Events

Fall Harvest Welcome
2025-10-18 11:00 - 15:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | UCSC Farm, 152 Farm Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join the American Indian Resource Center, People of Color Sustainability Collective, UCSC Agroecology, and the Sustainability Office for a day of fun at the Farm Center!
This Fall Harvest Welcome will be all about community building, learning about flora/fauna indigenous to Santa Cruz County, Native storytelling, and will feature a land blessing.

Harvest Festival
2025-10-18 11:00 - 15:00 | UCSC Farm, 152 Farm Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Connect with community on the campus farm at the annual Harvest Festival!

On the Main Stage:

11:12pm–12:00pm: White Hawk Indian Council for Children
12:30–1:40pm: Sambada
2–3pm: Ancestree

Activities 11-3pm

Apple pressing for cider
Pumpkin and produce sales
Apple pie baking contest (more details here)
Face painting
Pumpkin painting
Bouquet making
Tractor rides
1:45pm Medicinal Plant Walk with Darren Huckle (meet at Louise Cain Gatehouse near main stage)
and more!

UCSC’s American Indian Resource Center (AIRC) will be hosting programming in conjunction with Harvest Festival which will include:

11:10am Land Acknowledgement at the LifeLab Amphitheater before the White Hawk Dancers
12:20-12:50pm Intro to AIRC and PoCSC, ice breakers, and pie eating contest (Farm Center)
12:50-1:35pm Arts & Crafts at the Farm Center
12:50-1:35pm Farm Tour (meet at Farm Center)
2:10-2:45pm Guest Speaker and Story Telling Time (Farm Center)

Food for purchase

S&B Food Truck
Samba Rock Cafe
Taquizas Gabriel
The Penny Ice Creamery

Please do not harvest any of the crops on the farm during your visit. The crops grown on the farm feed students in need and support our research and programming. We encourage you to bring a reusable water bottle to save plastic and stay hydrated! Pets are not allowed on the UC Santa Cruz campus (with the exception of service animals). The Harvest Festival is presented by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology, the Food Systems Working Group, Measure 43 and Life Lab.

Cost: $5 for general public; free entry for current students of UCSC, Hartnell and Cabrillo College, Friends of the UCSC Farm & Garden members, and children under 12. Cash preferred at the entrance gate or you may pre-purchase an entry ticket.
Interested in volunteering at this event? Fill out our volunteer interest form!

Transportation and parking: We encourage carpooling, walking, biking, or taking the bus if you are able to! Parking will be available in UCSC Lot 104 (East Remote Lot); a complimentary shuttle will transport attendees to the back gate of the farm every 10-15 minutes. The shuttle will run from 10:45am to 3:30pm. No shuttle service in parking lots 116/117; no festival parking in Village Lot 168 except ADA parking.

Contact agroecology@ucsc.edu with questions or requests for accomodations.

Photo-Jim Clark

Festival of Monsters: Oh, the Horror!
2025-10-18 11:00 - 21:00 | Bookshop Santa Cruz
Authors Alma Katsu (Fiend), Nat Cassidy (When the Wolf Comes Home) and Gretchen McNeil (They Fear Not Men in the Woods) come together 11 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 18, at Bookshop Santa Cruz (1520 Pacific Ave., downtown Santa Cruz) for “Oh, The Horror!”, a panel where they will talk about monsters, horror, and why they write stories that scare. Professor Renée Fox of the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies moderates. RSVP for the free panel at https://bookshopsantacruz.com/2025-festival-of-monsters. Part of the 2025 Festival of Monsters public offerings. Learn more about the Center for Monster Studies here.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Registration required
—
AUDIENCE ADVISORIES
– Mature themes and content
—
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed. Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m, Museum of Art & History (MAH): David Livingstone Smith Keynote
– Thurs. Oct. 16, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Kim Lau keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Jeffery Jerome Cohen keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m, DARC 108 (No longer at the UCSC Cowell Ranch Hay Barn): Monsters Ball
– Sat. Oct. 18, 11:00 a.m, Bookshop Santa Cruz: “Oh! The Horror” Writers Panel
– Sat. Oct. 18, 2:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m, Atlantis Fantasyworld: Cole Lemke, Horror Comic Artist
– Sat. Oct. 18, 6:00 p.m, Game Santa Cruz: “Blood on the Clocktower”
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law

