Baskin Engineering at UC Santa Cruz

10/16/2026

Silicon Valley, meet the next generation of builders. 😎

For , we brought 300+ students and builders together at UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus for an AI Hackathon packed with creativity and collaboration, in partnership with UC Santa Cruz Generative AI Center and student organization Hack.dev.

Teams built projects using AI to solve real-world challenges, such as a robotic assistant designed to make electronics workspaces more accessible for people with limited mobility, and assistive technology to help people with visual impairments retrieve objects.

The Generative AI Center also hosted the AI Frontier Summit in partnership with the Silicon Valley AI Pioneer Club. The event connected founders, academics, and technologists across the AI ecosystem to share ideas and start collaborations.

“The most consequential advances in AI won’t come from thinking about technology in isolation," UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia Larive said at the event. “They will come from connecting fundamental research with real-world problems, and from building collaborations that allow us to innovate boldly and responsibly.”

📸 Image descriptions:
1 - Two students speak to an AI hackathon participant at the UCSC Silicon Valley Campus. Credit: Elijah Viju
2 - Students gather for the AI hackathon outside the UCSC Silicon Valley Campus. Credit: Elijah Viju
3 - AI Frontier Summit panelists are joined by Chancellor Cynthia Larive and event organizers Professor of Computer Science Engineering Yi Zhang and Chair of the Silicon Valley AI Pioneer Club Jun Li.

10/15/2026

A team of UC Santa Cruz researchers found that ni****ne exposure during pregnancy and just after birth can have lasting effects on immune system development, increasing susceptibility to respiratory infections later in life.

Prenatal ni****ne exposure is known to cause a range of health issues, but scientists have not clearly understood the processes behind these vulnerabilities.

Now, Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Camilla Forsberg’s lab has shown that in mice models, ni****ne exposure alters the stem cells that create the body’s blood cells and other crucial lung immune cells. This early exposure may leave a hidden immune “memory” that emerges later in life when the body encounters an infection.

“During pregnancy, clinicians sometimes recommend ni****ne replacement therapy, such as patches or gum, to help patients quit smoking,” said UCSC postdoc Marcel Rommel. “These products still contain ni****ne, and our study suggests that ni****ne itself negatively affects the development of the immune system.”

Learn more at news.ucsc.edu 🔗

Image description: A person va**ng an electronic cigarette.

10/06/2026

We're thrilled to announce that Andy Yeh, assistant professor of biomolecular engineering, is one of two UC Santa Cruz faculty members to receive the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award! 🎉 The award supports exceptionally innovative research from early career investigators with the potential for broad impact on biomedical and behavioral science.

Yeh’s project will use deep learning, protein design, and synthetic chemistry to develop a new generation of light-emitting probes, dubbed “neoluminescence,” for biomedical imaging and sensing across biological scales.

Also receiving the award is Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Jaron Mercer. Yeh and Mercer are among just 42 New Innovator awardees nationwide in 2026, as part of the larger NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research program.

Congratulations! Link in comments to learn more.

📸 Image description: Portrait of Andy Yeh on a dark blue graphic, text reads: "National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award, Andy Yeh, Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering" with the Baskin Engineering logo.

10/01/2026

Congratulations to Ashesh Chattopadhyay, assistant professor of applied mathematics, who has been named a 2026 Early Career Fellow by Schmidt Sciences!

🌎 Chattopadhyay’s research focuses on theoretical advancements in to improve Earth system modeling. With this fellowship, he will develop methods to predict weather and climate “grey swan events” — events so rare they are not available in our short observational records, even though they are physically possible.

This year’s cohort includes 28 researchers receiving up to $16 million over three years to address critical long-term challenges in AI and help ensure it benefits society.

Link in comments to learn more.

📸 Image description: Ashesh Chattopadhyay pointing at a screen displaying an image of the Earth in a classroom with students from his lab.

09/29/2026

undergrads are gaining real-world industry experience through the QB3 Biotech Undergraduate Summer Internship Program!

Meet two of this year's interns:

🧪 Annie Saban (B.S. ’28, technology and information management; minors in computer science and electrical engineering) worked with Open Culture Science, a company spun out of the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute. She applied her technical skills to software and hardware projects, including developing a calibration curve for the company’s microfluidic pump technology.

"This opportunity has shown me how meaningful it is to be part of work with real world impact," she said.

🤖 Oliver Young (B.S. ’27, robotics engineering) interned at Bonsai Robotics, where he worked on a major software migration and helped improve the reliability of autonomous machines. His code is now running on machines deployed across California and Australia.

“I don’t think I could have had this type of opportunity anywhere else,” he said. “This has been a life-changing experience.”

Read more with the link in comments.

📸 Image descriptions:
1 - Annie Saban working on technology at Open Culture Science.
2 - Oliver Young with Bonsai Robotics technology.

09/23/2026

As many people turn toward chatbots for health advice, companionship, and anything in between, there’s a serious need to understand and mitigate the unsafe responses that AI can produce in free-flowing conversations. 💬

Chenguang Wang, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at UC Santa Cruz, is developing new methods to identify and prevent so-called “interaction safety” risks. His research will focus on interactions in the contexts of addiction recovery and teen mental health, but can generalize to other healthcare settings and broad chatbot use.

