Events

Artist Roundtable for EASP M.F.A. Exhibition—"Picking up Shells Amid a Tsunami"
2026-04-23 17:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | 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.
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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.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Gallery hours are Tues.–Sun.noon–5:00 p.m (closed Mondays)
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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.
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ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
– More exhibition information here.
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Careers in Climate Tech & Sustainability
2026-04-23 17:00 - 18:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Ready to explore career pathways that matter?
Attend our very special Careers in Climate Tech & Sustainability Panel—celebrating Baskin Engineering Climate Week—for an inside look at careers that will help build a sustainable future. Panelists representing different roles and organizations will share their career journeys and offer practical insights into working in climate tech. There will also be a catered networking reception that follows—don’t miss it!
Get informed, inspired, and discover your path to a career in sustainability!
This event is part of Baskin Engineering’s Climate Tech Day featuring a community fair where students, faculty, climate and sustainability tech companies, and community organizations will showcase their works through demonstrations, poster presentations, tabling, and more.
Where: E2-180
When: Thursday, April 23, 5:00-6:15 p.m.
Register via Handshake.
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.

Careers in Climate Tech & Sustainability
2026-04-23 17:00 - 18:30 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Ready to explore career pathways that matter?
Attend our very special Careers in Climate Tech & Sustainability Panel for an inside look at careers that will help build a sustainable future. Panelists representing different roles and organizations will share their career journeys and offer practical insights into working in climate tech. There will also be a catered networking reception that follows, don’t miss it!
Get informed, inspired, and discover your path to a career in sustainability!

This event is part of Baskin Engineering’s Climate Tech Day featuring a community fair where students, faculty, climate/sustainability tech companies, and community organizations will showcase their works through various means like demos, poster presentations, and tabling. This will be in the Baskin Courtyard from 2pm – 5pm.

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.

Climate Week Tech Connect: Energy Solutions
2026-04-23 18:00 - 19:30 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join Baskin Engineering to explore the frontier of power engineering, where the rapid rise of electrification and digital infrastructure is creating an unprecedented demand for next-generation talent and a critical opportunity for sustainability.
This networking event bridges the gap between the classroom and the field, offering students and faculty a front-row seat to the trends and high-impact career opportunities shaping our energy future. The event is part of Baskin Engineering Climate Week, focused on raising awareness of climate issues and sustainability research and teaching.
Where: BE Courtyard
When: Thursday, April 23, 6:00-7:30 p.m.
We hope to see you there!

Artist Talk with Federico Cuatlacuatl
2026-04-23 18:00 - 19:30 | Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States
We invite you to join us for a film screeening and discussion with artist Federico Cuatlacuatl. This will be the west coast premiere of QUEMAR LAS PATAS DEL IMPERIO (to burn the feet of the empire), Cuatlacuatl’s newest work.
Federico Cuatlacuatl (b. San Francisco Coapan, Cholula, Puebla -México) is Horace W. Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Art at the University of Virginia and currently a research Fellow at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Cuatlacuatl’s aesthetic oeuvre addresses Nahua Indigenous immigration, social art practice, and cultural sustainability. Building on his own experience as formerly undocumented immigrant and DACA holder, his creative practice collides Indigeneity, immigration, and temporalities. At the core of his most recent research and artistic production is the intersection of transborder Indigeneity, Nahua diasporic resilience, and Nahua futurisms. His work has been featured in international film festivals and exhibitions globally including: the Max Ernst Museum, the Kode Museum of Art in Norway, the KINDL Centre for Contemporary Art in Berlin, the BFI London Film Festival, the Larnaca Biennale in Cyprus, the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, the Museum of Art Såo Paulo in Brazil, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, the Sculpture Center in Ohio, the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, and the Tucson Museum of Art. Cuatlacuatl is a co-founder of the UNDOC+Collective and the founder of the Rasquache Artist Residency in Puebla, México.

Alumni Reunion Weekend 2026
2026-04-24 01:00 - 2026-04-27 00:59 | CA
Join your classmates back at UC Santa Cruz for Alumni Reunion Weekend, April 24–26, 2026. This annual celebration honors the pioneering classes of 1965–1976 and the mark you have left on our campus and the world.
Reconnect with classmates, celebrate your achievements, and enjoy time among the redwoods. Whether you never left or you haven’t returned to Santa Cruz since graduation, we hope to see you there for this spectacular reunion weekend.
Mark your calendar and plan to return to campus, April 24-26, 2026.

