Events

Visiting Theater Artists 2-Day Residency with Torange Yeghiazarian and Evren Odcikin from MENA
2025-11-12 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Digital Arts Research Center, 407 McHenry Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Visiting theater artists from MENA Theater Makers Alliance—Torange Yeghiazarian and Evren Odcikin—and the Department of Performance, Play & Design’s IRIS LAB invite attendees to participate in the 2-day residency, including a conversation with the artists and a workshop. MENA’s mission is to amplify the voices of Middle Eastern and North African theater makers and expand how stories from and about these communities are told on U.S. stages.
Wed. Nov. 12, 3:00 p.m.–4:30 p.m.
DARC 108 (Digital Arts Research Center at UC Santa Cruz)
“MENA Theater Makers Modeling Possibility and Resistance”
– An Intergenerational conversation with Playwright, Director, Arts Leader Torange Yeghiazarian and Director, Playwright, and Arts Leader Evren Odcikin
– Moderated by Lisa Marie Rollins, Assistant Professor of Playwriting & Black Drama, Department of Performance Play and Design and Artistic Director of The Iris Lab
– This event will be live streamed for those who would prefer to attend online.
Thur. Nov 13, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
DARC 108 (Digital Arts Research Center at UC Santa Cruz)
“Master Class: Theatrical Play, Staging Language and Poetry Creative workshop”
– for theater makers and interdisciplinary performance researchers with Torange Yeghiazarian and Evren Odcikin .
ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– Donations to the IRIS LAB are welcomed and appreciated
– Registration required
– Wed. Nov 12: live streamed on Howlround Theater Commons; use THIS LINK to stream and join online.
– Thu. Nov 13: registration is required for the Master Class/Workshop; Register online here
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 members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Words That Impress: Creating a Great Résumé & Cover Letter
2025-11-12 12:15 - 13:15 | Career Success Student Lounge (125 Hahn), 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
Crafting a fantastic Resume and Cover Letter are the key to getting an interview and landing a job! Join us for this informative workshop that will cover best practices for resume and cover letter development. You’ll gain understanding about the perfect format, navigating AI filters, and how to write captivating resume bullet points and engaging cover letter paragraphs. The presentation will be 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of optional worktime here in our office with coaches to give you brief input.
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.

Road Trip! Light in the American West, from Baja to the Yukon
2025-11-12 12:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-11 12:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-10 12:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-08 12:00 - 17:00, 2025-11-07 12:00 - 17:00 | Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery, 11 Cowell Service Rd, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The photographs in this exhibition, made between 2004 and 2025, span across the American West from the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico to The Yukon territory in Canada. Paul Schoellhamer’s (Cowell ‘69) color photographs invite us to travel with him and reflect on our relationship to land, the light that shapes it, and the freedom – contested but essential – to move across it.
The exhibition draws on voices across time and perspective that frame the American landscape as more than a stage for beauty and awe. For Chief Satanta of the Kiowa Nation, to roam the land freely was life itself. For N. Scott Momaday, land must be “believed to be seen.” For Eliot Porter, light and reflection imparted magic to Glen Canyon’s waters. For Wallace Stegner, saving natural places meant saving fragments of our collective sanity. For Brook M. Thompson, the Klamath River is recognized with personhood. Alongside these perspectives, Paul’s images press us to see public land not as scenery to extract or aestheticize, but as sustenance and history. Land is alive and contested. To see closely is not to linger on a romanticized vision of the American landscape, but to reckon with responsibility: how we safeguard access, how we imagine “wildness,” and how we hold space for futures beyond our own. For Paul, this exhibition is a call for students to encounter land and light firsthand and let those encounters be their teachers.
Opening Reception
October 4, 2025
1-4pm
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Join us every Friday for Art Fridays.
No experience necessary. Supplies and snacks provided.

