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2024 International

April 25, 2024
UC Santa Cruz students partner with community groups for a service-learning spring break
On March 23, fifteen students from UC Santa Cruz decided to redefine the essence of spring break. Opting out of traditional activities, they immersed themselves in a week-long critical service-learning experience, partnering with environmental and economic justice organizations in Watsonville as part of the Colleges Nine and John R. Lewis Alternative Spring Break program.
April 25, 2024
Anthropologist documents how women and shepherds historically reduced wildfire risk in Central Italy
Fire management lessons from the past could help to improve resilience as the Mediterranean faces increased fire risk from climate change. Anthropology Professor Andrew Mathews shows how traditional land management practices once dramatically reduced fuel for wildfires, and how these practices were forgotten, in part due to historical politics of classism and sexism.
April 23, 2024
Alok Vaid-Menon gives an impactful and touching performance at UC Santa Cruz
On April 17, 2024 Alok Vaid-Menon (they/them), an internationally renowned gender non-conforming writer and performance artist, was invited to appear at UC Santa Cruz by Dean of the UCSC Arts Division, Celine Parreñas Shimizu
April 22, 2024
UC Santa Cruz researchers’ tool creates ‘synthetic’ images of cells for enhanced microscopy analysis
UC Santa Cruz researchers have developed a method to use an image generation AI model to create realistic images of single cells, which are then used as “synthetic data” to train an AI model to better carry out single cell-segmentation.
April 22, 2024
New research center studies interconnections between urbanism and the environment, with a focus on lessons from the Santa Cruz region
The Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies tackles converging 21st Century urban and environmental crises—like climate change and housing affordability—to show how the pursuit of sustainability and social justice are often intertwined.
April 19, 2024
UC Santa Cruz scientists reveal new path to increasing lactation for nursing mothers
Scientists at UC Santa Cruz have discovered a cellular process in the breast that can increase milk production by pregnant women, revealing a potential path to addressing lactation insufficiency syndrome—the inability of a nursing mother to produce sufficient milk to meet their infant’s nutritional needs.
April 17, 2024
New grant supports UC Santa Cruz-led multi-UC campus effort to build network of open source program offices
A $1.85 million grant from the Sloan Foundation will serve to institutionalize the OSPO approach in the UC system by creating coordinated activities that support local campus OSPOs and building a network that can leverage multi-campus efforts.
April 17, 2024
UC Santa Cruz ‘Shadow the Scientists’ program honored for astronomical DEI efforts
A science-inclusion program based at UC Santa Cruz that has allowed thousands of school-age children, educators, and inquisitive individuals to look through world-class telescopes alongside trained astronomers has been honored for opening up scientific exploration to those from underrepresented backgrounds around the world.
April 11, 2024
New study finds potential targets at chromosome ends for degenerative disease prevention
Published online today in Science, a new study finds that telomere lengths follow a different pattern than has thus far been understood. Instead of telomere lengths falling under one general range of shortest to longest across all chromosomes, this study finds that different chromosomes have separate end-specific telomere-length distributions.
April 11, 2024
UC Santa Cruz researchers value salt marsh restoration as a crucial tool in flood risk reduction and climate resilience in the San Francisco Bay
Salt marsh restoration can mitigate flood risk and bolster community resilience to climate change in our local waterways, according to a recent study published in Nature by a postdoctoral fellow with UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR).
April 10, 2024
New diagnostic tool achieves accuracy of PCR tests with faster and simpler nanopore system
A new diagnostic tool developed by UCSC's Holger Schmidt and his collaborators can test for SARS-CoV-2 and Zika virus with the same or better accuracy as high-precision PCR tests in a matter of hours.
April 09, 2024
Global social change leaders gather at UC Santa Cruz for Right Livelihood International Conference
From April 23 through 27, UC Santa Cruz will host social change leaders and student activists visiting from around the world for the Right Livelihood International Conference, which includes a series of public events and will launch a new international student network and international research partnerships.