Slug48—Student Film Competition, Screening, and Awards Ceremony
2026-04-24 01:00 - 2026-04-30 00:59 | CA
The third annual Slug48 returns with a 48-hour film competition—open to all UC Santa Cruz students. A 48-hour film is one that is written, shot, edited, and all music composed within a 48-hour time period. Teams and strategies for filming may be formed ahead of time, but nothing can be written, and no footage can be shot, until the clock is ticking. Slug48 was founded in 2024 thanks to the support and enthusiasm of UC Santa Cruz alumnus Kevin Nolting, former editor at Pixar Animation Studios, where he edited the Academy Award-winning films Up!; Inside Out; and Soul.
ABOUT THE EVENT
Competition Opens
Fri., April 24, 5:00 p.m. | UCSC Communications 139
– parameters assigned (a theme, a prop, a line of dialogue that must be in the film to ensure nothing was shot ahead of time)
– filming begins
– open to all UCSC students
– advanced registration recommended here; however students can sign up at the Competition Opens event
Competition Closes
Sun. April 26, 5:00 p.m.
– filming concludes
– submit the finished film
Film Screening & Awards Ceremony
Wed., April 29, event time to be announced | Kresge 3105
– films judged by a panel of celebrity judges, chaired by Kevin Nolting
– open admission for friends/family of the filmmakers and UCSC affiliates
Download and share the event flyer here.

DNA Day
2026-04-24 11:00 - 13:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Please join the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute for our annual celebration of DNA!
We will be in the Baskin Engineering courtyard from 11am-1pm with swag, music, and activities. This is a fun, family-friendly event and open to the public. Activities will include:

Strawberry DNA Extraction demonstration (WiSE)
Double helix origami
Poster session and resource fair
Face painting
Stickers, bookmarks, pins, and other swag
Double human helix conga line (everyone who participates gets a free shirt!)

Stop by and learn about the amazing molecule that codes all of life. 🧬❤️
Want to be a part of DNA Day? Sign up to:
1. Give a poster presentation
2. Volunteer during DNA day
3. Have your student group or org participate in our resource fair

Spring Exhibitions at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences
2026-04-24 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-04-25 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-04-26 12:00 - 17:00 | 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.

Time Management
2026-04-24 13:00 - 13:45 | Academic Resources Center (ARC), 408 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
In this workshop, you will: Learn the ways you can manage your time and avoid procrastination/burnout.
The Successful Slug Workshop series, hosted by Learning Support Services Peer Coaches, are open to all UCSC undergraduate students and focus on academic skills and tools to support your success as a student. At each workshop, you will be introduced to a topic, engage in active learning, be given resources to begin implementing the same day, and have an opportunity to learn more if you are interested.
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.

Zheng, Z. (STATS) - Semi-Supervised Statistical Learning for Oceanographic Data
2026-04-24 13:00 - 15:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Oceanographic data, generated by modern technologies that measure biological systems across time, space, and cell populations, are often rich, high-dimensional, and highly heterogeneous. Such data provide valuable opportunities to study subcellular organization, cellular heterogeneity, and dynamic biological processes in marine environments. However, because marine plankton systems remain relatively understudied and less well characterized than many model biological systems, both data generation and labeling are particularly challenging. Limited domain knowledge and less mature laboratory protocols often produce noisy observations, while reliable annotation requires substantial expert effort and is therefore difficult to obtain at scale.
This proposal develops statistical methodology for oceanographic data settings in which a small amount of expert-labeled data must be combined with a much larger collection of unlabeled or imperfectly processed data. A central goal is to incorporate limited scientific knowledge into statistical learning procedures to improve interpretability, component identifiability, and inferential reliability. In particular, I develop semi-supervised statistical methods that explicitly quantify the information contributed by expert annotation.
To address this goal, I study three related problems: semi-supervised functional clustering for subcellular spatial proteomics, anchored semi-supervised mixture-of-experts models for flow cytometry, and temporally structured latent-variable models that separate smooth trend and seasonal variation from scientific signals of interest. Together, these projects aim to develop principled and interpretable methodology for partially labeled, structured, and high-dimensional oceanographic data, with an emphasis on valid uncertainty quantification.
Event Host: Ziyue Zheng, Ph.D. Student, Statistical Science
Advisor: Sangwon Hyun
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93229540289?pwd=[REDACTED]