Sep 26 Snail Mail/Postcards
Oct 3 Souvenir Keychains
Oct 10 Stamp Magnets
Oct 17 Cyanotype Totebags/Pouches/Pencil cases
Oct 24 Candy Around The World Linocuts
Oct 31 Abstract Felt Collages
Nov 7 Phone Photos/Buttons
Nov 14 Travel Related Patches With Upcycled Materials
Nov 21 Thanksgiving Break! No Art Friday
Nov 28 Unexpected Landscape Surrealist Collage

Please note that the date and the project is subject to change.

Neolithic by Sea: the social ecology of the spread of farming in the Adriatic - a view from Dalmatia
2025-11-12 12:00 - 13:00 | Social Sciences 1, Social Sciences 1, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Prof. Sarah B. McClure (UC Santa Barbara) will present Neolithic by Sea: the social ecology of the spread of farming in the Adriatic – a view from Dalmatia at the Archaeology and Biological Anthropology (Arch/BioAnth) Lunch Talk on Wednesday, November 12th at noon in 261, Social Sciences 1.
Presentation Abstract: The last 20 years of research have provided new insights on Mesolithic foragers and early Neolithic farmers in the Adriatic. Excavations, material analyses, and the application of new methodologies have characterized a diversity of late Mesolithic and early Neolithic lifeways and the role of trans-Adriatic interactions for the spread of farming. Discoveries of underwater sites have also highlighted some of the taphonomic challenges for Mesolithic and Neolithic sites presented by post-glacial environmental change. This presentation highlights our current understanding of the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition in the Adriatic and the roles played by foraging populations, social interactions, and environment for the spread of farming beginning 8,000 years ago. Our research on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia seeks to characterize Neolithic farming societies and ultimately explore the processes underlying the eventual dominance of domestic plant and animal-based subsistence in the region.
About the Presenter: Sarah B. McClure is a Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Mediterranean Prehistory and Paleoecology Laboratory, and Associate Dean in the Division of Undergraduate Education at UC Santa Barbara. She is also a National Geographic Explorer and Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project and UCSB.

Work for California - Your State Career
2025-11-12 12:00 - 13:00
The Work for California — Your State Career presentation will give you an opportunity to learn about the benefits of California state service, the range of career opportunities with the State of California, and the process for searching and applying for state jobs. We will provide resources and be here to answer your questions. Join this session to learn why you should work for California’s largest employer and make an impact. The session will be led by Anthony Bonilla, a Recruitment Analyst from the CA State Parks.

Hosted by UC Alumni Career Network, and open to UC alumni at all career stages.

Engineering Teaching Community (Faculty)
2025-11-12 12:00 - 13:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
During the chaos of a quarter, is it hard to find time to reflect and improve as an instructor? Would you like to be a part of an inclusive, supportive group of engineering instructors who do this in community? ETC is for sharing teaching experiences, classroom ideas, research on learning, and methods that support instructors and students. All are welcome, and lunch is provided. Please reach out to Jenny Quynn with questions.

Research Lunch & Learn: Research Development Explained, or How to Get Grants Funded
2025-11-12 12:00
Join members of the UCSC Research Development (RD) team as they discuss how they work in advance and alongside their colleagues in the Office of Sponsored Projects to ensure PIs submit the most compelling and competitive proposals.
Engage early with RD to develop long-term fundraising strategies, build interdisciplinary teams, interact with sponsors, and project manage large grant submissions. As sponsor deadlines approach, RD can help with templates fo
r proposal components, sharing successful proposals, aligning proposal content with solicitations, and reviewing drafts. We will review our services, timelines, and how best to work with the RD team.
Presenters: Molly McCarthy (RD Director); Mark Snyder, Eva Hrabeta-Robinson, Nick Sizemore (RD Specialists); and Cindy Ziker (Education Grants & Evaluation Specialist)

Join Zoom Meeting:
https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/96141024228?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 961 4102 4228
Passcode: [REDACTED]
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One tap mobile
+16694449171,,96141024228#,,,,*[REDACTED]# US
+16699006833,,96141024228#,,,,*[REDACTED]# US (San Jose)