April 04, 2024
First results from DESI make the most precise measurement of our expanding universe
We now have the largest 3-D map of our cosmos ever created, thanks to DESI—a powerful instrument mounted atop a telescope in Arizona with a robotic array of 5,000 fiber-optic “eyes” that look into the night sky.
April 04, 2024
Santa Cruz County youth aim to improve community mental health through better support for immigrants
A three-year partnership between UC Santa Cruz and United Way to empower young change-makers is wrapping up this spring, with youth leaders from across Santa Cruz County preparing to distribute resource kits for local immigrants.
April 03, 2024
UCSC ranked #12 among top public colleges for high-paying tech salaries in new Wall Street Journal list
New rankings from the Wall Street Journal and the Burning Glass Institute place UC Santa Cruz as the number 12 school for high-paying tech salaries.
March 26, 2024
New research reveals steps California must take to capture more jobs from lithium battery boom
A new study from the UC Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation, New Energy Nexus, and the UC Berkeley Labor Center demonstrates the need for strategic investments and policy approaches to encourage build-out of the lithium supply chain within California in an environmentally friendly and economically inclusive manner.
March 21, 2024
Research on understudied lung cancer drivers may improve treatments
Angela Brooks has been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s prestigious R01 program to study how gene isoforms impact cancer progression and what treatments might be most effective or lead to drug resistance.
March 18, 2024
The Hindustani music concert featuring Uday Bhawalker accompanied by Sukhad Manik Munde
As a part of the (unofficially titled) Indian Music Series, University of California, Santa Cruz is welcoming Uday Bhawalkar to campus for a concert on Friday, April 12. The renowned vocalist will be performing Dhrupad music, one of the oldest musical genres in the Hindustani tradition.
March 08, 2024
Scientists find unexpected proteins in bacteria motors
A team of scientists, co-led by Karen Ottemann, a professor of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology, recently found three unexpected proteins while studying the motors that power the flagella of a species called Helicobacter pylori. The proteins, which are normally found in another type of appendage on a separate group of bacteria, seem to exert control over the motion of the flagella. These proteins, known as PilN, PilO, and PilM, had never been found associated with a flagella before.
March 06, 2024
‘Digital twins’ project will help clean up space junk, repair and decommission spacecrafts
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ricardo Sanfelice and a team of researchers have been awarded $2.5M to model complex aerospace engineering problems.
March 06, 2024
UC Santa Cruz breaks records with increased applications for Fall 2024
The University of California, Santa Cruz has once again received a record number of applications highlighting the desirability of the educational experience the campus provides. Leading at the intersection of innovation and social justice, UC Santa Cruz is actively fostering a community of forward-thinkers committed to driving positive change. The campus draws a diverse and accomplished applicant pool, comprising scholars poised to catalyze positive change worldwide.
February 29, 2024
UC Santa Cruz-based center leads system-wide commitment to White House food security initiative
The Center for Economic Justice and Action (CEJA) at UC Santa Cruz will lead the University of California’s participation in the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities.
February 29, 2024
Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu launches her new book: "The Movies of Racial Childhoods"
To celebrate, Shimizu will be hosting a book launch on the University of California, Santa Cruz Campus at the Sesnon Gallery, where the book will be available for purchase from Two Birds Books. The book will be discussed in conversation with Shimizu and the Sesnon Gallery director Valeria Miranda.
February 27, 2024
Center for Research in Open Source Software welcomes James Davis as new faculty director
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering is the new faculty director of the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS).
February 26, 2024
The UCSC Music Department presents "The World Making Aura of Sonic Blackness" with Moor Mother & James Gordon Williams
On Wednesday, March 6, 2024, the University of California, Santa Cruz Music Department presents a very special performance by guest artist Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa) and James Gordon Williams, assistant professor of music composition at UC Santa Cruz in the Recital Hall of the Music Center.