Festival of Monsters: Artist Cole Lemke
2025-10-18 14:00 - 17:00 | Atlantis Fantasyworld
Santa Cruz monster artist Cole Lemke will sign copies of his graphic novel Savior: The Day the Devil Saved the World from 2:00–5:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, at Atlantis Fantasyworld (1020 Cedar St., downtown Santa Cruz). Lemke is the artist behind squid banana and many of the colorful monster stickers found around town. No reservations are needed for this free event, which is part of the 2025 Festival of Monsters public days. The Festival is hosted by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies. Learn more about the Center for Monster Studies here.
—
ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
—
AUDIENCE ADVISORIES
– Mature themes and content
—
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed. Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m, Museum of Art & History (MAH): David Livingstone Smith Keynote
– Thurs. Oct. 16, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Kim Lau keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Jeffery Jerome Cohen keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m, DARC 108 (No longer at the UCSC Cowell Ranch Hay Barn): Monsters Ball
– Sat. Oct. 18, 11:00 a.m, Bookshop Santa Cruz: “Oh! The Horror” Writers Panel
– Sat. Oct. 18, 2:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m, Atlantis Fantasyworld: Cole Lemke, Horror Comic Artist
– Sat. Oct. 18, 6:00 p.m, Game Santa Cruz: “Blood on the Clocktower”
—
This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law

Festival of Monsters: Blood on the Clocktower
2025-10-18 18:00 - 19:00 | Game Santa Cruz, 1101 Cedar St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060, United States
It’s a game full of monstrous intentions. Join players 6:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, for Blood on the Clocktower at Game Santa Cruz (1101 Cedar St., downtown Santa Cruz). In this bluffing game, a demon is on the loose, murdering by night and disguised in human form by day. Some players have scraps of information. Others have abilities that fight the evil or protect the innocent. Who is the monster? One has to play to find out. Part of the 2025 Festival of Monsters, hosted by the UC Santa Cruz Center for Monster Studies. Learn more about the Center for Monster Studies here.
—
ADMISSION
– Open to the public
– Tickets $20; purchase HERE
—
AUDIENCE ADVISORIES
– Mature themes and content
—
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed. Oct. 15, 5:30 p.m, Museum of Art & History (MAH): David Livingstone Smith Keynote
– Thurs. Oct. 16, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Kim Lau keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 9:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m, UCSC Digital Arts Research Center (DARC): Conference Panels, Jeffery Jerome Cohen keynote
– Fri. Oct. 17, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m, DARC 108 (No longer at the UCSC Cowell Ranch Hay Barn): Monsters Ball
– Sat. Oct. 18, 11:00 a.m, Bookshop Santa Cruz: “Oh! The Horror” Writers Panel
– Sat. Oct. 18, 2:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m, Atlantis Fantasyworld: Cole Lemke, Horror Comic Artist
– Sat. Oct. 18, 6:00 p.m, Game Santa Cruz: “Blood on the Clocktower”
—
This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law

Trans & Queer Fall Mixer
2025-10-18 19:00 - 22:00 | Porter/Kresge Dining Hall, 411 Porter-Kresge Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The Trans & Queer Fall Mixer is UCSC’s annual welcome event for new and returning students. Join us to learn more about the Lionel Cantú Queer Resource Center and to connect with the rainbow community at UCSC and in Santa Cruz. You’ll have the opportunity to learn about resources, make new friends, and enjoy music and drag! Our hope is that you will have the opportunity to interact, build community, and experience a sense of belonging.

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.

OLLI at UCSC Sunday Speaker Series
2025-10-19 10:00 - 12:00 | Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis College Multi-purpose Room, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Julie James, Founder Jewel Theatre, presents “Jewel Theater Company: Behind the Curtain”
Hosted by OLLI at UCSC (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute). Public invited to join OLLI for a social hour and presentation.
Julie James has been a member of Actors’ Equity for 28 years and has acted and directed in several plays. She holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Santa Clara University and graduated from the Drama Studio of London at Berkeley.
OLLI at UCSC is a community of adults from diverse educational, occupational, and geographic backgrounds who are devoted to the pursuit of learning.
Come and bring a friend. Coffee and nibbles will be served. Directions and free parking information found at OLLI at UCSC, Sunday Speakers.

