WHAT TO BRING:

Water/Snacks
Layers (the tour will be mostly outdoors)

Please contact Ximena Moura with any questions: xmoura@ucsc.edu.
Looking forward to exploring ALBA with you all!
We will provide captions for the presentation. If you have disability-related needs, please contact the Career Success office at csuccess@ucsc.edu or (831) 459-4420 as soon as possible.

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

Coffee with Provost Aims
2026-04-21 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

BE Climate & Cookies Student Pop-Up!
2026-04-21 10:00 - 11:30 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Come get excited about Baskin Engineering Climate Week at our student pop-up! 🌎
Climate Week is a chance to explore how Baskin Engineering is addressing climate challenges through innovative research, teaching, and hands-on projects.
Discover the events happening throughout the week and find ways to get involved!
Swing by for FREE BE swag, coffee, cookies, Climate Week stickers, and more—first come, first served!
Where: BE Courtyard
When: Tuesday, April 21, 10:00-11:30 a.m.
We hope to see you there!

Mental Health First Aid Certification
2026-04-21 10:00 - 14:00
Location: Register for the Zoom link
Be prepared to support those around you by getting certified in Mental Health First Aid. Mental Health First Aid teaches the skills needed to recognize and respond to signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use challenges, as well as how to provide someone with initial support until they are connected with appropriate professional help. In the course, you learn risk factors and warning signs for mental health and addiction concerns, strategies to help someone in crisis and non-crisis situations, and where to turn for help.
We encourage all staff and faculty to take advantage of this opportunity. Whether you work directly with students or behind the scenes, your participation in MHFA training is a crucial step in building a resilient and supportive campus community.
Register for the Zoom link. For more information, please visit the Occupational Health Training website.
For questions or to schedule a training for your team, please contact Occupational Health Specialist, Elizabeth Tomlinson, at ektomlin@ucsc.edu.

Campus to Career: Job Talk with Communications Manager David Coy
2026-04-21 12:00 - 13:00 | https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/2614256373?pwd=[REDACTED]
Are you curious about the communications field, but not quite sure what it entails? Join our job talk with UCSC alumnus David Coy, a mission-driven communications professional. David will tell us about his journey into communications work and how he discovered his passion for helping impactful organizations craft compelling content. If you’re interested in careers in communications, development, marketing, or social impact, this event is for you!

All students are welcome. The interview will last approximately 30 minutes, followed by a 15-minute Q&A.
We will provide captions for the presentation. If you have disability-related needs, please contact the Career Success office at mpelrine@ucsc.edu as soon as possible.

Learn more about David:
David Coy is a communications professional with a focus on the non-profit, social enterprise, and philanthropy sectors. He is currently Communications Manager for The Bar Association of San Francisco, where he leads communication strategy and supports fundraising efforts. Prior to joining BASF, David worked with mission-driven organizations in investment and philanthropy, conservation, and education. David graduated from UCSC in 2008 with a BA in History.
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.

Economics Field Study Info Session
2026-04-21 13:30 - 14:30 | https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/UXaYoB1VQzSm2M03scZ3ag#/registration
The Economics Field Study program is back!
Attend 1 of 2 information sessions on the Economics field study program:
Tuesday, April 21, 2026: 1:30-2:30pm
Wednesday, April 22, 2026: 4-5pm
Both sessions will be conducted by zoom (only). Registration is required to attend. Please register here.
The Economics field study program offers eligible economics majors an opportunity to earn academic credit while gaining valuable on-the-job experience with a local business or non-profit, or an on-campus administrative office. These internship opportunities allow students to experience how what they’ve learned in the classroom can be applied in real-life situations. You will work with an economics faculty member on an academic project to earn academic credit.
The information sessions will explain eligibility requirements and what is needed to obtain an internship and enroll in the field study program. The program is available summer term and each quarter of the academic year. Now is the time to be thinking about doing a field study in summer ‘26 or fall ‘26.
The information sessions will be conducted by Professor Lori Kletzer, economics field study program director.
See you on zoom on April 21 or 22!

College Night: Beans Beyond the Brew
2026-04-21 17:00 - 20:00 | College Nine and John R. Lewis Dining Hall
College Nine and John R. Lewis College, in collaboration with UCSC Dining, present “Beans Beyond the Brew”. Join us Tuesday, April 21 from 5–8 p.m. at the College Nine/John R. Lewis Dining Hall for a night of activities, fun, community, and a special themed menu. Standard dining hall entry pricing applies, and all students, faculty, and staff are invited.
Please note: The dining hall will be closed from 2–5 p.m. for event preparation.
Learn more about College Nights at dining.ucsc.edu/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.How to Use the Statement Across Communication Channels

