Distilling more than a decade of ethnographic research, the book examines ongoing resource exploitation in Guatemala by multinational corporations that fund and operate hydroelectric projects.
Read more about the “invasion”
World Music Series
Wednesday, April 16
Los Catanes del Norte will perform music from different regions in Mexico including corridos, rancheras, and boleros norteños.
New research demonstrates that fruit fly larvae navigate toward the negative electric potential using a small set of sensory neurons in their head.
A field experiment conducted with cities in China demonstrates that an increase in government transparency causes decreases in pollution, with meaningful effects on health.
In “The Witch Studies Reader,” scholars Jane Ward and Soma Chaudhuri introduce feminist witch studies, exploring how witchcraft functions as a site of power, persecution and decolonial critique.
Five decades after its founding, the support the center provides — and the community it has cultivated — are as crucial now as they were in 1975.
The professor’s new novel weaves a tale where truth is slippery, race and class are in flux, and the past refuses to stay buried.
Read more about the book
A team led by UCSB researchers highlights the importance of monitoring shark populations and combining different strategies for managing their numbers.
The film details Professor David Valentine’s discovery and investigation, with Los Angeles Times reporter Rosanna Xia, of toxic waste dumping off the Southern California coast.
Read more about “Out of Plain Sight”
Professor Emeritus Víctor Fuentes’ new book, “Florilegio,” traces centuries of Spanish-language literature in the U.S. — spanning from the 16th to the mid-20th century — revealing a deep and often overlooked literary tradition.
Anthropologists Amber VanDerwarker and Doug Kennett present new research about the history of avocado domestication, highlighting a popular tree crop of major economic importance.
Professor Sharon Tettagah demonstrates how considering learner preferences for receiving educational content can create a more inclusive and effective educational experience.
Microsoft team led by UC Santa Barbara physicists unveils first-of-its-kind topological qubit, paving the way for a more fault-tolerant quantum computer.
Lipay won the awards for Best Classical Compendium 2024 and Best Orchestral Performance 2024 at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles earlier this month alongside the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The awards recognized the orchestra’s recording of Revolución Diamantina, a ballet score by renowned Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. Lipay engineered the recording alongside his father, Dmitriy Lipay.
A team led by research associate Jeff Prancevic provides the first ever predictions for the dynamic flooding and emptying of stream networks.
Read more about their findings
“Public Texts: A Californian Visual Language” at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum explores how artists use text to challenge perception, critique culture and reflect California’s evolving identity.
Daniela Soto has earned a prestigious fellowship with eight years of funding to study the evolution of human brains from a genomic perspective.
Recognized for his stories of farmworker families in the vast and complex Central Valley of California, Muñoz is also a past recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.
A trio short films by undergraduates — “Not Just Water,” “quwa’” and “The Kelp We Breathe” — will be featured during the festival’s Santa Barbara Documentary Shorts programming.
“It feels special because it’s my nation saying that my life’s work is appreciated. And that is an amazing feeling,” said Tilman, a distinguished professor at Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.
The associate professor, an expert in energy, climate and environmental politics, was recognized for her exceptional contributions and public engagement.
Culminating a multiyear effort to unite library collections and services in a central, state-of-the-art space, the newly opened facility also represents the vision of its namesake, a longstanding donor to campus
Intending to have a larger presence in the downtown area, and to support the revitalization of Santa Barbara’s primary business corridor, the university will acquire property on State Street.
Read more about the university’s plans
Back-to-back events will kick off celebrations for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, including a free documentary screening and a silent march through campus.
Facing a nationwide shortage of school psychologists and a growing need for services for increasingly diverse student bodies, the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education launches a new effort to train bilingual school psychologists.
Plus: Chicana and Chicano studies scholar discusses her new book, “The Children of Solaga: Indigenous Belonging across the U.S.-Mexico Border,” in this Interdisciplinary Humanities Center event.
Professor Soojin Yi leads a study of how gene expression in the human brain reveals cell types becoming more specialized, not just more numerous.
Wishing you gorgeous sunsets and bright horizons
Before signing off for the year, check out our Most Viewed Stories of 2024. Then meet us right back here on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, when The Current will return to your inbox with more research news, features and exciting UC Santa Barbara content.
Global apparel consumption resulted in over 20 million tons of plastic waste in 2019, creating an economic and environmental burden that “falls disproportionately upon the developing economies of the world.”
The Chicana and Chicano studies professor discusses her new book, “The Children of Solaga: Indigenous Belonging across the U.S.-Mexico Border.”
The emeritus professor’s new book unpacks how inept leadership by the Russian ruler precipitated the fall of the Romanovs.
New research provides the first comprehensive map of the vast footprint of coconut palm agriculture across nearly every Pacific atoll.
Morrissey is among those pioneering a new kind of immunotherapy, and her efforts have earned her the recognition of the American Cancer Society.