Innovations in Health Care Virtual Conference
2025-10-20 09:00 - 11:00
💫 Transform Healthcare with Us! 🧬🏥
🌟 5-Day Virtual Summit 2025: “Innovation, Ethics & the Next Frontier in Healthcare” 🌟
🗓️ Oct 20–24 | 9–11AM PST
💻 100% FREE | Live Online
Meet visionary leaders shaping the future of healthcare:
✨ Prof. Henry Greely
✨ Dr. James Giordano
✨ Lisa Berkley, PhD
✨ Alice Rathjen
✨ Christine Von Raesfeld
✨ Linda MacDonald Glenn, JD, LLM
🤝 Co-hosted by Krzysztof “Kris” Laudanski, President of @SHCI
Join the movement redefining innovation and ethics in modern medicine! 🌍💫
Register at https://www.linkedin.com/company/theshci/posts/
💡 #HealthTechRevolution #EthicalInnovation #FutureOfHealthcare #MedTech2025 #SHCI
🙌 Ready to be part of the change? Drop a comment below!

ECE 290 Seminar: Biohybrid Electronics Using Extracellular Electron Transfer
2025-10-20 10:40 - 11:45 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Ben Keitz, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin
Description: Qualities exhibited by living systems, including self-regulation, self-healing, morphology control, and environmental responsiveness, are highly attractive for sensing and computing applications. However, it has been challenging to develop robust and programmable interfaces between living systems and electronic components. Addressing this challenge, our lab employs techniques from microbiology, synthetic biology, and metabolic engineering to control extracellular electron transfer (EET), a form of microbial respiration in which extracellular metals and metal oxides are used as terminal electron acceptors. Using the model electroactive bacterium Shewanella oneidensis, we coopt EET to link cellular metabolism and protein expression to microelectronic device behavior. Specifically, we show that S. oneidensis can interface with organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) through specific electron transfer machinery. The inclusion of living cells endows single transistors with complex logic, short-term plasticity, and other unique properties. We also establish that S. oneidensis can interact with both p-type and n-type conducting polymers to further control transistor performance. Ultimately, our work demonstrates how unique forms of bacterial respiration can be leveraged to merge the advantages of living and traditional computation.
Bio: Benjamin (Keith) Keitz received his PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and completed his postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a native of Austin, TX and is currently an Associate Professor and the Frank A. Liddell Jr. Fellow in Chemical Engineering in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Research in the Keitz lab focuses on the engineering of electroactive bacteria and the applications of extracellular electron transfer in biocatalysis, materials synthesis, synthetic biology, and biosensing. His work has received several awards including an NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award.
Hosted by: Professor Marco Rolandi, ECE Department
Zoom Link: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/97975378707?pwd=[REDACTED]
Room: E2-192

CM Seminar - "Forty-Four Esolangs: The Art of Esoteric Code"
2025-10-20 12:30 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presented by: Daniel Temkin

Description: Software art is widely accepted, but can programming languages themselves be art? The new book Forty-Four Esolangs makes this argument, collecting work by a single artist who poses code as prayer to the Greek gods, patterns of empty folders, or typed in tandem by two programmers, the rhythm and synchrony of their typing determining commands. Temkin will share projects from the book in the context of thirty plus years of esolangs, showing the poetic possibilities of this medium.
Bio: Daniel Temkin makes photographic and computational art exploring logic and human irrationality. He began interviewing other esolangers and code artists in 2011, creating the blog esoteric.codes. ZKM exhibited the blog and commissioned videos of Temkin explaining esolang history for their Open Codes show in 2018–19. Esoteric.codes earned an ArtsWriters.org grant and a residency at New Museum’s NEW INC, the first museum-led cultural incubator. Temkin has written about esolangs for Hyperallergic and Leonardo, and his aesthetic theory of the form was published by Digital Humanities Quarterly. You can see his work at danieltemkin.com.
Hosted by: Professor Katherine Isbister
When: Monday, October 20 from 12:30PM to 1:30PM
Location:
IN-PERSON @ UCSC Main Campus, E2-280.
Viewing room @ SVC 3212.
LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED AT BOTH LOCATIONS! Faculty and students are highly encouraged to attend.