CSE Colloquium - Neurosymbolic AI: from research to industry
2025-11-12 11:00 - 12:15 | Engineering 2, Engineering 2 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Luis Lamb, Catholic Institute of Technology

Abstract:
Neurosymbolic AI brings together the statistical nature of machine learning with the formal reasoning capabilities of symbolic AI. It seeks to offer a balanced approach to contemporary AI technologies, by combining the ability to learn from data, with the capacity to reason upon knowledge acquired from an environment. The main criticism of neural machine learning lies in its lack of explainability and semantics, which are key requirements in safety-critical applications, yet inherent strengths of logic-based methods. Recently, several corporations have publicly announced products and technologies grounded in neurosymbolic AI methodologies. This talk provided a concise review of the foundations, frameworks and tools underlying neurosymbolic AI, along with illustrative applications. It concludes by highlighting current trends and research directions in the field.

Bio:
Luis Lamb is Professor of Computer Science and Vice President of Research at the Catholic Institute of Technology. His research interests include: Artificial Intelligence, Neurosymbolic AI, Innovation Strategies, and Applied Logics. Lamb has co-authored two research monographs, including Neural-Symbolic Cognitive Reasoning, with d’Avila Garcez and Gabbay (Springer 2009). He organized two Dagstuhl Seminars on Neursymbolic AI, published widely in AI, and has worked in the area for over 20 years. Lamb also has extensive experience leading research planning, strategy, and university wide research & infrastructure grant applications, and strategic academic-industry partnerships. He has been a Professor in Brazil and has experience in industry as a former Senior Manager of AI and Machine Learning at Boeing. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Imperial College London and an MBA from MIT.

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]

Visual & Media Cultures Colloquium (VMCC) Series
2025-11-12 00:00 | Porter College, D-Building, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The Visual & Media Cultures Colloquium (VMCC) is an annual lecture series that brings cutting-edge scholars to speak on a broad range of subjects related to visual and media culture. The series is co-sponsored with the graduate programs in the History of Art & Visual Culture (HAVC) and the Film & Digital Media departments. Each year, the students and a faculty coordinator are responsible for selecting, inviting and hosting speakers from a list of suggested names submitted by their peers and HAVC faculty. Together they share the unique challenge and opportunity of creating a program that brings to campus an array of cutting-edge scholars to speak on a broad spectrum of subjects.
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ADMISSION
– Open seating/admission (no ticket or registration required)
– FREE and open to the public.
– Refer to individual event listings for more information.
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
– Wed., Nov 12, 4:00 p.m.: Book Talk with Winnie Wong
– Additional event dates to be announced
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Drop-In Figure Drawing
2025-11-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Elena Baskin Visual Arts Center, Baskin Service Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Drop-In Draw provides a live model and room monitor. There is no formal lesson and only dry media is allowed (no paints).
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ADVISORIES
– These events contain mature content and nudity.
– Drop-In Draw is subject to the possibility of last-minute cancellation without notification, and sessions are not guaranteed.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
– UCSC Art Department Room L-101
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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
This series occurs weekly on Tuesday evenings during fall quarter, including the following:
– Tue., Sep. 30, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Oct. 7, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Oct. 14, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Oct. 21, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Oct. 28, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Nov. 4, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Nov. 18, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
– Tue., Nov. 25, 7:00–9:00 p.m.
Additional dates to be announced for winter and spring quarter.
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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 members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

CANCELLED - November Slugs and Steins with Associate Professor Mircea Teodorescu
2025-11-10 18:30 - 20:00
Slugs & Steins is a monthly series of informal discussions highlighting UC Santa Cruz’s amazing faculty members. Talks are held on the 2nd Monday of each month with topics ranging from organic artichokes to endangered zebras, self-driving cars to Shakespeare.
All are welcome, and audience participation is encouraged. We encourage you to share the link far and wide as slugs and friends from around the world may join us.
This month, we welcome Associate Professor Mircea Teodorescu.

