University News
- February 13, 2025
New study documents California coyotes eating harbor seal pups
A paper published on February 12 in the journal Ecology details how the researchers used motion-triggered cameras placed at MacKerricher State Beach on California's North Coast during harbor seal pupping season in the spring of 2023 and 2024.
- February 13, 2025
Young workers in Santa Cruz County may be poised to lead a ‘union boom’
Santa Cruz County has already been gaining national attention for groundbreaking unionization efforts led by young workers, including at local Starbucks and REI locations. Now, new survey data show why that trend is likely to continue.
- February 12, 2025
Economically, culturally important marine species vulnerable to changing climate, new study shows
Dungeness crab, Pacific herring, and red abalone are among the marine species most vulnerable to the changing climate's effect on California's coastal waters, a new study led by UC Santa Cruz researchers finds.
- February 11, 2025
AAAS names UC Santa Cruz organelle discovery most outstanding paper in 2024
The discovery by UC Santa Cruz researchers of a new organelle within single-celled algae that converts nitrogen gas into ammonia continues to be celebrated by the science community, this time by winning the prestigious AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize.
- February 11, 2025
UC Santa Cruz sets fossil-free date
The University of California, Santa Cruz has announced it will reduce fossil fuel emission by 90% by 2045. The date was set based on recommendations from the Decarbonization and Electrification (D&E) team.
- February 07, 2025
UCSC Retiree Elaine Kihara gives back to Santa Cruz community
At UC Santa Cruz, retirees have a wealth of opportunities to volunteer and make an impact. See how UCSC retiree Elaine Kihara is making a difference at Grey Bears in Santa Cruz.
- February 04, 2025
UC Santa Cruz alumna Gillian Welch wins Grammy for Best Folk Album
UC Santa Cruz alumna Gillian Welch (Porter ’90, fine arts) alongside her musical partner David Rawlings, clinched the Best Folk Album award at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 2 for their album Woodland.
- February 04, 2025
UC Santa Cruz scientists slither into the history books with first complete genome of a banana slug
Not only is the banana slug the endearing mascot for UC Santa Cruz — making the project fitting for campus researchers — but the slugs’ unique slime was a particularly challenging undertaking for UCSC’s experts in genomics.
- February 03, 2025
Alo Slebir’s Maverick Move: UC Santa Cruz alum rides potential record-breaking 100-foot wave
UC Santa Cruz Alum Alo Slebir (College Nine ’23, legal studies) may have surfed the biggest wave ever
- February 03, 2025
New research and art installation demonstrate the viability of using fog as a water source
In a state known for its droughts, where the southern half recently experienced devastating fires, understanding California’s natural water sources is more important than ever. Three University of California, Santa Cruz professors have teamed up to create a multipart scientific and artistic research study, Art+Fog as a collective,
- January 31, 2025
New grant funds effort to uncover therapeutic targets for neuropsychiatric disorders
A $10.3 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state’s stem cell agency, will fund a multi-UC effort to better understand neuropsychiatric disorders.
- January 30, 2025
Innovative techniques aim for climate-safe restoration of Ms. Blue
A new project is underway to give Ms. Blue another life, this time enabling her to teach the community about the power of climate-safe innovation
- January 30, 2025
The Institute of Arts and Science curates two revolutionary exhibitions
The Institute of the Arts and Sciences (IAS) is starting the new year with two imaginative and heartfelt exhibitions exploring liberation and justice. EDELO and Our Bedrock, both of which run from Jan. 31 – April 20
- January 29, 2025
Climate change reshuffles species like a deck of cards, new study finds
A new study led by UC Santa Cruz ecology and evolutionary biologist Malin Pinsky finds that temperature changes due to climate change have a doubly detrimental impact: Not only do they destabilize animal populations, but the impacts accelerate as temperatures change more rapidly.
- January 28, 2025
UC Santa Cruz AgTech Alliance launches to support interdisciplinary collaboration
Building on the long history of innovation in agriculture at the campus, the AgTech Alliance will support research, education, events, and workforce development related to advancing agricultural technology in order to create more formalized opportunities for collaboration within the university and beyond.