“We need to make the deployment of LLMs safer, and we need to be able to identify emerging and long-term risks, especially in healthcare,” Wang said.

His research is supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, one of the most prestigious grants for early career faculty. Congrats!

Link in comments to learn more.

📸 Image description: Portrait of Chenguang Wang on a blue background with the BE logo. Text reads: "National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient! Chenguang Wang, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering."

09/22/2026

What can a few strands of hair reveal about history? Quite a lot. Pioneering genomics techniques developed by UC Santa Cruz researchers helped uncover new evidence in the long-standing question of whether Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings.

The work involved Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Ed Green and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Beth Shapiro, both affiliates of the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute. Their research has advanced genomics methods for extracting and sequencing DNA from challenging sources, particularly rootless hair.

“We went from a long-shot fishing expedition to a slam dunk,” Green told The Atlantic. “From then on, it was pretty straightforward. We spend a lot of time getting DNA out of difficult things like hair.”

The story behind the science is featured in Smithsonian scholar Richard Kurin's new book, History by a Hair, out today, Sept. 22.

Researchers believe they have found genetic proof that one of the nation’s Founders fathered children with Sally Hemings—a woman he enslaved, Andrew Lawler reports: https://theatln.tc/9rFi4qd1

In a new book, the Smithsonian cultural anthropologist Richard Kurin describes the 15-year covert effort he led that resulted in what he and a team of geneticists, genealogists, historians, and anthropologists believe proves that Thomas Jefferson fathered at least two of Hemings’s six children, Lawler writes.

Their scientific study about the findings, currently under review for publication in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” relied on the latest genetic techniques to reassemble Jefferson’s genome from the Founder’s hair, which his personal secretary snipped from his head hours after his death, at his Monticello home in 1826. Researchers matched that sequence with DNA from descendants of two of Hemings’s sons, Madison and Eston.

The ambitious effort was kept secret from the public. “We didn’t want people to assume results until we were really, really sure,” Kurin told Lawler.

For many Americans, the matter was already settled—but a vocal minority has continued to doubt that Jefferson and Hemings had a sexual relationship. The Heritage Foundation, for example, has criticized Monticello’s depiction of Jefferson in part for failing to tell visitors “that historians disagree about Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings.”

But Kurin is confident that the team’s careful work over a decade and a half will convince doubters of the accuracy of their findings, Lawler writes. “For me, it had nothing to do with an ideological or political agenda,” Kurin writes in his new book. “I was using evidence, logic, and the available tools and methods to follow a trail.”

Kurin also takes Jefferson at his word. “There is not a truth existing which I fear,” the Founder wrote two months before his death, “or would wish unknown to the whole world.”

Read more at the link.

🎨: The Atlantic. Sources: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Getty.

09/22/2026

Join us in congratulating Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Ed Green, recipient of a University of California Regents Innovation Award! 🎉

Green received the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes innovations that have made long-term positive impacts on the lives of others and inspired UC inventors and entrepreneurs.

His pioneering work in DNA sequencing has led to breakthrough discoveries about human evolution, including a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, while forensic applications have helped solve cold cases around the country through his company, Astrea Forensics.

He also founded startups Dovetail Genomics and Claret Bioscience and currently serves as director of QB3 UC Santa Cruz.

Link in comments to read more. 🔗

Image description: Portrait of Ed Green with redwood trees in the background.

09/21/2026

Cities like Galveston, Texas, a major port on the Gulf Coast, are particularly vulnerable to extreme heat and flooding. Understanding how those risks could change in the future can help policymakers and communities make informed decisions to protect people and infrastructure.

Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics Ashesh Chattopadhyay is developing tools for actionable risk metrics in partnership with Fujitsu Research. This collaboration enables Chattopadhyay to build energy-efficient AI models for climate predictions and solutions that analyze vulnerable regions like Galveston.

“This is a collaboration where our research is driven by impact and operational use, as opposed to just unraveling scientific understanding of certain difficult processes in the world like the climate system,” Chattopadhyay said.

The partnership also provides internships for Ph.D. students in Chattopadhyay’s group. Leonard Lupin-Jimenez, Mohammad Moein Darman and Niloofar Asefi have been year-long residents with Fujitsu and received ongoing support from the company.

🔗 Learn more with the link in the comments.

Image descriptions:
1 - Galveston, Texas, a barrier island prone to heat and flooding, which could endanger infrastructure like the Galveston Causeway. Credit: Art Wager/Getty Images
2 - Portrait of Ashesh Chattopadhyay

09/17/2026

It’s not every day the University of California president stops by Baskin Engineering! 👋

We were thrilled to welcome UC President James B. Milliken to UC Santa Cruz, where he explored what students are building in Slugworks, UCSC's creatorspace open to all students.

He met with student organizations including Slugbotics and Formula Slug, and even got a sneak peek inside the Formula Slug electric race car!

“Their enthusiasm was infectious,” Milliken said.

It was a great opportunity to share the dedication, passion, and boundless creativity of Baskin Engineers with UC leadership. 🤝

📸 Image descriptions:
1 - UC President James B. Milliken with Slugbotics team.
2 - Formula Slug students show James B. Milliken their race car.