Office of Research
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UCSC doctoral graduate wins prestigious Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists
Jessica Kendall-Bar, who received her Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology last year from UC Santa Cruz with co-advisors Terrie Williams and Dan Costa, was named a recipient of the prestigious Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists for her research on elephant seal sleep habits while they are at sea.
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Brain-inspired AI code library passes major milestone, new paper offers perspective on future of field
UCSC Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Jason Eshraghian’s open source code library for brain-inspired deep learning, called “snnTorch,” has surpassed 100,000 downloads and is used in a wide variety of projects. A new paper details the code and offers a perspective on the future of the field.
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A major new site expansion at Lick Observatory is on the horizon
Lick Observatory’s positioning in the Northern Hemisphere enables observation of a substantial portion of the Milky Way galaxy where there are a multitude of stars, billions of potential sites for life. Making Lick Observatory a perfect home for PANOSETI, or “Panoramic SETI or Pulse All-sky Near Infrared Optical SETI.”
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Immigrants targeted by scams are seeking justice. Here’s how to help them get it
Assistant Professor of Sociology Juan Manuel Pedroza’s research has identified trends in what types of justice immigrants who have been targeted by scams are seeking and offers recommendations for policymakers and law enforcement agencies on how to expand access to justice.
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Coral reefs identified as national natural infrastructure
The U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) approved a resolution on Oct. 26 that designates coral reefs along U.S. states and territories as national infrastructure. This resolution makes it easier to direct federal funding, particularly infrastructure, hazard mitigation, and disaster recovery monies, to reef conservation and restoration to protect people, property, and livelihoods.
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Multidisciplinary team will develop advanced rhizosphere carbon imaging for climate change research with support of major DOE grant
A team of researchers at UC Santa Cruz and Stanford University are leading a new project in which they aim to use dynamic imaging and modeling of carbon in the rhizosphere to answer longstanding questions about how carbon moves through the soil and plant root interface.
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Bacteria can enhance host insect’s fertility with implications for disease control
New research led at UC Santa Cruz reveals how the bacteria strain Wolbachia pipientis enhances the fertility of the insects it infects, an insight that could help scientists increase the populations of mosquitoes that do not carry human disease.
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Remembering the grave injustices to Japanese-Americans in the 1940s through female activism
On Tuesday, Oct. 3, Cowell College’s Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery launched a two-month exhibition entitled “Never Again is Now: Japanese American Women Activists and the Legacy of the Mass Incarceration.” The exhibit — on display through Dec. 2 — features artwork and historical renderings of women’s memories surrounding this time period, including challenges to racial…
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Working to improve clarity for patients assessing their genetic breast cancer risk
A project to expedite the analysis of variants on the BRCA 1 and 2 genes, the most commonly affected genes in breast cancer cases, will help more people to better understand their cancer risk.
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Rebates can offer solutions to California’s groundwater woes
Many aquifers in California and around the world are being drained of their groundwater because of the combined impacts of excess pumping, shifts in land use, and climate change. However, a new study by scientists at UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley, published on Oct.18 in Nature Water, may offer a solution – it describes…
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FUTURE in Biology program receives NSF grant to explore field courses as a tool for student success
A group of researchers at UC Santa Cruz recently received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study the impacts of these field courses and develop best practices for making them more accessible.
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Three climate resilience projects supported by 2023 CITRIS Interdisciplinary Innovation Program
CITRIS and the Banatao Institute and the Innovation & Business Engagement Hub collaborated to fund three projects focused on climate resilience and that align with developing solutions that address some of the California’s most pressing climate challenges.