News & Events

The 2025-26 edition requested projects focused in three areas: Society, Media and Technology, AgTech, and EdTech.

Acclaimed artist, filmmaker, and Distinguished Professor of the Arts and History of Consciousness Isaac Julien has created a Renaissance-inspired dreamscape for the 21st century.

One year after graduating from UC Santa Cruz, Smeet Mehta (Crown ’24, philosophy) works as an analyst at 100x.VC—an early-stage venture capital firm based in Mumbai—to help startups get the funding they need to start their journeys.

As Halloween approaches, UC Santa Cruz faculty are undertaking scholarly investigations of zombies, digging up cultural histories of vampires, and delving deeply into the metaphysics of creepiness.

Metaphysics has never had a “fun” reputation. Many people—if they’ve even heard of the M-word— tend to associate it with woozy, abstract lectures about time and space. But with the arrival of Philosophy Professor and new Department Chair Sara Bernstein and Philosophy Professor Daniel Nolan, two internationally respected experts in metaphysics, the UC Santa Cruz Philosophy Department is bolstering its strengths in this realm and setting out to change perceptions.

This year’s conference,  US India: Normalization or Reset?, examines how the two countries can review their priorities and either restore normalcy or redefine the relationship for a multipolar world.

For as long as she can remember, Assistant Professor of Languages and Applied Linguistics Ariel Chan has lived her life in two languages. Now one of three new Humanities faculty hires at UC Santa Cruz, Chan is challenging outdated assumptions about bilingualism through her work at the intersection of psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and neuroscience.

This spring quarter, UC Santa Cruz Humanities students immersed themselves in the story of three Hawaiian princes who introduced surfing to the United States in the late 19th century, using Santa Cruz to launch a sport that became a cultural phenomenon.

The ten-week public history course, taught by UC Santa Cruz Humanities Dean and History Professor Jasmine Alinder, brought students face-to-face with the complexities of community storytelling, colonial legacies, and cultural continuity

The uncomfortably famous satirical songwriter taught as a Cowell College fellow from 1972 to 2001