AM Seminar: Structure-Preserving Discretizations and their Applications
2025-11-10 16:00 - 17:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Presenter: Andy Wan, Assistant Professor, University of California, Merced

Description: Many models from science and engineering possess fundamental structures which are important to preserve in order for accurate and stable long-term predictions. For instance, preserving conserved quantities, such as energy, mass and momentum, are fundamental in many physical systems. Moreover, preserving dissipative quantities, such as entropy or Lyapunov functions, are also essential for predicting correct asymptotic limits. In this talk, we will survey a recent new class of conservative and dissipation-preserving integrators, called the Discrete Multiplier Method (DMM). We will discuss various applications to many-body systems, geodesic flow, and particle methods in fluids and kinetic models. Moreover, we will introduce Conservative Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, which utilizes DMM to improve sampling efficacy of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo for high dimensional target distributions. If time permits, we will also discuss how structure-preservation in scientific machine learning can improve long-term predictions and be amenable to error analysis on accuracy bounds.

Bio: Andy Wan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of California, Merced (UC Merced). Prior to joining UC Merced in 2024, he received his Ph.D. from Polytechnique Montreal, and was a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University and later an assistant professor at the University of Northern British Columbia. His research interests are in numerical analysis, scientific computing, and scientific machine learning. He focuses on structure-preserving discretizations, specifically in the theory and development of conservative and dissipation-preserving integrators, as well as their applications to mathematical sciences, computational statistics and scientific machine learning. He is currently a co-investigator of the 2024-2027 Collaborative Research Group on “Structure-Preserving Discretizations and their Applications”, supported by the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS). He has also recently co-organized a summer school and hackathon event on “Structure-Preserving Scientific Computing and Machine Learning”, supported by NSF and PIMS.

Hosted by: Professor Julie Simons

Nguyen, R. (BMEB) - Development of Computational Methods for Reliable Genetic Identification of Forensic Samples
2025-11-10 13:00 - 15:00
Advances in sequencing technologies have enabled the recovery of genetic data from minimal, contaminated, and highly degraded samples, overcoming long-standing barriers in forensic analysis. Nevertheless, many evidentiary samples still yield poor-quality DNA that is unconducive to PCR amplification of short tandem repeats (STRs), microarray genotyping, or deep sequencing necessary for accurate, complete genotype calls.
This dissertation addresses these challenges through the development of computational methods for reliable identity analysis of forensic samples. First, I present IBDGem, a fast and robust computational procedure for detecting identity-by-descent (IBD) regions by comparing low-coverage sequence data from an unknown sample against SNP genotype calls from a known individual. Using data from the 1000 Genomes Project and a panel of 8 rootless hairs, I demonstrate that IBDGem can detect relatedness segments at 1x coverage and achieve high-confidence identifications with as little as 0.01x coverage.
The next part of my thesis examines the characteristics of DNA derived from single, rootless hairs and evaluates their potential as a source of forensic genetic information. Analyses of 80 rootless hair samples reveal DNA fragmentation patterns associated with endonuclease-mediated degradation and nucleosome positioning. This chapter also shows that even short segments of rootless hair shafts can yield adequate sequence data to generate statistical support for or against identity.
Finally, I present a comprehensive analysis of IBDGem’s performance across a range of data conditions and program settings. I find that IBDGem is robust to moderate input errors and can identify the major contributor in two-person mixtures. The method also reliably distinguishes self-comparisons from close-relative comparisons, and remains effective even when limited to 94 target SNPs in the ForenSeq assay. Overall, these findings establish IBDGem as a practical tool for analyzing trace DNA evidence when conventional methods are unsuccessful.
Event Host: Remy Nguyen, Ph.D. Candidate, Biomolecular Engineering & Bioinformatics
Advisor: Ed Green

Zoom- https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/91522009894?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode- 854645

Family Weekend 2025
2025-11-09 09:00 - 11:00, 2025-11-08 08:00 - 20:00, 2025-11-07 13:00 - 21:00
We’re excited to announce Nov. 7-9 as the dates for UCSC’s second annual Family Weekend, bringing families together to experience UC Santa Cruz’s vibrant campus life and community spirit. The weekend will offer engaging activities, informative sessions, and opportunities to connect with faculty, staff, and fellow families.
For more details, visit the Family Weekend webpage.