Zoom info:
https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/94577724433?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 945 7772 4433
Passcode: [REDACTED]

AM Seminar: Sampling-Based Adaptive Rank Integrators for Multi-scale Kinetic Models.
2025-10-20 16:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Professor Jingmei Qiu, University of Delaware

Description: In this talk, we introduce a sampling-based semi-Lagrangian adaptive rank (SLAR) method, which leverages a cross approximation strategy—also known as CUR or pseudo-skeleton decomposition—to efficiently represent low-rank structures in kinetic solutions. The method dynamically adapts the rank of the solution while ensuring numerical stability through singular value truncation and mass-conservative projections. By combining the advantages of semi-Lagrangian integration with low-rank approximations, SLAR enables significantly larger time steps compared to conventional methods and is extended to nonlinear systems such as the Vlasov-Poisson equations using a Runge-Kutta exponential integrator. Building on this framework, we further develop the SLAR method for the multi-scale BGK equation, introducing an asymptotically accurate approach that eliminates the need for low-rank decompositions of the local Maxwellian in the collision operator. To enforce conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, we propose a novel locally macroscopic conservative (LoMaC) technique, which discretizes the macroscopic system using high-order DIRK methods. Additionally, a dynamic closure strategy is employed to self-consistently adjust macroscopic moments, enabling robust simulations across both kinetic and hydrodynamic regimes, even in the presence of shocks and discontinuities. We validate our method through extensive benchmark tests on linear advection, unto 3D3V nonlinear Vlasov-Poisson, and multi-scale kinetic problems, demonstrating its accuracy, stability, and computational efficiency. The Sampling-Based Adaptive Rank framework offers a promising pathway for overcoming the curse of dimensionality in high-dimensional multi-scale kinetic problems.

Bio: Dr. Jingmei Qiu is a Unidel Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on the design, analysis, and application of high-order structure-preserving computational algorithms for complex systems characterized by multi-scale, multi-physics, and high-dimensional features. Dr. Qiu’s work includes developing low-rank tensor approximations for high-dimensional, time-dependent problems with structure preservation, as well as Eulerian-Lagrangian high-order numerical methods for fluid and kinetic applications.

Hosted by: Professor Julie Simons

Statistics Seminar: Distance-to-set regularization for inference under constraints
2025-10-20 16:00 - 17:00
Presenter: Jason Xu, Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, UCLA
Description: We consider a penalty framework based on regularizing the squared distance to set-based constraints for several core statistical tasks. These distance-to-set penalties provide a simple and flexible way to cast constrained optimization problems in more tractable unconstrained forms. We will see that they often avoid drawbacks that arise from popular alternatives such as shrinkage methods. We discuss a general strategy for eliciting effective algorithms in this framework using majorization-minimization (MM), the general principle behind EM that transfers difficult problems onto a sequence of more manageable subproblems. We showcase new progress on classical problems including sparse covariance estimation using this approach, and discuss connections to Bayesian inference. In particular, analogous ideas lead to constraint relaxation and generalized profile likelihood to include optimization subproblems, leading to methods that are amenable to gradient-based posterior computation.
Bio: Jason Xu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of California Los Angeles. Before joining the faculty at UCLA, he was a faculty member in the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Xu’s research program focuses on stochastic modeling and computational challenges in dynamic, dependent, and missing data settings, and he contributes tools at the interface of optimization and Bayesian approaches
Hosted by: Professor Paul Parker

Screening: Cracking the Code
2025-10-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Landmark’s Del Mar Theatre
Please join us for a public screening of “Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution” at the Landmark Theater on Monday, October 20. The screening will start at 7pm, with a panel discussion hosted by the UCSC RNA Center to follow.
This powerful new documentary chronicles Nobel Laureate Phil Sharp’s discovery of RNA splicing, a breakthrough that ignited the biotechnology revolution and continues to shape the future of medicine and innovation worldwide. Our city was chosen for a special screening of this film in recognition of UC Santa Cruz’s long-standing leadership in RNA research and its pivotal contributions to understanding RNA metabolism.
Register to attend
More than a film, this evening is an opportunity to reflect on Santa Cruz’s place in the future of biotechnology and life sciences innovation. After the screening, we will host a panel discussion themed “Why Not Santa Cruz?”—exploring how our region, with its scientific excellence in RNA and Genomics, entrepreneurial spirit, and vibrant community, might cultivate the next generation of discoveries, companies, and partnerships.
We expect a lively exchange among scientists, community leaders, philanthropists, and innovation builders about how Santa Cruz can play a greater role in shaping the next wave of biotech breakthroughs.
View trailer here

CITRIS Aviation Prize Information Session
2025-10-21 12:00 - 13:00
Join us for this virtual info session on the 2025–26 CITRIS Aviation Prize, an exciting multi-campus student competition inviting teams to design innovative solutions for the future of air mobility across the University of California.
The session will cover this year’s competition guidelines, key dates and requirements, and available resources. Attendees will also have the opportunity for Q&A with members of the CITRIS Aviation Leadership Committee, composed of aviation research faculty from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Merced, and UC Santa Cruz.
Register here to attend.
For any questions, contact aviationprize@citris-uc.org.

