Research
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New public archives will share wisdom, artifacts from Dolores Huerta’s lifetime of successful social change leadership
UC Santa Cruz received a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to help establish new public archives documenting the legacy of social justice activist Dolores Huerta, through a partnership with the Dolores Huerta Foundation. UCSC will hire a project archivist and two new postdoctoral scholars to support development of Huerta’s archives and to produce…
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Researchers explain social media’s role in rapidly shifting social norms on gender and sexuality
A new paper by UC Santa Cruz psychologists describes how social media has supported an explosion of diversity in gender and sexuality in America by empowering authentic self-expression. However, these technologies have also equally enabled a cultural backlash.
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Anthropologists document 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. UC Santa Cruz Anthropology Professor Andrew Mathews and his research partners show how traditional land management practices once dramatically reduced fuel for wildfires, and how these practices were forgotten, in part due to historical…
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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.
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UC Santa Cruz expert helps to weigh costs and benefits of controversial research on a high-risk technology to fight climate change
Environmental Studies Professor Sikina Jinnah recently wrapped up almost three years of work co-chairing Harvard University’s SCoPEX Advisory Committee, one of the world’s first efforts to design and implement a governance framework for an outdoor solar geoengineering experiment.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Lessons from COVID reveal how monopoly power in the biopharmaceutical industry is evolving
In his latest paper, Politics Professor Matt Sparke and his coauthor use the case of COVID to demonstrate both the enduring problem of bio-pharmaceutical monopolies and the ways they have been extended and entrenched through complex market-state interconnections.
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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.
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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.
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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.