Welcome to the City: Sacramento
2025-11-08 09:00 - 13:00 | Camp Pollock, 1501 Northgate Blvd, Sacramento, CA, 95815, United States
Join us for Welcome to the City in Sacramento, hosted in partnership with Sacramento Valley Conservancy. The project will be held Saturday, November 8 from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. at Camp Pollock (1501 Northgate Blvd Sacramento, CA 95815). Please register in advance to help us and our non-profit partner plan accordingly.
Project Description:
Tasks vary depending on property needs, and may include planting, weed eradication, construction, cleaning, painting, digging, fence building, mopping, window washing, outreach, native plant propagation/maintenance, and more.
Welcome to the City is an annual series of regional events which help alumni connect with their local UCSC community. While the program is designed with recent grads in mind, all are welcome to participate.
Please contact alumni@ucsc.edu with questions.

Bring Them Home: Film Screening
2025-11-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Namaste Lounge, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join us for a special screening of Bring Them Home—a powerful documentary by Thunderheart Films about the Blackfeet Nation’s buffalo program and its role in restoring culture, healing generational trauma, and reconnecting people, animals, and the land.
Enjoy free food and beverages, a raffle, and community conversation following the film.
RSVP in advance.
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.

"Bring Them Home" Screening
2025-11-07 18:00 | Namaste Lounge, 615 College Nine Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The American Indian Resource Center will be screening "Bring Them Home" at the Namaste Lounge this November 7th.
"Bring Them Home" is more than a film; it is a movement aimed at raising awareness around the Blackfeet's buffalo program, a cornerstone in their fight against the lingering shadows of colonization, oppression, and trauma. Through this campaign, we aspire to amplify the tribe's rewilding efforts, support the sustainability of their buffalo program, and convey the critical message of living in harmony with animals and the land.
The narrative of the Blackfeet and bison is intertwined with themes of survival, resilience, and rebirth. These majestic creatures are integral to every face of the Blackfeet culture, playing a vital role in ceremonies and symbolizing the community's cultural, spiritual, and economic healing. The recent release of the Elk Island Herd into the wild marks a significant step in this journey, despite the numerous challenges encountered along the way.

Wang, S. (CSE) - Learned Hashing and Overlay Networks for AI-native Retrieval and Serving at Scale
2025-11-07 14:00 - 16:00 | https://events.ucsc.edu/event/wang-s-cse-learned-hashing-and-overlay-networks-for-ai-native-retrieval-and-serving-at-scale/
Modern AI systems demand low-latency high-quality retrieval and serving over billion-scale keys and vectors. This proposal studies learned hashing and overlay networks to co-locate semantically related items and steer queries with minimal coordination. We first present LEAD, to our knowledge the first use of order-preserving learned hash functions in distributed key-value overlays, enabling efficient range queries and cutting hops/messages by 80–90% in prototypes while retaining balance and churn resilience. Second, Vortex applies learned hashing to approximate nearest-neighbor retrieval: a self-organizing overlay binding learned keys to distributed HNSW indexes to achieve high recall at low fan-out. Third, PlanetServe introduces onion-style path setup with multi-path dispersal and cache-aware forwarding for open LLM serving, reducing TTFT and latency while preserving privacy. Planned work generalizes learned hashing to embedding partitions, token/KV caches, programmable switches, and storage tiers, and provides formal convergence, load-balancing, and monotonic-progress guarantees under skew and churn. We are also working to design the first knowledge delivery network for LLM serving: an overlay that unifies data placement, retrieval, and policy-aware routing across clusters and providers with tunable cost, privacy, and quality. Evaluation on real workloads at scale will measure recall, tail latency, cost, and robustness, targeting a predictable, elastic, scalable AI-native retrieval and serving stack.
Event Host: Shengze Wang, Ph.D. Student, Computer Science & Engineering
Advisor: Chen Qian

