Virtual Events
Virtual Events
Wherever you live, connect with UC Santa Cruz by joining us for virtual events. Engage in meaningful conversations, gain professional insights, or network with fellow Slugs, gain professional insights, or simply catch up with fellow Slugs—all from the comfort of your own home.
Slugs & Steins
Slugs & Steins is a monthly series of informal discussions highlighting UC Santa Cruz’s amazing faculty members. Talks are held on the 2nd Monday of each month with topics ranging from organic artichokes to endangered zebras, self-driving cars to Shakespeare.
All are welcome, and audience participation is encouraged. We encourage you to share the link far and wide as slugs and friends from around the world may join us.
Kraw Lecture Series
The Kraw Lecture Series in Silicon Valley is made possible by a generous gift from UC Santa Cruz alumnus George Kraw (Cowell ‘71, history and Russian literature) and Raphael Shannon Kraw. The lecture series features acclaimed UC Santa Cruz scientists and technologists who are grappling with some of the biggest questions of our time.
These talks are free and open to the public and available via live stream.
November 2024
The Lamat Institute:
Re-Imagining Leadership and Mentorship in Astronomy
Professor Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz
Monday, November 12
6:30pm to 8:00pm
This is a new era in astronomy and astrophysics on every measurable axis, where fundamental breakthroughs are being made with astonishing frequency. The entire Universe is our laboratory, and analysis of these data has transformed our understanding of our place in the cosmos.
Despite these strides, one of the greatest challenges to the astronomical community has been building environments where people with historically marginalized identities can thrive. This critically limits the pool of innovative minds who may gain exclusive access to cutting-edge research and thus, who can shape the future of the field through transformative science, mentoring, and professional leadership.
The overarching goal of the Lamat Institute has been to invigorate the field through training and workplaces that reflect equity-advancing values and allow the full human diversity of our nation to meaningfully and maximally contribute to the field. Cultivating equitable access has allowed the program to dramatically increase equitable participation.
In this talk, I will first offer an introduction to Lamat’s mentoring philosophy and design principles and discuss the ability of REU programs to facilitate long-term student success. Two Lamat alumni will then proceed to give a broad overview of the science activities and talk about how the program continuously works to modernize its core structures, such as its approaches to selection, mentoring, teaching, and community engagement.
Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz is a Professor and the Vera Rubin Presidential Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). After studying at the University of Cambridge, he was the John Bahcall Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Since joining the UCSC faculty in 2007, Ramirez-Ruiz has won a number of awards for his research, including a Packard Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard, the Niels Bohr Professorship from the Danish National Research Foundation, the HEAD Mid-Career Prize from the AAS and the Bouchet Award and the Dwight Nicholson Medal from the American Physical Society. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has authored or co-authored about three hundred research papers, two dozen in Science and Nature. For over a decade, Ramirez-Ruiz has built STEM training research programs. Ramirez-Ruiz’s mentees encompass over 200 students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty. In addition to his record of success as a research adviser, the mentoring program he created, Lamat (“star” in Mayan), has been remarkably successful at increasing the number of historically marginalized students who earn Ph.D.s in astrophysics. For his efforts, Ramirez-Ruiz was honored in 2021 by the White House with a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.