Date: Tuesday, October 21
Time: 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Location: Zoom (register to attend).

Joshua McFadden, Six Seasons of Pasta
2025-10-21 19:00 - 20:00 | Hay Barn, 94 Ranch View Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Bookshop Santa Cruz welcomes James Beard Award-winning author Joshua McFadden for a discussion and signing of his highly anticipated new cookbook Six Seasons of Pasta. In his follow-up to Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables, McFadden teaches home cooks how to use storebought dried pasta to create seasonal, restaurant-quality dishes at home.
Get tickets

CSE Colloquium - The C++11 Concurrency Memory Model: Remaining Challenges
2025-10-22 11:00 - 12:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Hans Boehm, Google
Abstract: C++11 extended the language to include threads, defining a concurrency memory model to specify the semantics of shared variables, including “atomic” variables that can be accessed without mutual exclusion. Although this followed Posix threads by more than a decade, and the revision of the Java memory model by a few years, it still helped to resolve some very fundamental points of confusion about the semantics and validity of compiler optimizations in multi-threaded programs. The C definition largely copied it, and several other programming languages and systems, as well as later versions of Java, built on it.
These shared variable semantics provide a clean solution for concurrent programming for which a small amount of extra synchronization-related overhead is acceptable. However, C++ programmers pride themselves in squeezing out the last bit of performance, even if it involves living on the edge. Although the C++ memory model attempts to address those cases, issues remain. In particular, so-called “relaxed” atomics do not have clean semantics, for reasons that appear more and more fundamental. And the discovery that well-motivated hardware characteristics are incompatible with the original model required complicating it. On the other hand, hardware improvements have greatly reduced the need for the now deprecated “memory_order_consume” facility.
We’ll start with an overview of the C++ memory model, and then outline some of the remaining challenges. We’ll give an example to illustrate why “memory_order_relaxed”, which attempts to just expose machine load and store instructions, is inherently much harder to define at the programming language level than it is at the hardware level.
Bio: Hans Boehm works primarily on concurrency issues in the Android platform. He was the initial chair of the ISO C++ Concurrency Study Group, where he led the addition of threads and associated concurrency semantics to the language. He occasionally gets sidetracked into other topics, including work on arithmetic in the Google Calculator app.

Hans is best known as the original primary author of bdwgc, a garbage collector for C. He has published extensively on memory management and concurrent programming. He holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University. He is a former chair of ACM SIGPLAN, an ACM Fellow, and the recipient of the 2020 ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award.
Hosted by: Professor Mohsen Lesani
Location: Engineering 2, E2-180
*Refreshments such as coffee and pastries will be provided.
Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93445911992?pwd=[REDACTED]

Enoughness in the Age of Comparison
2025-10-22 12:00 - 13:00
What does “enough” look like in your life—and who gets to decide? In a world that constantly pushes us to do, earn, and be more, this webinar invites you to pause and reflect. Join a panel of UC alumni and financial wellness experts for a meaningful conversation about redefining financial success—not as accumulation, but as alignment with your personal values. Discover practical strategies for building a life of sufficiency, intention, and peace of mind.
Hosted by UC Alumni Career Network, and open to UC alumni at all career stages.

Penumbra de la memoria: Brown Bag with Maya Scherr-Willson
2025-10-22 12:00 - 13:00 | Huerta Center Conference Room (Casa Latina), 641 Merrill Rd, Santa Cruz,, CA, 95064
During this presentation, Maya Scherr-Willson (PhD Student in the Film and Media Department) will show material and reflect on insights from a research trip that laid the groundwork for Penumbra de la memoria, a feature documentary to be shot this summer. The project reunites eight women fifty years after they were held as political prisoners together during Argentina’s last military dictatorship to film an adaptation from memory of their prison-era performance of The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca. The group, engaged in collective work, will be the protagonist of the film that chronicles the political memory that erupts through their creative process.