Zoom: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/5455463199?pwd=[REDACTED]
Passcode: [REDACTED]

Hot Cocoa & Advising @ Merrill College
2025-11-07 11:00 - 14:00
Come join Merrill Peer Advisors for Hot Cocoa and advising!

United Nations Reboot the Earth Hackathon
2025-11-07 00:00 - 2025-11-08 23:59 | Silicon Valley Campus, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
The United Nations (UN) and the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, are collaborating to bring the “Reboot the Earth” hackathon to the West Coast for the first time.
This is a social event bringing together aspiring developers to create open source software solutions that address the climate crisis, including wildfire response. It’s a chance to collaborate with peers, use open data, and apply your coding skills to real-world climate challenges!

Date: November 7-8, 2025
Location: UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Center.
Register here for the event.

Organized by the UN Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT), the 2025 Reboot the Earth hackathons are focused on agriculture and artificial intelligence (AI). The California event will focus on the locally relevant challenges of wildfire detection, response, and impact. Participants can leverage open source, AI, and open data sets, along with local expertise on the environment and emergency preparedness and response. The goal is to build solutions that can become a digital public good, serving local community needs.
UC Santa Cruz students interested in attending the event can take advantage of the Silicon Valley Connector shuttle, which will be running on Saturday, November 8, in addition to the regular Friday schedule.
To learn more about the Reboot the Earth initiative, visit: https://unite.un.org/en/reboot-earth.

59th Faculty Research Lecture Featuring Professor Natalie Batalha
2025-11-06 18:30 - 20:00 | Music Center Recital Hall, 400 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The UC Santa Cruz Academic Senate is delighted to invite you to the 59th Faculty Research Lecture
Featuring Natalie Batalha Professor, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics Director of Astrobiology & UC Presidential Chair
Thursday, November 6, 2025
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM

Reception to follow
This event is free and open to the public. Seating will begin at 6:00 p.m
Parking permits will be available for purchase for $5 in the Performing Arts lot 126, ”A” permits are required during the week until 8pm. Park Mobile options are available in this same lot. Please follow the event signage at the base of campus and a parking attendant will assist you.

Register to attend here
The lecture will be held in person and also available to view via livestream.
Thirty Years of Exoplanet Discovery
The first exoplanet orbiting a normal sun-like star was announced in October 1995. Discoveries have been trickling in at an accelerating pace ever since, with the roster of new worlds surpassing 6000 just this year. Due to a confluence of lucky events, I’ve been afforded a front row seat to exoplanet discovery over those last three decades. The science has taken me from humble mountaintops like Lick Observatory to the most powerful space telescopes like Kepler, TESS, and Webb. As the story unfolds, so to does my human perspective. I will share the view from this front row seat — how the story started and where it’s going, what we know and don’t know, and what the next generation can look forward to as we search for evidence of living worlds beyond the Solar System.
Natalie Batalha is a Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Director of Astrobiology at UC Santa Cruz. She uses ground and space-based telescopes to find and characterize planets orbiting other stars in the galaxy, with the ultimate goal of searching for evidence of life beyond the Solar System. Prior to UCSC, Dr. Batalha was a research scientist at NASA Ames where she served as Science Team Lead and Project Scientist for NASA’s Kepler mission. She led the team that discovered the first confirmed rocky exoplanet (Kepler-10b). Over the next decade, she played a central role in expanding the Kepler catalog of discoveries and guiding the team through the statistical analyses that demonstrated the prevalence of potentially habitable planets in our Galaxy. For her work on Kepler, Batalha was awarded a NASA Public Service Medal (2011) and the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award (2017). Most recently, Batalha led the team that achieved the first definitive detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet (WASP-39b), a breakthrough that showcased the James Webb Space Telescope’s extraordinary power to probe alien skies and ushered in a new era of atmospheric exploration. At UCSC, she is working to grow an Astrobiology program that will place UCSC at the center of the search for life beyond Earth.