February 23, 2024
Scientists begin to crack open climate-change riddles hiding in ancient coral
An international team of researchers on an expedition co-led by UC Santa Cruz Professor Christina Ravelo collected cores of fossil coral off the coast of Hawai'i to look for signs of climate and sea-level change over the past half million years.
February 22, 2024
Stranger Things VR game co-written by UCSC’s Samantha Gorman launches in partnership with Netflix, Meta
A new virtual reality (VR) game set in the world of Netflix’s hit series Stranger Things launches today — and UC Santa Cruz Assistant Teaching Professor of Computational Media Samantha Gorman is a key creative mind behind it as the game’s co-writer and narrative director.
February 20, 2024
Chemists use peptides from Alzheimer’s and Type II diabetes to describe five new rippled beta-sheets
Scientists from the University of California, Santa Cruz, synthesized peptides from proteins associated with Alzheimer’s and Type II Diabetes and described five new rippled beta-sheet structures.
February 20, 2024
Community Voices Series event remembers Santa Cruz's fourth Chinatown
The second UC Santa Cruz Community Voices Series event featured a conversation between UC Santa Cruz Community Archivist Rebecca Hernandez and local philanthropist and developer George Ow Jr.
February 15, 2024
UC Santa Cruz earns national acclaim: awarded NAFSA’s 2024 Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization
In recognition of excellence in internationalization efforts, the University of California, Santa Cruz has been selected to receive the prestigious 2024 Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization from NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
February 14, 2024
Student Gabriella Goss wins $500 Alumni Leadership Award from Ecology Project International
Her project draws inspiration from her Ecology Project International (EPI) course experience in the Galapagos Islands, where she witnessed the thriving wildlife in an ecosystem largely spared from human interference. This prompted her to explore the negative impact of human activities on animal habitats, specifically focusing on the millions of animals killed annually by vehicles.
February 13, 2024
Protein designer awarded $2.5M to develop bioluminescent protein for deep tissue imaging
Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Andy Yeh was awarded a nearly $2.5 million grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to develop completely artificial enzymes that can produce bioluminescence in the body for deep tissue imaging.
February 13, 2024
UC Santa Cruz Physicist Joel Primack wins 2024 AAAS Abelson Prize
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has awarded the prestigious 2024 Philip Hauge Abelson Prize to Joel R. Primack, distinguished professor of physics emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a key architect of the Cold Dark Matter theory.
February 12, 2024
Widespread machine learning methods behind ‘link prediction’ are performing very poorly, study shows
New research from UC Santa Cruz Professor of Computer Science and Engineering C. “Sesh” Seshadhri published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences establishes that the metric used to measure link prediction performance is missing crucial information, and link prediction tasks are performing significantly worse than popular literature indicates.
February 09, 2024
UCSC Central Asian Ensemble honors traditional Uzbek music with special guest master dutarist Rozibi Khodjaeva
UC Santa Cruz is home to the only Western dutar ensemble. They will be playing along with Rozibi Khodjaeva, a master dutar player who is visiting from her home in Uzbekistan. Under the instruction of associate music professor Tanya Merchant, the show will be a culmination of what her students have learned so far.
February 07, 2024
Bioelectronics enable precise control of organoids for better understanding of neuro diseases, neuron circuits
UC Santa Cruz researchers have developed a new plug-and-play bioelectronics system that enables researchers to precisely control neuronal activity in cortical organoids, which will help unlock new discoveries on how brains form neural circuits and the underpinnings of neurodevelopmental and degenerative diseases.
February 07, 2024
To plan a sustainable future for seafood access in small island developing states, researchers highlight solutions hiding in plain sight
To better understand how fisheries-based food systems might respond to change, a research team led by UCSC Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Katherine Seto took a deeper look at the strategies that people in the small island developing state of Kiribati currently use to access seafood.
