For innovations with lasting impacts on society and for his influence on generations of inventors and entrepreneurs, he received the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural UC Regents Innovation Awards.
Read more about Bowers’ work
In a multinational megastudy, social psychologist Hongbo Yu and collaborators analyze gratitude practices across 34 countries, with findings that illustrate the importance of cultural context.
Read more about practicing gratitude
The work by UC Santa Barbara’s Danyi Zhang and Tamas Vami demonstrates a novel method for searching for particles. The results will inform theories and future searches.
Read more about their findings
The Kenneth Robert Lincoln Indigenous Environmental Projects Fund will make grants of up to $1,000 available to students enrolled in the Environmental Leadership Incubator.
Soil scientist Iris Holzer will help lead the team updating greenhouse gas accounting guidelines for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Classicist Helen Morales discusses Parton’s radical empathy and the cultural power that let her hold contradictions — and people — together.
Computer scientist Michael Beyeler and colleagues use a deep-learning model to design patterns of electrical stimulation for electrodes temporarily implanted in a blind participant’s brain.
Read more about the findings
The artist and professor’s 27-foot piece was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for permanent display in its new David Geffen Galleries.
Read more about the textile
The Distinguished Professor and emLab Director was just named a Fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE), the highest honor bestowed in the field of environmental and resource economics.
The lecturer successfully advanced public health, environmental conservation, community infrastructure and youth empowerment across the Last Frontier
A warming climate is making the Golden State more hospitable to dengue fever and the mosquitoes that carry it.
A new, UCSB-developed version of a world-leading rainfall data product guides drought early warning, disaster relief, index insurance applications and more.
Read more about “CHIRPS”
Milton Love’s new book blends fish biology with a heavy dose of gonzo humor.
Read more about “Gonzo Ichthyology”
All the feels, and then some, were on display during UC Santa Barbara’s annual commencement festivities, which celebrated more than 6,700 students. Congrats, grads!
17.7 million Americans live in communities too road-poor to evacuate safely.
Read more about the threshold
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. For graduates, especially. Commencement season has arrived.
Read more about commencement
The oldest eukaryotes that have been found lived exclusively on the seafloor and already used oxygen. The discovery overturns certain long-held assumptions about the group while corroborating others.
Read more about the discovery
The assistant professor of computer science has received a prestigious Early CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation for his project to advance watermarking.
Jia-Ching Chen will spend a year in Taiwan on a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to study geopolitical intersections of energy transition and environmental governance.
Read more about Chen’s research
Friday, May 8
A screening of the 1981 landmark adaptation by Luis Valdez features accompaniment by a live orchestra.
Thursday, May 7
Ahilan T. Arulanantham of the UCLA School of Law discusses the role of race discrimination in immigration and refugee policy.
New research suggests that for consumers with textured hair, the “clean” label may not always equal “chemical-free.”
n a media environment where creating content and spreading false or misleading material is easy, perception is everything. Political scientist Julia Morse examines how these dynamics play out in the international arena.
UC Santa Barbara’s Top News & Featured Events
April 9, 2026
? Top News
Daniel Blumenthal in his lab
To advance quantum technology, miniaturization is the name of the game
Daniel Blumenthal’s research group is working to shrink large lasers, optical components and quantum optical light-matter experiments down to the size of a deck of cards.
Researchers in Ania Bleszynski Jayich’s lab use a mechanical resonator to enable greater entanglement for potentially more powerful sensors.
Read more about the diamonds
The organization has elected Shelly Gable, David Morrison, Javier Read de Alaniz and Kelly Caylor to its 2025 class of fellows.
Researchers join an international effort to better understand early biological influences on neurodevelopment.
At a partnership summit hosted by the nonprofit REACH, leaders from across Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties convened on campus with an eye toward collaboration and innovation.
The Santa Barbara County Active Transportation Dashboard brings together bike and pedestrian safety data to reveal patterns, trends and hotspots for collisions and near-misses across the county.
The first comprehensive museum survey of the Vietnamese American artist brings together more than 70 works spanning 25 years of research-driven practice.
Read more about the exhibition
With a new NSF award, computer science associate professor Prabhanjan Ananth will study the foundations of quantum computing as a cryptographic tool.
New research co-authored by Roark Chao demonstrates a new micro–light-emitting diode design that improves both efficiency and beam directionality.
The book by Mario T. García, a distinguished professor of Chicano/a studies and of history, is the first comprehensive text on Rupert García’s life and art.
Researchers have mapped out methods for assessing its societal benefits, an effort that could lead to more effective uses of remote sensing technology while increasing benefits to people at large.
A new bio-inspired molecule captures solar energy and releases it as heat on demand, outperforming lithium-ion batteries.
The campus ranks first among U.S. public universities, third among all U.S. institutions and seventh worldwide for scientific impact.
While social media addiction hasn’t been officially recognized as a mental health condition, it shows up in brain scans, according to Kylie Falcione, a graduate student at UCSB’s Media Neuroscience Lab.
“In today’s environment, it’s a community win that our writing and work in Chicano literature is recognized at this level,” said Arce, who will formally receive the award Thursday, Feb. 4.
Read more about Arce’s writing
The iconic looks for the 1995 classic comedy, created by costume designer Mona May, helped define a generation and solidified fashion as a key character in the story.
The English professor discusses how AI judgement, good or bad, can reflect knowledge and social values when implemented in our personal, work and public life.
The growing border between forested and urban areas is causing an alarming uptick in human cases of yellow fever, a disease that had become rare in South America.
Marine science professor Bob Miller helped create the first framework to identify and compare marine blackouts, which can severely impact kelp forests, seagrass beds and other light-dependent marine life.
While searching for exoplanets, scientists observe the first-ever impacts between large objects in a nearby star system.
Read more about the discovery
Scientists overcame storms and bureaucratic setbacks to investigate the ocean’s carbon cycle, revealing more about how tiny organic particles, known as marine snow, transport carbon.
The $3.8 million grant supports professors Tamara Afifi and Nancy Collins in their research goals: extending lifespan and improving quality of life.
The Art, Design & Architecture Museum hosts a celebration of the late artist’s legacy and his impact on the Chicano Art Movement in California.
Slated for summer 2028, in the runup to the Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, the team’s Preparation Camp at UCSB is expected to be one of its largest ever.
The East Campus project won approval from the UC Regents in their November meeting, while the San Benito project, under construction since May, is on track for completion in 2027.
The Art, Design & Architecture Museum revisits the visionary 1970s collective Environmental Communications, whose multi-media documentation of Los Angeles reimagined the city as a living ecosystem — and reshaped how we see the built environment today.
Read more about the exhibition
UCSB researchers contribute to an international account of extreme droughts and water temperatures in the Amazon basin.
Thousands of rare and uniquely American songs from the Jazz Age and the Great Depression are available for free listening.
In his new book, the anthropologist redefines aging as an evolutionary achievement, challenging a youth-obsessed culture to see the later decades of life as vital to our collective survival.
Krut, who teaches in the Writing Program and the College of Creative Studies, draws inspiration from Raymond Carver and the Beat Poets for his new book.
The forces that precipitated the rise and fall of ancient urban centers echo in today’s urban challenges.
Artist Kim Garcia’s new LA show “Tender Material” connects family stories with Philippine cultural history.
Researchers created an algae-based gel for studying mammary epithelial cells, which form milk-producing ducts and glands in healthy breast tissue and can transform into cancer cells.
In his book “When It All Burns,” Jordan Thomas sets out to answer a straightforward question: What led to today’s megafires? What emerged was an immersive account of a changing world.
