We’re measuring the health of a waterways by looking at DNA! 🧬 UC Santa Cruz is using a $2.2M California Department of Fish and Wildlife grant to create an eDNA "health index" for California’s streams—spotting declines from the Mojave to the Redwoods before they turn severe. https://bit.ly/4wrUc5H

From de-extinction to saving today’s endangered species, the science shared at Friday’s genomics symposium at UCSC was groundbreaking! 🦣🧬 Huge thanks to Beth Shapiro for showing how DNA research is our best hope for preventing extinction. https://bit.ly/4tXQ2kz

“We are here ... We’re not something of the past. We are something of the present." Join in person/Zoom on Mon. 5/4 to launch Shadow Indigenous Worlds, which aims to immerse learners globally in Indigenous forms of inquiry and understanding. Learn more and RSVP here: news.ucsc.edu/2026/04/shad...

Dr. Ramon Resa (Crown ’76, biology) started picking oranges and peaches at age three. 🍊🍑 Decades later, he’s a celebrated pediatrician who has spent 40 years caring for underserved families in his hometown. Read more about this UCSC alum: https://bit.ly/4d3tLLW

Congrats to UCSC’s Greer Murphy on winning ICAI’s 2026 Donald McCabe Research of the Year Award! 🏆 Her work focuses on making academic integrity policies more equitable and more student-centered. https://bit.ly/4tvZGtU

UC Santa Cruz in the 80's. 📼✨🌲🦭💙 📸 Images Courtesy of UC Santa Cruz Special Collections

“UCSC ‘had me at hello.’ I never even made it to the other two campuses that had accepted me.” Alumnus Tim Shannon (Cowell '71, history) has philanthropically supported the Humanities at UCSC and students' path to UCSC for 15 years. Here's how: https://bit.ly/4sQ5EG8

How do we build a resilient world? For our two newest AAAS Fellows, the answer lies in the deep histories of migration spaces and the chemical cycles of our coastal wetlands. Congrats to Katharyne Mitchell and Adina Paytan on this lifetime honor! https://bit.ly/4se3hf8

Three UC Santa Cruz professor-student teams won Keck Foundation funding. Learn more about how this not only supports the career trajectories of faculty and graduate students but supports high-impact science research: https://bit.ly/41Lcalx

From UC Santa Cruz art studios to the @BattleBots judging panel. Alumna Lisa Winter (Porter ’09) is proof that an Art degree can lead to the top of the robotics industry. As COO of Sensible Robotics, she’s building a more tactile and creative future. Read more: https://bit.ly/4m0OBOX

Students are tackling real-world challenges in Crown's Corporate Innovation Laboratory. One team built an AI system to improve how navigation apps guide people. Crown’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Certificate gives students the chance to have a real impact beyond campus. https://bit.ly/40hGDqV

When Jim Pepper arrived on campus in 1972, Environmental Studies was dismissed by some as “tree-hugger” activism. 50+ years later, it’s a flagship program addressing climate change through sustainability & justice. Now, Pepper’s legacy is continuing to plant seeds of change: https://bit.ly/4ahAe3A

Most birds in Hawaiʻi can transmit avian malaria to mosquitoes, leading to multiple bird extinctions and threatening native species. 🐦🦟 But UC Santa Cruz scientists are helping guide conservation strategies like mosquito control + habitat protection: https://bit.ly/4bTA0SC

For decades, Alzheimer’s drug research has focused on amyloid beta. But scientists at UC Santa Cruz say an overlooked peptide (P3) may also quickly form toxic clumps in the brain. Read the full story: https://bit.ly/47Hq6jT

Humanities = real-world skills 💡 UCSC students graduate with the ability to analyze, communicate, collaborate, and adapt, skills that employers value across every industry. From tech to media to entrepreneurship, read how transferable skills power unexpected careers: https://bit.ly/4l2oLtv

Science doesn't happen in a vacuum. And for 18 years, the Lamat Institute has mobilized marginalized students' strengths and changed how astronomy is practiced. A new review in Nature Astronomy shows how equity + excellence leads to better science: https://bit.ly/4b4YXto