A Sacred Place: Film Screening and Conversation with Dr. Dolly Kikon
2026-04-21 17:30 - 19:30 | Communications Building, 7487 Red Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Please join us for the American premiere of A Sacred Place (2026), by Professor Dolly Kikon (Anthropology). The film tells the story of stones, spirits, and salt springs in Makhel. The film focuses on intergenerational storytellers and their relationship with the land. It integrates visual ethnography, oral tradition, and geological features of Makhel to center Indigenous pedagogy, community history, and ecology. After the screening, Professor Clementine Bordeaux (HAVC) will provide comments and facilitate a conversation with Kikon and audience member participants.
Makhel in Mao Naga language means a sacred place. Can sacredness exist amid ecocide in our times? Seeking an answer, the film follows life as it unfolds in the mountains of Makhel, a Naga village in northern Manipur. These mountains are composed of sandstones, shales, and siltstones. The sandstone monoliths across the landscape are symbols of ancient alliance and kinship between spirits and humans. The story of the land is also stored in the salt springs, ancient seawater retained in shale soil, a geological feature of these mountains. Geographically part of the Eastern Himalayas, the salt springs of Makhel were formed through sedimentation under an ancient equatorial ocean around 50 million years ago. Naga ancestors regarded these geological features as abodes for spirit custodians and cared for them. A Sacred Place is the story of land narrated by Naga storytellers, as humans prioritize relentless development forgetting their relationship with human and other beings.
Learn more about A Sacred Place.

This screening is a hybrid event. Remote participants will receive a link to the film before the event to watch on their own. They may join the conversation via Zoom.
Please RSVP to register for this event. Register here. Any questions can be directed to seacoast@ucsc.edu
This event is graciously co-sponsored by UCSC’s Center for Southeast Asian Coastal Interactions, Center for South Asian Studies, Indigenous Faculty Network, The Humanities Institute and the Film and Digital Media Department.

Yoga as Healing Series
2026-04-21 18:00 - 19:30
Yoga as Healing is a 7-session trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness program hosted by UCSC’s CARE office. Spring Quarter classes will be held Tuesdays, 6:00–7:30 p.m. from March 31–May 12. Classes are free for students.
Each class facilitated by CARE Advocate Abbey Wise (she/ella), includes gentle, trauma-informed movement, breathwork, meditation and reflective journaling to support survivors in reconnecting with their bodies, building confidence and being present. Mats, blocks, blankets and journals are provided. Participants are encouraged to wear comfortable clothing and bring a water bottle.
CARE aims to build a consistent group of 8-10 survivors who can attend all 7 classes to foster the community, predictability and safety core to the trauma-informed structure of the program.
If you are interested in participating submit an application and a CARE Advocate will get back to you with further information. Location will be provided upon approval to participate.
Check out our schedule for the series:
3/31 — Orientation and Intention
4/7 — Safety & Grounding
4/14 —Self-Care as Daily Practice
4/21 — Embodied Boundaries
4/28 — Self-Compassion
5/5 — Inner Strength & Trust
5/12 — Cultivating Community
If you have previously attended Yoga as Healing, we would love to hear from you. Please complete our short, anonymous survey —your feedback helps us grow and improve our programming.
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.

Arts & Ecology Festival: Creative Resistance
2026-04-22 10:00 - 22:00 | Digital Arts Research Center, 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
On Earth Day, UC Santa Cruz launches the inaugural Arts & Ecology Festival: Creative Resistance, a campus-wide gathering that refuses to treat climate change as a problem of carbon alone. Instead, it brings together artists, scientists, students, and community partners to engage the deeper conditions of the crisis, and to open space for cultural, political, and imaginative transformations grounded in repair, reciprocity, and collective futures.
Taking place at the Digital Arts Research Center (DARC), the festival unfolds as a full day of exhibitions, film screenings, performances, workshops, talks, and public engagement. Developed through an open call that drew an overwhelming response across disciplines, the program reflects a growing field of practitioners working across environmental research, land-based knowledge, climate resistance, and practices of repair that move beyond dominant institutional and economic frameworks. Tacos Los Reyes food truck will be on site during the festival.
The UC Santa Cruz Arts & Ecology Festival is sponsored by UCSC Art Department, OpenLab Collaborative Research Center, and UC Climate Action Arts Network, with support from the University of California, Office of the President’s Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grant program.
—
ADMISSION
– Free and open to the public
—
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Earth Day Festival
Wed., April 22, 10:00 a.m.–10:00 p.m.
various locations throughout the Digital Arts Research Center (DARC)
Earth Week Film Screenings
Mon.. April 20–Fri., April 24, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Light Lab Gallery at the Digital Arts Research Center (DARC)
More information here at the festival website.
—
PARKING
– Parking by UCSC 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).
—
This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