Palaver Strings—April in Santa Cruz
2026-04-24 18:00 - 20:00 | Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320-2 Cedar St, Santa Cruz, 95060, United States
Kuumbwa Jazz, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz partner to present: A Change is Gonna Come, featuring Palaver Strings and tenor Nicholas Phan.
Grammy award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan joins Portland, Maine-based ensemble Palaver Strings, in a program that explores our country’s rich legacy of protest songs. Repertoire includes traditional songs of protest and music inspired by social movements and historical events, including Akenya Seymour’s “Fear the Lamb,” and Errollyn Wallen’s Protest Songs, both commissioned by the ensemble, and premiers written for this program by UC Santa Cruz composers Lukáš Janata and Siamak Barghi. Spanning genres, eras, and movements, A Change Is Gonna Come confronts our past and present and celebrates protest as one of our most precious rights.
This event is a co-production of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and April in Santa Cruz Festival of Creative Music.
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ADMISSION
– Tickets and information here on the Kuumbwa website
– Attend in-person at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in downtown Santa Cruz
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– This year’s festival includes seven events between April 15 and May 21, 2026
– Additional April in Santa Cruz events and information at aprilsc.ucsc.edu
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A CHANGE IS GONNA COME
PALAVER STRINGS WITH NICHOLAS PHAN

image: photo of Palaver Strings
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Harriet: Performing Anarchive
2026-04-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Digital Arts Research Center, 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Through motion capture, immersive sound, and real-time digital systems, CHARI (Dr. Chari Smith) performs alongside Harriet, a life-scale avatar carrying a living archive of Black sonic and vernacular memory. Drawing from Black archival traditions rooted in call-and-response, improvisation, and communal stewardship, the performance understands memory as relational and alive. Together, our movements shape the environment as the performance unfolds, images shift, sound expands, and memory surfaces in fragments.
Performing Anarchive turns the stage into a threshold between body and code, memory and possibility. It imagines a future where technology is not distant or extractive, but intimate, attentive, and alive.

Rsvp and reserve a seat via Eventbrite

Parking:
Performance Arts Lot
Permits Accepted: A, N, MC, ADA, Medical, Reserved,
Parkmobile: Zone 15158

This performance was made possible in part through grant funding from Investing in Artists: Artistic Innovation at The Center for Cultural Innovation, the Arts Division, and the Arts Research Institute.

Harriet: Performing an Archive
2026-04-24 19:00 - 21:15 | Digital Arts Research Center, 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Through motion capture, immersive sound, and real-time digital systems, CHARI perform alongside Harriet, a life-scale avatar carrying a living archive of Black sonic and vernacular memory. Drawing from Black archival traditions rooted in call-and-response, improvisation, and communal stewardship, the performance understands memory as relational and alive. Together, our movements shape the environment as the performance unfolds, images shift, sound expands, and memory surfaces in fragments. Performing An Archive turns the stage into a threshold between body and code, memory and possibility. It imagines a future where technology is not distant or extractive, but intimate, attentive, and alive. This performance was made possible in part through grant funding from Investing in Artists: Artistic Innovation at The Center for Cultural Innovation, The Arts Division, and the Arts Research Institute.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to Arts Division Staff & Faculty
– RSVP REQUIRED: reserve a seat via Eventbrite
– The event will be held in the DARC Lab (black box) in the Digital Arts Research Center on the first floor, just inside the front entrance.
– Doors will open at 7pm, and the show will start at 7:30pm
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PARKING
– Parking by permit or ParkMobile
– Arts Lot #126 is the closest parking lot to the event
– Visitors with DMV placards or plates may park for free in DMV spaces, Medical spaces, or ParkMobile spaces without additional payment, or in timed zones for longer than the posted time.
– More information provided by UCSC Transportation & Parking Services (TAPS)
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This program is open to all UC Santa Cruz affiliates consistent with state and federal law.