Born enslaved in 1742, David George spent decades running toward freedom and across colonies, wars, and continents 📘 A new book by historian Gregory O’Malley tells his extraordinary story and rethinks the American Revolution from the perspective of the enslaved. Read more: https://bit.ly/4azL0Dr

Applied mathematics professor Ashesh Chattopadhyay received a Sloan Research Fellowship to develop AI models that improve climate prediction and help forecast extreme Earth-system events, improving our responses to climate change while conserving energy resources: https://bit.ly/3Optzgp

What happens when Star Trek meets opera? 🚀 A decade-long creative collaboration turns the classic episode “The Menagerie” into a powerful exploration of disability, love, and what makes life meaningful. Join the creators as they ask: What do we need to live long and prosper? https://bit.ly/4cWPoyf

Arts education starts with access. A new California Arts Council grant is helping students experience world-class exhibitions and pass that access on by mentoring high school students: https://bit.ly/40qqq2x

“We’re trying to understand the fundamentals of how neurons can be adaptively tuned to solve problems,” said #BaskinEngineering student Ash Robbins—part of a @ucsantacruz.bsky.social team who taught brain organoids to solve a goal-directed task. Via @discovermag.bsky.social: bit.ly/4uCeatV

Since 1965, the women of UCSC have been breaking barriers, building community, and paving the way for future students. Here’s a look back at women banana slugs of the past. #WomensHistoryMonth

Biology labs still rely on manual work that slows research, but UC Santa Cruz alums want to change that. 🔬 Open Culture Science is building automated systems to keep cell cultures healthy and reproducible, helping scientists share experiments & speed up discovery worldwide: https://bit.ly/40jkKav

"This is exceptionally rapid detection of an outbreak in free-ranging marine mammals."- Christine Johnson, @ucdavis.bsky.social. With partners @ucsantacruz.bsky.social www.ucdavis.edu/health/news/...

For #WomensHistoryMonth we spotlight Prof. Shaheen Sikandar. Her research shows how early pregnancy may protect against breast cancer by blocking age-related cell changes. A new @americancancersoc.bsky.social grant will allow her to shift focus from cure to prevention. news.ucsc.edu/2026/01/preg...

🚜💧Two UC Santa Cruz teams will create low-cost, open-source DIY irrigation systems and smart, electric tractors co-designed with small organic farmers with the support of @usda 2025 Specialty Crop Block Grants.: https://bit.ly/4scxewF #AgTech

⚠️ H5N1 avian influenza has been confirmed in northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo. The first cases in CA marine mammals. UCSC researchers are conducting urgent monitoring & testing 🦭Your gift keeps researchers in the field when it matters most: https://bit.ly/4sjJj3j

Meet Tresa Mariya Ignatius, Molly Forst, and Gabby Goss, three UC Santa Cruz undergraduates graduating in just 3 years instead of 4🎓 About 10.3% of students now finish early, thanks to stronger advising, structured degree plans, and summer classes–the highest in the UCs: https://bit.ly/4rlUIiK

🐋 Final week to see Weather and the Whale at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, always with free admission! 🌊 This exhibition pairs new marine ecology research from the Friedlaender Lab with contemporary artworks exploring climate change, whale behavior, and environmental justice.

Planetary systems aren’t static. They’re shaped by long, complicated histories 🌌 Astronomer Ruth Murray-Clay studies exoplanets using equations and simulations to understand how they evolve and distinguish ordinary planets from potential life-bearing worlds: https://bit.ly/3MgT9Dp

Greenhouses are key to feeding a warming world, and we're developing better open-source, interdisciplinary systems designed for small farmers🌱 Katia Obraczka’s Greener Greenhouses project uses IoT technology to help cut water and energy use while boosting crop production: https://bit.ly/4tj9fgu

✨ Directed by Don Williams & co-presented by the African American Theater Arts Troupe + the Department of Performance, Play & Design, feel the soul of Motown as three young women rise from hopeful dreamers to international superstars in Dreamgirls! Get weekend tickets now: https://bit.ly/46Vp5UX

From dark matter to dirt 🌍✨UC Santa Cruz astronomer Alexie Leauthaud is applying her cosmology expertise to climate action through Seed Spoon Science, a community-based gardening program advancing environmental justice and sustainability: https://bit.ly/3MfOguv

