2025-26

• Greener Greenhouses — a Q&A with Katia Obraczka

  UC Santa Cruz professor Katia Obraczka’s Greener Greenhouses project uses energy-efficient IoT technology to precisely monitor greenhouse conditions, helping growers reduce water and energy use while improving crop production.

  By Caroline Hemphill

• Meet this historian of alien worlds

  With equations and simulations, astronomer Ruth Murray-Clay is working to understand how distant planets form, evolve and could offer conditions to support life.

  By Jenna Ahart

• Art Confronts Climate: A Creative Force in the Environmental Conversation

  Groundbreaking art and science collaborations are reimagining how we understand—and survive in—a warming world.

  By Emily Harwitz

• Javier Gonzalez-Rocha maps air quality with drones

  UCSC engineer Javier Gonzalez-Rocha is using drones and sensors to bring advanced air quality monitoring to underserved agricultural communities on California’s Central Coast.

  By Mark DeGraff

• From Space to Soil, Alexie Leauthaud Bridges Cosmology and Environmentalism

  UC Santa Cruz astronomer Alexie Leauthaud is bringing her cosmology expertise to climate action through Seed Spoon Science, a community-based gardening program focused on environmental justice and sustainability.

  By Collin Blinder

• A Lifeline for Salmon: UCSC and NOAA Join Forces to Secure a Future for California’s Most Iconic Fish

  A decades-long collaboration is giving Central California’s dwindling coho salmon population a fighting chance.

  By Annie Roth

• Streamlining desalination to save drinking water

  Sea level rise means fresh groundwater will increasingly become salty. Yat Li explains how his novel 3D-printed desalination tool can offer a solution.

  By Rita Aksenfeld

• Serious Games and Artificial Intelligence with UCSC’s Presidential Chair

  Magy Seif El-Nasr is using games and AI to transform education. As UC Santa Cruz’s Presidential Chair, she’s leading efforts to teach thoughtful, human-centered use of technology.

  By Jasmin Galvan

• Scheduling smarter: Combining technology and policy for more pleasant, equitable commuting

  As housing costs push workers farther from their jobs, UCSC researchers are developing smart scheduling technology to ease commutes and reduce traffic in Santa Cruz. By combining real-time data, public policy, and community input, the project aims to create a more equitable and sustainable public transportation system.

  By Carly Kay

• Star light, world bright

  Exploring remote planets with extreme light-bending inventions

  By Chiara Villanueva

• At the Crossroads of Language and AI

  As technology advances in English, a UCSC professor is making sure Indigenous languages don’t get left behind.

  By Aylin Woodward

• A Justice-Focused Perspective on the Clean Energy Transition

  Chris Benner investigates lithium extraction at the Salton Sea, and what it means for community groups and the future of clean energy.

  By Ramin Skibba

• Learning through participation

  Barbara Rogoff has studied the collaborative method Mayan communities use to teach children for over 30 years

  By Farah Aziz Annesha

• Genomes in the Wild: A Q&A with Professor Joanna Lynne Kelley on Evolution, Extremes, and Hibernating Bears

  At UC Santa Cruz’s Coastal Science Campus, Kelley is uncovering how life endures in extreme environments.

  By Mahima Samraik

• A Greener Solution for Artificial Intelligence

  A new large language model developed at UCSC removes math from the equation, giving artificial intelligence a more sustainable, greener future.

  By Elissa Welle

• Finding the most natural solutions to climate change

  From a young age, Rae Taylor-Burns knew she wanted to help solve the planet’s most pressing issue.

  By Anna Fitzgerald Guth