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%.
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 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
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.
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
With the College of Creative Studies commencement festivities already in the books, eight more ceremonies remain in UC Santa Barbara’s graduation lineup for the Class of 2024.
The new method finds more extensive and diverse coverage, which is crucial for meeting the goal of protecting 30% of Earth by 2030.
Bringing warm surface water north and cold deep water south, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a major component of the global climate system, influencing marine ecosystems, weather patterns and temperatures. It’s also regarded as a potential tipping element of the Earth’s climate.
The historian and professor receives the Bert Corona Lifetime Achievement Award for inspiring progressive social change to advance the inclusion of the poor and oppressed.
Read more about the honor
Physicists Cristina Marchetti and Mark Bowick develop design rules that take advantage of topological defects to control flows in active fluids.
A distinguished professor emerita in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Major was cited for her pioneering and decades-long body of work on the psychological impacts of prejudice and discrimination.
View this email online May 16, 2024 Top News How the romantic institution props-up a racialized dating landscape In a new book, Sabrina Strings blends historical research, personal anecdotes and cultural criticism to consider the demise of romantic partnerships, emphasizing…
These territorial crustaceans use their tails as shields to defend against the explosive punches of their rivals.
Ashley Yeh ’24 will go on to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine. The Knight-Hennessy Program, established in 2018, provides fellows up to three years of tuition and a stipend for living and academic expenses.
The Black Studies professor, who won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his acclaimed biography of Alain Locke, brings to 49 the number of UCSB faculty that have been named fellows of the academy.
Assistant professor Matt Beane‘s new book uncovers ways for workers to remain competent and competitive in an increasingly automated workplace.
Patricia Fancher digs into Alan Turing’s technical and scientific writing, highlighting his role in computing’s inception and his collaborations with women and queer individuals.
Professors Beth Pruitt and M. Scott Shell have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Healing meets the surreal in the hyper-saturated dreamscape featured in the exhibition and performance series by the art professor, whose work captures the banality and enormity of everyday life.
Wang’s considerable work to develop scalable algorithms that are both swift and accurate couldn’t be more necessary. His efforts are being recognized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Signal Processing Society.
Latin American literature scholar Suzanne Jill Levine receives a PEN America award for translation.