Indignant Liberalism: Political Protest and Generational Change in El Salvador
2025-11-06 15:00 - 17:00 | Bay Tree Building, Student Union, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, United States
In 2013 anthropologist Ellen Moodie embedded with indignados—young middle-class protestors demanding that the government live up to its liberal commitments—to better understand the course of political change since the civil war. In this talk she discusses her forthcoming book, which starts with her work with urban activists of what she calls the “post-postwar” generation. She argues that theirs is only the latest demographic disappointed with liberalism in practice. Moodie looks back not only to the 1992 United Nations-brokered peace accords, which ended El Salvador’s twelve-year civil war, but also to a nineteenth-century “racial liberalism” that saw descendants of colonists “civilizing” Indigenous people while dispossessing them of lands and mobilizing them for labor. Today, the failure to make good on the promises of postwar liberalism has inspired robust support for strongman Nayib Bukele. Moodie argues that El Salvador’s case, though inflected by local concerns, is not unique. Rather, it is another stark demonstration of how liberalism’s imaginary social contract gives rise to populist authoritarianism.
Ellen Moodie is Associate Professor of Anthropology and director of the Global Studies program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has been carrying our research in El Salvador for more than 30 years. Her publications include El Salvador in the Aftermath of Peace: Crime, Uncertainty, and the Transition to Democracy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010) and the co-edited volume Central America in the New Millennium: Living Transition Reimagining Democracy (Berghahn/CEDLA, 2013).

Artist Talk for "Sculptures by Doyle Foreman: A Retrospective"
2025-11-06 15:00 - 16:00 | Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, Baskin Service Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Join Doyle Foreman for a talk with the artist as part of the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery’s fall exhibition, Sculptures by Doyle Foreman: A Retrospective, which celebrates the career of metal sculptor and UC Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus Doyle Foreman. Throughout his seven-decade career, Foreman sculpted visceral reflections of his experiences with metal and the American landscape, forging a unique path in American Black sculpture.
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ADMISSION
– FREE and open to the public
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FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Exhibition: September 25–December 7, 2024
Opening Celebration: Wednesday, October 9, 5:00–7:00 p.m.
Artist Talk: Wednesday, November 6, 3:00-4:00 p.m.
Guided Public Tours: Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. starting November 24
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PARKING
Lot 124 & 125 are the closest parking lots to the gallery
Parking is $5 via ParkMobile or online permit
TAPS provides additional parking information
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This program is open to all members of the public consistent with state and federal law.

Successful Slug Workshop: Time Management
2025-11-06 14:00 - 15:00 | Academic Resources Center (ARC), 408 McHenry Road, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
Time Management
Thursday, November 6, 2:05 p.m.–2:50 p.m.
Location: ARCenter 203
Learn the ways you can manage your time and avoid procrastination/burnout.
Successful Slug Workshop Series
Join Learning Support Services (LSS) for Successful Slug Workshops on Mondays at 11:40 a.m. and Wednesdays at 2:05 p.m.
These 45-minute workshops are open to all UCSC students and offer tools and strategies to support your academic success. Each session highlights best practices for effective, long-lasting learning and is led by LSS professional staff.
To get first priority, sign up on TutorHub or simply drop in. You can also sign up on TutorHub to receive email reminders.
Learn more and sign up: learningsupport.ucsc.edu/programs/workshops/

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.
