News

Office of Research

  • History professor’s research questions common assumption of irresolvable conflict between Christians, Muslims, and Jews

    UC Santa Cruz associate professor of history Brian Catlos has spent years researching how Christians, Muslims, and Jews interact. Although his main focus has been on studying ethnic and religious minorities in the Mediterranean during medieval times, Catlos has inadvertently discovered a pattern running throughout history that applies directly to present-day political and social realities.…

  • New analysis puts dark matter back into elliptical galaxies

    According to the prevailing “cold dark matter” theory of the evolution of the universe, every galaxy is surrounded by a halo of dark matter that can only be detected indirectly by observing its gravitational effects. This theory faced a challenge in 2003, when a team of astronomers reported a surprising absence of dark matter in…

  • Skewed system facilitates death sentences and undermines fairness of capital punishment, says author of new book Death by Design

    In a harsh critique of the death penalty before a gathering of the nation’s lawyers last month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said recent exonerations of death row inmates reveal serious procedural flaws that undermine the way capital punishment is administered in this country. Stevens’s remarks before members of the American Bar Association…

  • UCSC Professor David Haussler to receive Carnegie Mellon’s Dickson Prize

    Carnegie Mellon University will award its prestigious Dickson Prize in Science to David Haussler, a leader in the field of bioinformatics and professor of biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Haussler will receive an award of $50,000 and will deliver a public lecture as part of the prize ceremony to be held…

  • Fall lecture series at the Seymour Center will focus on sustainable fisheries

    The Fall Lecture Series at UC Santa Cruz’s Seymour Marine Discovery Center will focus on sustainable fisheries, with six speakers providing a range of perspectives on the serious challenges facing important fisheries on the West Coast and around the world. Lecture topics will include the future of seafood, the politics of fish and the oceans,…

  • Santa Cruz Cancer Benefit Group funds cancer research at UC Santa Cruz

    The Santa Cruz Cancer Benefit Group (SCCBG) has established a new fellowship to support cancer research at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The SCCBG Research Fellowship is an annual award of $10,000 to support a UCSC graduate student or postdoctoral researcher engaged in cancer-related research. The group awarded the first SCCBG Research Fellowship to…

  • UCSC professor Lucinda Pease-Alvarez joins innovative teacher-prep effort

    Lucinda Pease-Alvarez, an associate professor of education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is one of 17 educators around the country named to an innovative project that will develop a “virtual apprenticeship” for novice teachers. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has selected Pease-Alvarez and 16 others as the first Goldman-Carnegie Quest…

  • UC Santa Cruz will get training grants from California stem cell institute

    The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) last week announced its first grant awards, including a $1.2 million training grant to the University of California, Santa Cruz, to establish a new training program in the systems biology of stem cells. The UCSC program will be part of a larger CIRM Training Program in Stem Cell…

  • MEDIA ADVISORY: UCSC faculty available to discuss aspects of Katrina aftermath

    A number of faculty from UC Santa Cruz are available to discuss aspects of the post-Hurricane Katrina story. Their fields of expertise range from the science of climate change to the racial implications of the story; their contact information follows: Climate Change and Destructive Storms Lisa Sloan Professor of Earth sciences; Vice Provost and Dean…

  • UCSC team to share environmental justice expertise with state air board

    Environmental justice researchers are at the forefront of efforts to evaluate the risks posed by air pollution, particularly the disproportionate risks faced by residents of low-income and minority neighborhoods. So it’s good news that Manuel Pastor, professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a leading researcher in…

  • UC Santa Cruz physicists describe a new mechanism for metallic magnetism

    Predicting the magnetic behavior of metallic compounds is a surprisingly difficult problem for theoretical physicists. While the properties of a common refrigerator magnet are not a great mystery, certain materials exhibit magnetic properties that do not fit within existing theories of magnetism. One such material inspired a recent theoretical breakthrough by physicists at the University…

  • New research unveils complex mechanisms that control cell growth and division

    Researchers studying the molecular mechanisms that control cell growth and division are piecing together a surprising and complicated regulatory system that offers promising targets for anticancer drugs. A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has revealed the interactions between key regulatory proteins that determine when cells initiate the process…

Last modified: Mar 18, 2025