February 06, 2024
Undergraduate Public Fellows Program connects humanities studies with real-world impact
The Humanities Institute's Public Fellows Program offers a mutually enriching opportunity for students to bring the humanities skills and knowledge they acquire in their university courses to diverse roles at non-profit organizations, museums, cultural institutions, and publishing venues.
February 06, 2024
Bryant Terry touts power of food and community at 2024 Martin Luther King, Jr. Convocation
Food justice advocate, chef, and author Bryant Terry called on people to seek alternatives to the industrialized food system during his keynote address for UC Santa Cruz’s 40th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Convocation.
January 30, 2024
Renowned Sitarist Nishat Khan playing at UC Santa Cruz
The classical Indian musician will play at Music Center Recital Hall along with tabla player Nitin Mitta. The two are internationally recognized musicians. We will be welcoming Khan back after he last played in 2015.
January 30, 2024
Music Professor Russell Rodriguez wins the Américo Paredes Prize
The American Folklore Society awarded UC Santa Cruz professor Russell Rodriguez the annual Paredes prize in recognition of his work in the arts with the local community and his contributions to folklore and tradition.
January 29, 2024
Do tree-planting campaigns follow best practices for successful forest restoration?
Environmental Studies Professor Karen Holl's latest research reviewed publicly available information to see if there have been improvements in recent years in whether tree-planting organizations apply best practices for successful reforestation.
January 24, 2024
National Endowment for the Humanities gives $60,000 award to two UCSC faculty members
The National Endowment for the Humanities included two UC Santa Cruz professors in their most recent round of grants and awards. Drs. Jennifer Derr and Stacy Kamehiro are using their newly awarded funding to continue in the projects that focus on diverse groups and global impacts.
January 22, 2024
Innovative PET technology will enable precise multitracer imaging of the brain
UC Santa Cruz Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Shiva Abbaszadeh is developing technology that will enable precise multitracer positron emission tomography imaging of the human body’s most complex organ with the support of a $4 million NIH grant.
January 22, 2024
Duke University Press publishes Arts Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu’s new book: The Movies of Racial Childhoods
UC Santa Cruz’s Dean of the Arts Division, award-winning filmmaker and author publishes her fourth sole-written book, exploring contemporary representations of Asian American youth.
January 18, 2024
UC Santa Cruz will lead development of next-generation telescope alignment system
The National Science Foundation recently awarded $3.9 million to researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz as the lead institution for the development of a next-gen telescope alignment system. The researchers will work with an international team to build and test systems in Santa Cruz and eventually install the final designs in seven telescopes at three ground-based observatory sites around the world.
January 18, 2024
Students search for hidden black hole activity
When stars get too close to the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, the black holes shred them apart in a process called a tidal disruption event (TDE). These TDEs cause bright flashes, but recent models suggest that scientists should see more of them than have been observed.
January 17, 2024
Insights from UCSC-made COVID-19 tracking tool will guide the future of studying pathogens in real time
A new paper by a team of UCSC pathogen genomicists offers guidance for the future of web tools for tracking pathogen evolution.
January 16, 2024
UC Santa Cruz Humanities Division secures $1 million grant for Employing Humanities initiative
Investment from the Mellon Foundation will propel new program focused on experiential learning and career readiness for humanities students.
January 11, 2024
Training program helps prevent harassment in fieldwork environments
Fieldwork often puts researchers and students in remote environments that have unique challenges. The unusual setting of fieldwork can make sexual harassment and assault more likely, and it also calls for distinct approaches to prevent and respond to it. To address this systemic problem, University of Santa Cruz scientists developed a sexual harassment prevention and awareness training program specifically tailored to fieldwork environments.
January 08, 2024
Global study shows extreme short-term drought has even greater impacts on grasslands and shrublands than previously thought
UC Santa Cruz scientists supported a new global study showing that the effects of extreme short-term drought have been greatly underestimated for grasslands and shrublands.