Spring Plant Sale
2026-04-25 10:00 - 15:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Stock your garden with premium organic seedlings while supporting student education! Browse a huge variety of flowers, vegetables, herbs, and strawberries—all grown by UCSC Farm staff, students, and volunteers in our greenhouses. Proceeds support the Center for Agroecology’s hands-on learning programs.
View the full list of varieties here.
Special Perks:

Friends of the Farm & Garden members: 10% off all plants + early bird shopping at 9 AM (There will be a Friends membership table at the sale for those who would like to sign up or renew their membership that morning)
UCSC students with valid ID: 25% off

Parking and logistics:
Please plan to park across the street from the Hay Barn in parking lot 116. We encourage you to bring a basket, wagon, or other means to carry your plants. We will have a limited number of cardboard boxes available but encourage you to bring your own.
Payment:
We accept cash, checks made out to “UC Regents,” or credit card (we do not have a traditional credit card reader; you will need a smart phone to scan a QR code and then manually enter your credit card number.)
Interested in volunteering in the greenhouses in preparation for our plant sale? Fill out this form!
This event is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Younger Lagoon Reserve Tours
2026-04-25 10:30 - 12:00 | Seymour Marine Discovery Center, 100 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060
Younger Lagoon Reserve tours are free and open to the public. Space is limited to 18 participants. Call 831-459-3800 or sign-up online. Virtual tours are available online.

Visualizing Abolition Screening Series: Beyond Access
2026-04-25 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-04-26 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

Chemistry and Biochemistry symposium
2026-04-25 12:30 - 18:00 | Jack Baskin Auditorium, 191 Baskin Cir, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
On April 25, the department will hold its Annual Chemistry Symposium. This year, we will host the Bunnett Organic Chemistry Seminar, the Fink Biomedical Chemistry Seminar, and the UCSC Phillip Crews Symposium: Powered by Chemistry, Strengthened by Discovery Science Lecture, all on the same day. In addition, we will include a lecture focused on Physical Chemistry and Materials Research.

Event Date:
Saturday, April 25th, 2026

Event time:
12:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Event Location:
UCSC Jack Baskin Engineering Auditorium
Physical Science Building Atrium

Parking:
Core west Parking Structure
Directions

Parking is Free

Itinerary
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM: Davide Donadio - Physical Chemistry seminar (45 min talk, 5 min Q&A, 10 min Awards) Jack Baskin Aud. Rm 101

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM: Hosea Nelson - Crews Seminar(45 min talk, 5 min Q&A, 10 min Awards) Jack Baskin Aud. Rm 101

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM: Coffee/Posters Physical science Building Atrium

3:30 PM - 4:30 PM: Neil L. Kelleher - Fink Biochemistry Seminar (45 min talk, 5 min Q&A, 10 min Awards) Jack Baskin Aud. Rm 101

4:30 PM - 5:40 PM: Gina Wang - Bunnett Talk (45 min talk, 5 min Q&A, 20 min Awards) Jack Baskin Aud. Rm 101

5:40 PM - 8:00 PM: Dinner Physical Science Building Atrium

We hope to see you in April, more information and to register here.

Chemistry and Biochemistry symposium
2026-04-25 12:30 - 18:00 | Jack Baskin Auditorium, 191 Baskin Cir, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
On April 25, the department will hold its Annual Chemistry Symposium. This year, we will host the Bunnett Organic Chemistry Seminar, the Fink Biomedical Chemistry Seminar, and the UCSC Phillip Crews Symposium: Powered by Chemistry, Strengthened by Discovery Science Lecture, all on the same day. In addition, we will include a lecture focused on Physical Chemistry and Materials Research.
We hope to see you in April, more information and to register here.

Chemistry and Biochemistry symposium
2026-04-25 12:30 - 18:00 | Jack Baskin Auditorium, 191 Baskin Cir, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
On April 25, the department will hold its Annual Chemistry Symposium. This year, we will host the Bunnett Organic Chemistry Seminar, the Fink Biomedical Chemistry Seminar, and the Crews Diversity in Science Lecture, all on the same day. In addition, we will include a lecture focused on Physical Chemistry and Materials Research.
We hope to see you in April, more information here.

Artist Tour with Libia Posada
2026-04-25 14:00 - 15:00 | Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States
We are thrilled to invite you to join Libia Posada, a multidisciplinary artist as well as a physician, for this artist-led tour of Everything is Going Right, the premiere solo exhibition of her work in the United States. With artworks influenced by her medical training, Posada will discuss how she engages the body as a site for the staging of human experience, both individual and collective, and a territory closely connected to the geopolitical.
Libia Posada’s work has been shown broadly internationally, including at the Museum of Modern Art of Medellín; Musée Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France; National Museum of Colombia; and the Havana Biennial.