- January 27, 2025
UC Santa Cruz Innovation Catalyst Grant program propels research into real-world solutions
UC Santa Cruz has announced the Innovation Catalyst Grant proof-of-concept program awardees, showcasing the campus’s commitment to fostering transformative research with significant societal benefits.
- January 24, 2025
Pushing the boundaries of biotechnology
Unnatural Products, a Santa Cruz-based biotech company founded by UC Santa Cruz alumni Cameron Pye and Joshua Schwochert breaks new ground in the biotech landscape.
- January 24, 2025
Long read sequencing reveals more genetic information while cutting time and cost of rare disease diagnoses
A new study shows that long-read sequencing has the potential to improve the rate of diagnosis while reducing the time to diagnosis from years to days — in a single test and at a much lower cost.
- January 23, 2025
25 years of the UCSC Genome Browser
July 2025 will mark the 25th anniversary of the UC Santa Cruz Genome Browser, one of the most widely used resources for genomics worldwide. In celebration of this amazing resource, we are spotlighting alumni who worked on the Browser over the course of its history.
- January 23, 2025
The teaching profession never really recovered from the pandemic. A new book explains why, and what we can do about it.
Education Professor Lora Bartlett and her collaborators collected detailed data on the pandemic and post-pandemic experiences of 75 teachers across the country, revealing how the pandemic era hastened a downward spiral in career satisfaction and longevity for teachers.
- January 22, 2025
Luca de Alfaro selected as 2024 ACM fellow
Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Luca de Alfaro has been selected a 2024 fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), one of the most prestigious recognitions in the computing field.
- January 21, 2025
Students make winning videos about importance of federal support for science research
Impactful scientific discovery isn't possible without funding to support the research, and three UC Santa Cruz students have created short videos that took top prizes in a national competition held by the Science Coalition, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to sustaining the federal government’s investment in basic scientific research.
- January 21, 2025
John Jota Leaños selected as new Interim Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the UC Santa Cruz Arts Division
The University of California, Santa Cruz brought on a new Interim Assistant Dean of Diversity Equity and Inclusion for the Arts Division. John Jota Leaños, a professor of Film and Digital Media (FDM) and Guggenheim Fellow, is a Mexican/Italian-American and Chumash-award winning interdisciplinary artist, documentarian, animator, and social art practitioner whose work engages the intersections of history, memory, and power through a social justice lens.
- January 17, 2025
UCHRI grants advance Humanities research on campus
This year, UC Santa Cruz researchers are advancing cutting-edge projects that tackle critical issues such as antiracist education, environmental resilience, and the intersections of identity and power, with critical funding from the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI).
- January 17, 2025
Hubble Telescope images combined into giant mosaic of neighboring Andromeda Galaxy
Astronomers are celebrating the completion of a 2.5-billion-pixel panoramic picture of the entire Andromeda Galaxy. The team includes several UC Santa Cruz researchers who made significant contributions to the enormous photomosaic that combines some 600 snapshots taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over more than a decade and 1,000 orbits.
- January 17, 2025
Embedding equity in the financial sector
UC Santa Cruz alumna Alina I’vette Fernandez has built a career helping America’s largest banks operationalize their values and environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. Her work helps C-suite leaders understand the implications of their decisions for both employees and the communities they serve.
- January 17, 2025
New exhibition explores Afrofuturism through a look at the past
The newest exhibition at the Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery explores African history and Afrofuturism through the art of current PhD candidate Aaron Samuel Mulenga. Ukupupuka: An Exploration of Transcendence integrates Mulenga’s doctoral dissertation research on World War I porters called TengaTenga with the concept of the Afronaut to explore concepts of mobility, transcendence and divinity.
- January 16, 2025
A legacy of philanthropy and leadership at UC Santa Cruz
Alumnus Steve Bruce (Cowell ’79, economics) reflects on his support for his alma mater.
- January 16, 2025
Building the tools to explore new worlds
UC Santa Cruz Engineering Fellowship supports alumnus Michael Gonzales’ role with SCALES
- January 16, 2025
Fellowship to provide full tuition for up to 10 CA students to study Natural Language Processing at UC Santa Cruz
Up to ten California-residents will receive full scholarships to pursue a Masters of Science in Natural Language Processing for the 2025-26 academic year.