These Hands Heal: Growing, Planting, and Understanding
2025-10-22 13:00 - 16:00 | College 9 & John R. Lewis College Garden
As part of Relationship, Dating, and Domestic Violence Awareness/Action Month (RDDVAM), all UC Santa Cruz students, staff, and faculty are invited to plant seeds and paint messages of support for survivors—or reflections for themselves. Then, place these seeds and stones of resilience in your own gardens or shared green spaces for others to discover. Art supplies, snacks, and community provided — co-sponsored by College 9’s CoCurricular Programs Office.

Global Cafe (Hosted by Global Engagement)
2025-10-22 14:00 - 16:00 | Classroom Unit, Classroom Unit, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, Select a Country:
Global Engagement invites you to join us for our monthly Global Cafe. Come swing by our office for some refreshments, meet new people, and share international stories with fellow students, staff, and faculty members.
No RSVP required. If you have any questions, please contact us at iprogramming@ucsc.edu

BME 280B Seminar: Computational Models of Biological Systems
2025-10-23 11:40 - 13:15 | Physical Sciences Building, Physical Sciences Building, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Chen-Hsiang Yeang, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Statistical Science of Academia Sinica
Description: Computational models are roughly categorized into two types: describing the patterns of the phenomenon or data (description-driven models) and explaining the phenomenon or data with simpler, comprehensible rules (explanation-driven models). When building a model, the choice of the mixture ingredients of these two classes depends on the nature of the problem, availability of the knowledge and data of the underlying system. In this talk, I will give an overview of five models with varying combinations of descriptive and explanatory elements on different biological problems. First, I will introduce a joint model to capture irreversible and reversible drug resistance mechanisms of cancers and a dynamic treatment strategy to tackle drug resistance. Second, I will introduce a backward deconvolution algorithm based on probabilistic graphical models to unravel the cell type heterogeneity of the RNASeq data. Third, I will introduce a deep neural network model to integrate direct and indirect associations of genotypes and images with phenotypes. Fourth, I will introduce an experimental and computational framework to predict protein stability and discover motifs at C-terminals. Fifth, I will introduce three algorithms to demarcate independent holes of specified dimensions in large networks. These works illustrate how “model selection” should be tailored for specific biological problems.
Bio: Chen-Hsiang Yeang is currently an associate research fellow at the Institute of Statistical Science of Academia Sinica. His research interests focus on several areas in computational biology and data science: 1) cancer genomics, 2) cancer treatment, 3) molecular evolution, 4) network topology, and 5) machine learning.
Hosted by: Professor Josh Stuart, BME Department
Room: PSB-240

Elevator Pitch Competition
2025-10-23 12:00 - 13:00
Are you ready to showcase your communication and persuasion skills? We’re excited to invite you to our Elevator Pitch Competition, where you’ll have the chance to:

Craft and practice concise, compelling, personal pitches that highlight your skills, experiences, and career aspirations – key for acing interviews!
Deliver a 60-second pitch that wows the judges.
Compete for amazing prizes, including gift cards, exclusive networking opportunities, & company swag.
Gain valuable feedback and insight into sales from industry professionals.

Prizes: $100 Amazon Gift Card and company swag!
This is your chance to show off your skills, connect with recruiters, and learn more about our exciting full-time sales opportunities!
Space is limited, so don’t miss out! If you have questions, feel free to reach out!
Snacks provided!
We can’t wait to see how you pitch!

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.

A Conversation on Black Ecologies
2025-10-23 12:00 - 13:15 | Rachel Carson College, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join the Sociology Department together with the Center for Critical Urban & Environmental Studies (CUES), The Black Geographies Lab, and Critical Race and Ethic Studies in the Rachel Carson College Red Room, to welcome speakers Tianna Bruno and Justin Hosbey (UC Berkeley) for a conversation on Black Ecologies.
Tianna Bruno is an Assistant Professor of Geography at UC Berkeley.
Justin Hosbey is an Assistant Professor of City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley.
Lindsey Dillon is an Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz.
This event is part of a series co-sponsored by the Center for Critical Urban & Environmental Studies (CUES) together with the Sociology Department, The Black Geographies Lab, and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies.