It’s California Native Plant Month at the UCSC Arboretum!
2026-04-26 11:00 - 14:00 | Arboretum, 122 Arboretum Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join us at Norrie’s Gift and Garden Shop at the UCSC Arboretum & Botanic Garden for a pop-up information booth about California’s Native Plants.
Here at the Arboretum, we like to say: if you plant it, they will come, and that is a fact we have seen borne out again and again in our gardens. Bring your questions about growing natives to the experts from the UC Master Gardeners and learn why, when it comes to habitat, California natives do it best!
The Arboretum’s retail nursery will have lots of native plants for you to add to your garden to create waterwise habitats that capture the true essence of California!
The event is free with paid admission. Current UCSC students are always free!

Santa Cruz Pickwick Club presents: Bleak House
2026-04-26 13:00 - 15:00 | CA
Spontaneous human combustion! Evil lawyers! Detectives! Family intrigue! These all come together in Charles Dickens’s masterwork, Bleak House. This year, we will spend the year reading the 2026 Dickens Universe novel. Join Dickens enthusiasts and Pickwick Club members on Zoom for a series of discussions about this beloved book.
Register via Zoom
Reading Schedule:

OCT 26: Chapters 8-13
NOV 23: Chapters 14-19
DEC 28: No meeting
JAN 25: Chapters 20-25
FEB 22: Chpaters 26-32
MAR 22: Chapters 33-38
APR 26: Chapters 39-46
MAY 24: Chapters 47-53
JUN 28: Chapters 54-67 (End)

Recommended Edition: We recommend the Penguin Classics edition of the novel for its appendices and notes, but other versions are fine. First-time readers should avoid the Introduction if they don’t want spoilers. Download the novel to read at Gutenburg.org or listen to it at LibriVox.org.
The Santa Cruz Pickwick (Book) Club, a branch of the Dickens Fellowship, is a community of local bookworms, students, and teachers who meet monthly to discuss a nineteenth-century novel. The Santa Cruz Public Libraries provide support for the reading group.

Pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi—April in Santa Cruz
2026-04-26 15:00 - 17:00 | Music Center Recital Hall, 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi graces UC Santa Cruz’s Music Center Recital Hall with Rippling, Resistance, and Rain, a unique concert of 21st century piano music written by composers from Japan and the United States. The program opens with an imaginative fantasy of a bird, explores the psychology of addiction and mental illness, explores a liberating sense of dance, a deep exploration of “synaesthesic” texture, testifies to our profound crisis of human-caused climate change—and the need to resist it—and concludes whimsically with a scent of rain. Featuring the music of Samuel Adams, Ben Leeds Carson, Ben Dorfan, Sam Rider, Karen Tanaka, and Atsushi Yamanaka.
This event is a co-production of the Arts Council Santa Cruz County and April in Santa Cruz Festival of Creative Music.
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ADMISSION
– Free and open to the public
– Attend in-person at the Music Center Recital Hall at UC Santa Cruz
– Open admission (no ticket or registration required)
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PARKING
– Parking by permit, ParkMobile, or $11 cash/credit via the on-site parking attendant
– Arts Lot #126 is the closest parking lot to the event
– Visitors with DMV placards or plates may park for free in DMV spaces, Medical spaces, or ParkMobile spaces without additional payment, or in timed zones for longer than the posted time.
– UCSC affiliates must purchase their permits before arriving at the event in order to receive their discounted UCSC rate. Attendants will only sell the non-affiliate-priced permits.
– More information provided by UCSC Transportation & Parking Services (TAPS)
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– This year’s festival includes seven events between April 15 and May 21, 2026
– Additional April in Santa Cruz events and information at aprilsc.ucsc.edu
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PIANIST KEISUKE NAKAGOSHI
IN RECITAL

image: photo of Keisuke Nakagoshi
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