CSE Colloquium - Robust Machine Learning for Biomedical Data: Efficiency, Reliability, and Generalizability
2026-04-22 11:00 - 12:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter
Chenyu You, Stony Brook University
Abstract
In the rapidly growing area of machine learning, there is profound promise in crafting intelligent, data-driven methods for diverse real-world applications. Yet, in safety-critical domains like healthcare, some fundamental challenges remain: (1) The insufficiency of raw biomedical data emphasizes the need for data-efficient and robust learning approaches. (2) The imperative of safety and stability necessitates a cohesive framework that unifies learning with theoretical guarantees. (3) The inherent heterogeneity and distribution shifts in real-world clinical data call for robust and generalizable learning methods. To address these challenges, there are several major directions I have explored: (i) (Robust) Machine Learning for Imperfect Medical Data: The development of machine learning models, particularly in the context of label scarcity, increasingly necessitates the collection of substantial annotated medical data. Moreover, medical data often display a long-tailed class distribution, which consequently results in notable imbalance issues. To this end, there are several growing interests in training machine learning models jointly across imbalanced class distributions and limited annotations. I have developed novel, efficient, statistically consistent algorithms to improve empirical performance for biomedical image analysis. (ii) Learning with Theoretical Guarantees: As machine learning methods have become ubiquitous in clinical decision-making, their reliability and interpretability have become important. This is particularly crucial in the field of biomedical image analysis, where decision outcomes can have profound implications. I have developed novel machine learning algorithms that enable provably accurate anatomical modeling with theoretical guarantees. (iii) Generalize across Diverse Biomedical Data: The development of medical foundation models often requires massive and diverse biomedical data. To this end, I have developed various foundation models for biomedical imaging data and explored novel applications of these models. I have also developed novel medical AI Agents that lead to the scalable and accurate predictive modeling, particularly for distribution shift problems.
Speaker Bio
Chenyu You is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics & Statistics and Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University. He is also the core faculty member of the CVLab, AI institute, and affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Computational Science. His research focuses on both fundamental and applied problems in computer vision and machine learning, often with a focus on generalization, and making machine learning more reliable. Our applied research includes applications to healthcare, biomedical imaging, and cognitive neuroscience. He received his Ph.D. in 2024 from Yale University under the advisement of James S. Duncan, his M.S. in 2019 from Stanford University under the advisement of Daniel Rubin, and his B.S. in 2017 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute under the advisement of Ge Wang, all in electrical engineering. He has also spent wonderful time at Facebook AI Research (FAIR), as well as Google Research. He serves on the Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention Society (MICCAI), and the SUNY AI Symposium Planning Committee, and as associate editors for IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Medical Image Analysis, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, Pattern Recognition, and Transactions on Machine Learning Research. He has received AAAI’26 New Faculty Highlights, CPAL’26 Rising Stars Award, Tinker Research Grant Award, Lambda Research Grant Award, ICML’25 Oral Presentation Award, EMBC’25 Top Paper Award, MICCAI’25 NIH Registration Grant Award, IEEE TMI’25 Distinguished Associate Editor Certificate of Excellence Award, and Yale George P. O’Leary Graduate Fellowship, and has been ranked as the World’s Top 2% most-cited scientists by Stanford University since 2024, is a member of the Sigma Xi scientific research society, and received the Excellence in Teaching Award for Spring and Fall 2025. For more information, please check his website: https://chenyuyou.me/.
Hosted by: Professor Yuyin Zhou
Location: Engineering 2, Room E2-180 (Refreshments such as fruit, pastries, coffee, and tea will be provided.)
Zoom Option: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=[REDACTED]

HireNew York Multi-University Alumni Career Fair
2026-04-22 11:00 - 14:00 | Prince George Ballroom, 15 E 27th Street, New York, NY, 10016, United States
Calling University of California Alumni in the tri-state area!
Are you ready for your next career move? Join fellow alumni and professionals at the HireNew York Multi-University Alumni Career Fair, a unique opportunity to connect directly with top employers hiring across a wide range of industries.
This expo-style career event brings together alumni, graduate students, and doctoral candidates from multiple universities to meet 60+ employers actively recruiting talented professionals in the tri-state area.
Event Details
HireNew York Multi-University Alumni Career Fair
📅 Wednesday, April 22, 2026
⏰ 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM
📍 Prince George Ballroom, 15 E 27th St., NYC
Why Attend

Meet 60+ companies actively hiring
Build meaningful connections with recruiters and hiring managers
Explore opportunities across industries and career levels
Free to attend for alumni

Whether you’re exploring a career transition, returning to the workforce, or seeking your next leadership role, the HireNew York Career Fair offers a powerful opportunity to expand your network and discover new possibilities.
REGISTER HERE

UCSC Dining Tasting Fair
2026-04-22 11:30 - 14:30 | Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis College Multi-purpose Room, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
UCSC Dining Tasting Fair
Get your taste buds ready! Join us for a fun afternoon of delicious discoveries at the 12th annual UCSC Dining Tasting Fair. This is your chance to sample a wide variety of food and drinks from our premium quality suppliers and our very own talented culinary team.

Event Details
When: Wednesday, April 22
Time: 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Where: College Nine/John R. Lewis Dining Hall Multipurpose Room
Cost: FREE!

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.

Career Success Drop-Ins at the Ethnic Resource Centers - Week 4
2026-04-22 13:00 - 14:30 | Crown Provost House, 660 Crown Service Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Group Appointment
Drop-in at the Ethnic Resource Centers with Career Coach & Engagement Specialist Bridge Kennedy to discuss career exploration, job search strategy, interview prep, grad school prep, or whatever’s on your mind related to your career success!
If you need accommodations please email bridgekk@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.