Behavioral, Econometrics and Theory Seminar Series Presents: Kevin Chen
2025-10-23 13:40 - 15:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Economics Behavioral, Econometrics, & Theory Seminar
Date: Thursday, October 23, 2025
Time: 1:40-3:00 p.m.
Location: Engineering 2, Rm 499

Speaker: Kevin Chen
Title: Assistant Professor of Economics
Affiliation: Stanford University
Host: Michael Leung

Seminar title: Compound Selection Decisions: An Almost SURE Approach

ABSTRACT: This paper proposes methods for producing compound selection decisions in a Gaussian sequence model. Given unknown, fixed parameters µ_{1:n} and known σ_{1:n} with observations Yᵢ ∼ 𝒩(μᵢ, σᵢ²), the aim is to select a subset of units S to maximize utility Σ_{i∈S}(μᵢ − Kᵢ) for known costs Kᵢ. Inspired by Stein’s unbiased risk estimate (SURE), we introduce an almost unbiased estimator, ASSURE, for the expected utility of a proposed decision rule. ASSURE allows a user to choose a welfare-maximizing rule from a pre-specified class by optimizing the estimated welfare, thereby producing selection decisions that borrow strength across noisy estimates. We show that ASSURE yields decision rules that are asymptotically no worse than the optimal but infeasible rule in the pre-specified class. We apply ASSURE to p-value decision procedures in A/B testing, selecting Census tracts for economic opportunity, and identifying discriminating firms.

Robots that Know What They Do Not Know: Assured AI-enabled Autonomy in Unknown Environments
2025-10-23 14:00 - 15:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Speaker: Yiannis Kantaros, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Systems Engineering at WashU in St. Louis.
Title: Robots that Know What They Do Not Know: Assured AI-enabled Autonomy in Unknown Environments.
Time: Thursday, Oct 23rd, 2025, 2:00-3:00 pm.
Location: E2-553 or Zoom.
Abstract: Designing robots that navigate unfamiliar environments to execute natural language (NL) commands is a cornerstone of advanced embodied intelligence. While recent AI-enabled architectures have made impressive empirical progress, they often lack introspection, leading to systems that act with unwarranted confidence, unaware of their own limitations or whether they have successfully completed their tasks. As a result, these systems offer limited performance and safety guarantees, restricting their deployment in safety-critical settings.
In this talk, I will present an introspective, neuro-symbolic autonomy architecture that enables robots to complete NL tasks in unknown environments with assurance guarantees by explicitly quantifying their own uncertainty using uncertainty quantification (UQ) tools. The neural component employs large language models (LLMs) to translate NL commands into temporal logic specifications, while leveraging conformal prediction, a UQ tool, to calibrate and quantify prediction uncertainty arising from LLM imperfections and potential NL ambiguity. When uncertainty exceeds user-defined thresholds, uncertainty-aware feedback is solicited from auxiliary LLMs—or, if necessary, from human operators. We provide theoretical guarantees, supported by empirical case studies, that the proposed uncertainty-aware translation framework, called ConformalNL2LTL, achieves user-specified translation success rates under certain distributional settings. The symbolic component generates plans for mobile robots with AI-enabled perception systems to satisfy temporal logic tasks while explicitly reasoning over perceptual and environmental uncertainty. This allows robots to decide when to proceed confidently and when to actively gather additional sensor data, ensuring task completion with the desired probability. Notably, the developed planners are agnostic to specific sensor models or noise characteristics. The talk will conclude with case studies and demonstrations, followed by a discussion of limitations and open problems.
Speaker Bio: Yiannis Kantaros is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), St. Louis, MO, USA. He earned a Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2012 from the University of Patras, Greece, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University, Durham, NC, in 2017 and 2018, respectively. Prior to joining WashU, he was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. His current research interests include machine learning, distributed control and optimization, and formal methods with applications in robotics. He received the Best Student Paper Award at the 2nd IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP) in 2014 and was a finalist for the Best Multi-Robot Systems Paper at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in 2024 and a finalist for the Best Paper Award at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-physical Systems (CPSWeek-ICCPS) in 2025. He also received the 2017-18 Outstanding Dissertation Research Award from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University and a 2024 NSF CAREER Award.