CM Seminar: Edward Wang, "Inventing a New Blood Pressure Monitor"
2026-04-27 12:30 - 13:30 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
Presented by: Edward Wang
Description: “What does it actually look like to invent something? In this talk, I trace the decade-long journey of turning a smartphone into a blood pressure monitor, from Seismo, which used smartphone accelerometers to measure pulse transit time, to BPClip, a dollar clip that brought calibration-free oscillometry to the fingertip, to VibroBP, which eliminated the attachment entirely using the phone’s vibration motor. Each project was born from the limitations of the last. And each time we thought we’d solved the problem, new layers of unknowns appeared around usability, manufacturing, and FDA classification. This is a talk about what inventing looks like when you zoom in past the papers and patents. Less about creating something new, and more about finding the unknowns between a need and its solution, and creatively working through them, one by one.”
Bio: Dr. Edward J. Wang is the Jacobs Faculty Chair in Entrepreneurship Associate Professor of Design and Electrical & Computer Engineering at UC San Diego, where he directs the Digital Health Technologies Lab. His research explores practical solutions to address real-world medical needs drawn from collaborations with clinicians and world health organizations, but solved using new and creative insights that leverage state-of-the-art applied machine learning, embedded systems, and mobile sensors. He has been named an NAI Senior Member, NIH Trailblazer, Norman Design Laureate, and Google Research Scholar. He publishes in premier computer science and health science venues including ACM IMWUT, CHI, UIST, Nature Publishing, Frontiers in Digital Health, and JMIR, having been awarded 9 best paper awards. He actively engages in the translation of research through faculty entrepreneurship. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Washington and his B.S. from Harvey Mudd College.
Hosted by: Professor Christina Chung
When: Monday, April 27, 2026 from 12:30PM to 1:30PM
Location:
IN-PERSON @ SVC 3212.
Viewing room @ UCSC Main Campus, E2-280.
LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED AT BOTH LOCATIONS! Faculty and students are highly encouraged to attend.
Zoom info:
https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/91516487260?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 915 1648 7260
Passcode: [REDACTED]

AM Seminar: Machine Learning in Molecular Simulations: From Free Energy to Vibrational Spectroscopy
2026-04-27 16:00 - 17:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Marcos Calegari Andrade, Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry, UC Santa Cruz
Description: In this talk, I will demonstrate how neural networks can represent the high-dimensional potential energy surfaces of many-body systems. By achieving the accuracy of first-principles quantum calculations at a fraction of the computational cost, these models enable atomistic simulations of condensed matter at unprecedented scales. I will discuss how this approach provides a detailed lens into chemical reaction dynamics under experimentally relevant conditions and facilitates the direct calculation of observables, such as vibrational spectra, effectively bridging the gap between theoretical simulation and experimental observation.
About the speaker: Marcos Calegari Andrade is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He earned his PhD from Princeton University, where he developed machine learning models to simulate the chemistry and vibrational spectroscopy of condensed-phase systems. He later joined the Quantum Simulations Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, applying deep neural network models to fundamental challenges in climate and energy security. His current research at UCSC focuses on the application of machine learning to molecular simulations, with a particular emphasis on chemical reaction mechanisms, vibrational spectroscopy, and the development of automated simulation frameworks.
This seminar is hosted by Applied Mathematics

Statistics Seminar: Active Learning for Fair and Stable Allocations
2026-04-27 16:00 - 17:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Riddhiman Bhattacharya, Postdoc, UCSC
Description: We propose an active learning approach for dynamic fair resource allocation problems. In contrast to prior work that assumes full feedback from all agents on their allocations, we focus on scenarios where feedback is available only from a carefully select subset of agents at each epoch of the online resource allocation process. Despite this limitation, our algorithms achieve sub-linear regret in the number of time-periods for multiple fairness metrics commonly used in resource allocation problems and stability constraints inherent to matching mechanisms. The core innovation of our approach lies in the adaptive identification of the most informative feedback through dueling upper and lower confidence bounds. This strategy enables efficient decision-making with limited feedback, achieving favorable outcomes across various problem classes.
About the speaker: I am Riddhiman Bhattacharya, currently a postdoc at UCSC, Statistics Department, working with Justin (Sangwon Hyun). I have previously been a postdoc at Purdue and have obtained my PhD from the University of Minnesota in Statistics. I am interested in methodological development in statistics with varied applications including oceanography, biology and economics. I am also interested in theoretical development of statistics particularly in the fields of Markov Chain Monte Carlo, Optimization and Fast Sampling.