If policy makers implemented just four policies acting across the plastic lifecycle (from production to use and disposal), researchers say, we could reduce plastic pollution by 91%.
Over 17 years, researchers and conservationists team to save, then reintroduce, mountain yellow-legged frogs to lakes in Yosemite where they’d been extirpated by a deadly fungus.
Investigating major migrations in global weather patterns, research by Zhe Li and Quingha Ding suggests this poleward shift is part of a natural cycle in sea surface temperatures in the Tropical Eastern Pacific.
Researchers at Craig Montell’s lab created deaf mosquitoes by knocking out a single gene and found that the males had absolutely no interest in mating. The results could have major implications for how we manage disease transmission.
n award-winning video series Research in 60, Tania Israel, a professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical & School Psychology, discusses strategies for navigating conversations in a divided nation.
UCSB has again been named as a Fulbright HSI Leader for its strong engagement, as an Hispanic-Serving Institution, with the Fulbright Program.
The MultiCultural Center and UCSB’s Early Childhood Care and Education Services partner on a community-based Dia de los Muertos celebration for children and families.
In Rome, Schooler will present alongside research colleague Madeline Gross, assistant project scientist. Together, they are investigating how art can induce a state of cognitive openness, allowing viewers to approach the world with greater mental flexibility.
Jackson Muhirwe, chief information security officer and director of information assurance, is a seasoned higher education leader with over two decades of experience in information technology and security.
For affordability, social mobility, research impact, academics and other metrics, the campus is again considered among the nation’s — and the world’s — top universities, according to myriad recent rankings.
Executive functioning was the key cognitive domain impacted by vigorous exercise, such as high-intensity interval training (HIIT) protocols, according to new research.
Tasked with uniting efforts across campus to enhance “servingness” — an HSI model that goes beyond enrollment numbers to truly support the success of Latiné — Fematt characterized the establishment of the new role as a “significant step forward” for the campus.
While working at reefs in Moorea, French Polynesia, Kai Kopecky found that the network of coral skeletons left in place by bleaching events caused critical processes to break down, ultimately preventing reefs from recovering.
The award is part of the NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. Montell will use the funds to test a new treatment her group is developing for cancer and other diseases, such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Featured prominently in Getty’s Art + Science Collide-themed initiative, Rosalena discusses computational craft, a hybrid practice between analog and digital techniques, in a recent episode of UCSB’s video series, “Research in 60 Seconds.”
The brain’s gray and white matter shift across gestation, according to first-of-its-kind research that scanned the brain of one first-time mother every few weeks, from before pregnancy through two years postpartum.
In her latest book, the digital artist and scholar examines the intersection of art, technology and activism.
In a pair of recent papers, David W. Lawson and his team at UCSB’s Applied Evolutionary Anthropology Lab shed light on possible explanations for gender bias. Their research was carried out in an urbanizing rural community in northwestern Tanzania.
The AlloSphere opens to the public with “Sketches of Sensorium,” a multisensory installation exploring ocean fragility and resilience through art and science. Shows are every second Thursday and fourth Saturday.
The exhibition situates Puccinelli’s career within the constellation of his local and regional contemporaries.
Read more about the art opening
William Davies King’s new book covers Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O’Neill masterpiece of American drama, “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” and the context of its creation.
When it comes to shark conservation, scientists say size should matter after a global study finds that the sharks most affected by fishing are also the most important for healthy oceans.
Mechanical engineering professor Francesco Bullo leads a multidisciplinary university research initiative to investigate the mathematics behind networks of coupled oscillators.
Drake will step down from his role at the end of the 2024-25 academic year, after five years leading California’s world-renowned public research university system.
The collection, which was donated by his daughters, includes Kroemer’s research and teaching papers, ephemera and digital materials.
Previous studies have looked at regional effects on fishing of individual marine protected areas; this is the first to consider the question on a global scale, accounting for complex interactions between fleets. Its findings challenge assumptions about ocean conservation.
Bringing together students from Tuskegee and from UCSB, the unique program is creating a new kind of space between a Hispanic Serving Institution and an HBCU.
The professor’s expertise drives impactful research on marine contamination and oil spills. Here he discusses his work behind the headlines, balancing science, policy and people.
The Banerjee Lab’s flat and tiny field-effect transistors could pave the way for ultra-efficient computing with a platform that can bring energy requirements to within two orders of magnitude — about 100 times — with respect to the human brain.
Researchers explore the connections, and disconnects, between public beliefs about climate change and climate action.
From the sunny skies to the good vibes, it was a glorious graduation weekend at UC Santa Barbara.
Professor and historian Giuliana Perrone discusses her new research in the context of Juneteenth and the latest from California’s reparations task force.
Designed for highly motivated students, the first of its kind program in the UC system provides undergraduates with a clearly structured pathway to becoming credentialed K-12 teachers.
Read more about ÉXITO