Wiki-a-thon Supporting BIPOC Scientists
2025-10-23 14:00 - 17:00 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join us for an afternoon of creating and editing pages for BIPOC scientists, engineers, and technologists! Wikipedia overwhelmingly recognizes the achievements of white people. This wiki-a-thon works to reverse this trend, highlighting the often overlooked accomplishments of BIPOC leaders in science and technology, and ensuring that the next generation can see role models who look like them.
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY – RSVPs appreciated
We will provide a list of scientists who don’t yet have pages, or you can come up with your own! The event will begin with a short training on how to edit Wikipedia, followed by time to write your own article on a scientist, engineer, or technologist of your choice.
When: Thursday, October 23 from 2-5pm. Come for the whole time or just an hour or two!
Where: E2-506 and Zoom (RSVP for link)
Who: All students, faculty, and staff are welcome to attend!
Snacks and drinks will be provided!
Read more about our inspiration.

College Night: 831 Night Market
2025-10-23 17:00 - 20:00 | Cowell/Stevenson Dining Hall, 520 Cowell-Stevenson Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Cowell and Stevenson Colleges, in collaboration with UCSC Dining, present the first College Night of the year! Join us Thursday, October 23, from 5–8 p.m. at the Cowell/Stevenson 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.
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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

From Campus to Career - Tara Hernandez VP, Developer Productivity at MongoDB
2025-10-23 17:30 - 19:00
Join us this October 23rd for an enlightening conversation with Tara Hernandez, VP of Developer Productivity at MongoDB!
In this casual conversation, Tara will share lessons learned from their illustrious career in software engineering infrastructure. With stints at companies like Netscape, Mozilla, Pixar, Google, MongoDB, and more, you’ll come away with some highly useful insight on how to navigate a successful career in tech!
This is an excellent opportunity to gain valuable perspective from a fellow Slug that has an extraordinary real world perspective.
Don’t miss this highly informative talk!
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.

Mary Roach - Replaceable You
2025-10-23 19:00 - 20:00 | London Nelson Community Center, 301 Center St., Santa Cruz, United States
Bookshop Santa Cruz welcomes #1 New York Times bestselling author Mary Roach for a discussion about Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy. In this irrepressible new work, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings. When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina?

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available–sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet? Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you. This event is cosponsored by The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz.
Mary Roach is the author of seven best-selling works of nonfiction, including Grunt, Stiff, and, most recently, Fuzz. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications. She lives in California.

Science & Justice Training Program Informational Meeting
2025-10-24 14:00 - 15:00 | Register at: https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u6h-cJvDQBiscaNIJpzVUw
Join the Science & Justice Research Center on Friday, October 24th at 2PM on Zoom for an Informational Meeting on our internationally recognized interdisciplinary Graduate Training and Certificate Program.
Register at: https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u6h-cJvDQBiscaNIJpzVUw.
Our Science & Justice Training Program (SJTP) is a globally unique initiative that trains doctoral students to work across the disciplinary boundaries of the natural and social sciences, engineering, humanities and the arts. Through the SJTP we at UC Santa Cruz currently teach new generations of PhD students the skills of interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical deliberation, and public communication. Students in the program design collaborative research projects oriented around questions of science and justice. These research projects not only contribute to positive outcomes in the wider world, they also become the templates for new forms of problem-based and collaborative inquiry within and beyond the university.
As SJTP students graduate they take the skills and experience they gained in the training program into the next stage of their career in universities, industry, non-profits, and government.
Opportunities include graduate Certificate Program, experience organizing and hosting colloquia series about the research projects, mentorship, potential for additional research funding and training in conducting interdisciplinary research at the intersections of science and society.
WINTER 2026 / WINTER 2027 COURSE SERIES:
Science & Justice: Experiments in Collaboration, taught by Associate Professor of Critical Race Science and Technology Studies Kriti Sharma is scheduled for Tuesday’s 1:00-4:00 pm. Science and Justice Research Seminar will be offered in Winter 2027. Enrollment in the courses is required for participating in the Training Program. Attending the informational meeting is strongly encouraged, but not required.
Students from all disciplines are encouraged to attend. Prior graduate fellows have come from every campus Division and have represented 24 departments.
Past collaborative research projects have included:

Physicists working with small scale farmers to develop solar greenhouses scaled to local farming needs.
Colloquia about the social and political consequences of scientific uncertainties surrounding topics such as climate change research, food studies, genomics and identity.
Examining how art can empower justice movements.
Working with local publics to improve African fishery science.

For more information on the Science & Justice Training Program, visit: https://scijust.ucsc.edu/about-sjrc/sjtp/.