- January 16, 2025
A Dream Realized: Silver Slug Award empowers first-gen student
UCSC student Stephanie Mayo-Burgos (Porter ’25, environmental studies and legal studies) pursues her dreams with the help of the Silver Slug Award.
- January 16, 2025
Charting the future of finance
Sameet Mehta appointed as advisory board chair of the Center for Analytical Finance at UC Santa Cruz.
- January 15, 2025
Coral-reef restoration can be cost-effective for saving lives, money
A new study co-led by the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR) at UC Santa Cruz shows coral reef restoration in Florida and Puerto Rico could save thousands of lives and prevent hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and economic interruption each year.
- January 15, 2025
2024 Outstanding Staff Award honoree seeks to lift campus educators as leaders driving equitable change
Kendra Dority, director of graduate student and postdoc professional development at the Teaching and Learning Center, has been awarded the 2024 Outstanding Staff Award. "I am proud to be part of a team that is so dedicated to supporting the teaching community at UC Santa Cruz,”
- January 14, 2025
Rick Flores named Executive Director of Arboretum & Botanic Garden
Rick Flores has been appointed as the new Executive Director of the Arboretum & Botanic Garden at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
- January 13, 2025
Advancing advocacy: Scholarship supports student’s goals in law and justice
Emmanuel Ogundipe (Stevenson ’25, legal studies) plans to pursue law school upon graduation. The Gabriel Zimmerman scholarship award is helping him towards his dream.
- January 13, 2025
Honoring UCSC’s 2024 Alumni Awards recipients
Six alumni were honored on Oct. 25 at the Alumni Awards Celebration dinner. Learn more about each recipient and watch their video feature.
- January 13, 2025
New data shows how ‘rage giving’ boosted immigrant-serving nonprofits during the first Trump Administration
Nonprofits that provide legal services for immigrants ended up receiving increases in public contributions in the wake of Trump's attacks on immigrants, demonstrating a backlash effect that's sometimes called “rage giving.”
- January 13, 2025
Dean of Arts Celine Parreñas Shimizu’s newest work addresses sexuality and the importance of higher education and relationships between women in forging one’s power
Renowned filmmaker, film scholar, distinguished professor, and Dean of the Arts Division at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Celine Parreñas Shimizu will premiere her latest film at the 27th San Francisco’s Independent Film Festival on Friday, February 7, 2025 at the Roxie Theater.
- January 10, 2025
Researchers link mysterious cosmic signals to collapsed stars
An international team of scientists has provided the clearest evidence yet that some fast radio bursts (FRBs)—enigmatic, millisecond-long flashes of radio waves from space—originate from neutron stars, the ultra-dense remnants of massive stars that have exploded in a supernova.
- January 08, 2025
Basketball great, mental health champion to headline MLK Convocation
WNBA Hall of Famer Chamique Holdsclaw, an Olympic gold medalist and mental health advocate, will address the 41st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Convocation on January 30.
- January 08, 2025
Researchers to develop technology for improving berry monitoring, harvesting, shipment
To investigate innovative methods to support the berry growing and harvesting process, UC Santa Cruz Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ricardo Sanfelice is launching a new agricultural technology project.
- January 07, 2025
Uncovering an ancient alphabet
Back when she was an intrepid graduate student, renowned University of California, Santa Cruz Egyptologist Elaine Sullivan contributed to the discovery of the world’s earliest known alphabet. This historic find has only recently come to light.
- January 06, 2025
Enhancing street safety for the UC Santa Cruz community
UC Santa Cruz is committed to fostering a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. To enhance safety, the campus is implementing a variety of new initiatives on campus roads.
- January 06, 2025
New strontium isotope map of Sub-Saharan Africa is a powerful tool for archaeology, forensics, and wildlife conservation
Researchers mapped predicted bioavailable strontium isotope ratios across most of the African continent. Matching values from the map against those observed in artifacts and plant, animal, and human remains will help to identify their most likely regions of origin within Africa.