Lots to learn about migration to & from Spain. Students at & beyond @ucsantacruz.bsky.social are invited to join me in "Latin American Spain," a seminar I'll teach in Madrid June 22-July 24, 2026. Register here for our Zoom info session on Thur, Feb 19, 1-2pm PT: ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Congratulations to UC Santa Cruz Distinguished Professor Emerita of Education, Judit Moschkovich, who has been elected to the National Academy of Education for her influential research on mathematical thinking in linguistically diverse settings. Read more: https://bit.ly/4cacQY3

Using drone technology to protect air quality for farmworking communities 🌱 Researcher Javier Gonzalez-Rocha, his team, and community partners are addressing major gaps in traditional monitoring systems and revealing how pollutants affect people who work outdoors: https://bit.ly/3YMnxbE

New research shows early pregnancy may act as a “reset button” for how breast tissue ages, reducing the buildup of abnormal cells linked to breast cancer risk later in life 🧬 This protective effect can last decades, shaping long-term health: https://bit.ly/4rCYm7U

Long before the 19th Amendment, Black women in the Pacific Northwest were organizing, leading, and fighting for the vote. UCSC’s article brings these overlooked activists into focus and honors their vision of freedom and civic participation: https://bit.ly/4q8yuzl

Words in the real world, such as signs or posters, can mislead AI-enabled robots and autonomous systems into unsafe decisions. UC Santa Cruz researchers’ new findings show that this “environmental prompt injection” is a real security risk as AI grows: https://bit.ly/4qVkDhh

New research from @ucsantacruz.bsky.social Genomics Institute affiliate Shaheen Sikandar shows that pregnancy may “reset” how breast tissue ages, reducing cell changes that are linked to higher breast cancer risk later in life. news.ucsc.edu/2026/01/preg...

Art isn’t just reacting to the climate crisis; it’s helping lead the conversation. See how our artists and scientists are working together to turn research into experiences that help people feel, understand, and take action: https://bit.ly/46cmV32

Inspiring bold questions and creative visions is central to preparing the next generation to build a more equitable (and entertaining!) society and future. Shape the arts and culture you know and love and help foster a lifelong love of critical inquiry: https://bit.ly/49FXjyi

The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz is exploring how we flourish in physical, relational, intellectual, and ecological ways through its 2025-2025 theme: nourishment. Tune in for exciting events, including panel discussions, lectures, and more: https://bit.ly/4rbFeh3

Congratulations to alumnae Rosie Glen-Lambert & Hailey McAfee on their Off-Broadway debut at Soho Playhouse from Jan. 14-Feb. 13! 🎭 Their play, and her Children, centers othe n American gun violence epidemic through the perspective of an NRA spokesperson. Read more: https://bit.ly/4qtAcfD

New research led by UCSC undergraduate Arian Moghni reveals that rare red geyser galaxies remain dormant due to self-regulation by slow inflows of cool gas that feed their central black holes. These findings reshape how we understand galaxy evolution: https://bit.ly/4pEiMvv

New research shows that where fishing fleets move can reveal changes in marine ecosystems, helping scientists spot climate impacts faster than traditional methods. For fisheries and their communities, this data improves monitoring and management: https://bit.ly/3YbVdiF

New research from UC Santa Cruz examines whether insurance models could help cities restore and protect urban trees, making the economic case for investing in nature as climate risks intensify: https://bit.ly/3Lipg5j

🧬🦴 Our ancient DNA analysis of a 5,500-year-old human skeleton from Columbia has revealed oldest evidence yet of syphilis in the Americas. This new evidence predates previous estimates of when syphilis was present in the Americas by at least 3,000 years! phys.org/news/2026-01...

Fairy tales have shaped our imaginations, but also our ideas about race. In Specters of the Marvelous, UCSC Professor Kimberly Lau uncovers how classic European fairy tales encoded racism and colonial thinking and why those legacies still surface today: https://bit.ly/3KGXzmB

Nature, the universe, and humanity itself find new definitions at UC Santa Cruz. Our researchers are agents of transformation, inspiring change that ensures prosperity for all. With the help of our communities and donors, we can make real a resilient, hopeful future: https://bit.ly/48AKOms