Baskin Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA (2026)

06/04/2026

🥁 Introducing the 2026 Dean's and UC Santa Cruz Chancellor's Award recipients!

We honored 10 outstanding undergraduate projects that demonstrate excellence in engineering research and innovation across a range of fields, including , health technology, neuroscience, and human-centered computing.

“These projects reflect the bold, socially responsible nature of research at Baskin Engineering,” said Alexander Wolf, Dean of the Baskin School of Engineering. “Our undergraduate students are developing skills and experience that translate directly into the demands of modern engineering roles and purpose-driven careers.”

Award recipients are selected by a committee of Baskin Engineering faculty led by Jim Whitehead, professor of computational media and associate dean for the undergraduate experience.

“We are actively expanding pathways into research for our undergraduates, connecting them with hands-on learning opportunities early in their academic journey,” Whitehead said.

Link in the comments to read more about the award-winning projects and the students behind them. Congrats, all!

Image description: Alexander Wolf, dean of Baskin Engineering and Jim Whitehead, professor of computational media and associate dean for the undergraduate experience with the 2026 Dean’s and Chancellor’s Award recipients.

06/03/2026

We’re still buzzing from the NVIDIA Hack-a-Claw hackathon at UC Santa Cruz! 🏆

Fueled by a passion for technology, more than 200 students spent 24 hours building the future of agentic at a hackathon co-hosted by , NVIDIA, and ASUS.

Participants developed innovative applications using cutting-edge AI hardware and software from NVIDIA and ASUS, creating solutions ranging from cybersecurity and robotics to small-business automation and sustainable AgTech.

The event was led by Baskin Engineering undergraduate student Preet Karia—who won NVIDIA's GTC 2026 Agents for Impact Hackathon—and organized in partnership with BE student organization Hack.dev.

Congratulations to the winners, who are all UCSC students unless otherwise noted:

☁️ Cloud Track: ClawForge - A NemoClaw safety-powered tool that helps small businesses create custom AI agents from calls and booking to support daily operations, without needing to code. Team: Animesh Alang, Adithya Pradeep, Paras Gandhi, and Giwin Vincent Edwin Omesh

🤖 Edge Track: FactoryMind - A tool for future optimization of autonomous robots in factories. Team: Dan Pham, Rohan S. (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Donovan Thomas, and Raeed Saad

🔐 NemoClaw Track: MonkeyClaw - A cybersecurity tool for probing, patching, and protecting the NVIDIA NemoClaw ecosystem. Team: George Gong, Justin Lee, and Ezzy Rappeport

🌱 Best for UCSC Track: HydroClaw - An autonomous AI agent that manages a hydroponic farm, continuously monitoring growth and taking corrective action in real time. Team: Carmen Tan, Alexander Hamilton, and Lucas Peterson

Thank you to everyone who participated, and to organizers Preet Karia, Parsh Gandhi, Ember Lu, Pranitha Rajaa and Adhya Maddukuri, as well as NVIDIA, ASUS, the mentors, judges, and volunteers who made this incredible event possible.

🔗 Link in comments to more.

Image descriptions:
1 - The Hack.dev. team (left to right): Adhya Maddukuri, Parsh Gandhi, Preet Karia, Pranitha Rajaa, and Ember Lu. Credit: Wei Wang
2 - Edge Track winning team. Credit: Wei Wang
3 - NemoClaw Track winners. Credit: Wei Wang
4 - Best for UCSC Track winners with event organizers. Credit: Wei Wang
5 - Two students work together at a computer. Credit: Griffin Murphy
6 - Two students display ASUS technology. Credit: Griffin Murphy
7 - A group of students collaborate on a project. Credit: Griffin Murphy

06/01/2026

What happens when a surfer studies applied mathematics at UC Santa Cruz? 🌊 Meet Rebecca Benjamin, a master's student in scientific computing and applied mathematics who is applying computational fluid dynamics to study how subtle differences in surfboard shape affect performance in the water.

“At Baskin Engineering, I found a smaller applied mathematics department with a collaborative culture, where faculty and students support interdisciplinary and unconventional projects,” Rebecca said.

“This environment helped me bring an unusual research idea—one explored by only a small number of researchers worldwide—into an academic setting and receive meaningful support.”

Rebecca is advised by Adjunct Professor of Applied Mathematics Frank Giraldo and Professor of Applied Mathematics Nic Brummell.

🎓 After graduating this year, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in applied mathematics at UC Santa Cruz, working with Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics Nilah Ioannidis on machine learning and genome sequencing to study rare diseases.

Learn more at the link in comments. ⬇️

05/21/2026

Where did life on Earth begin? Professor Emeritus of Biomolecular Engineering David Deamer and BME Research Associate Bruce Damer guest edited a new special issue of Astrobiology, “An Origin of Life on Land,” exploring growing evidence that life may have emerged across networks of terrestrial environments on early Earth billions of years ago.

“In this new view, perhaps an entire landscape might be implicated in life’s beginning,” Damer said.

🔎 The collection explores how the origins of life may have come about in volcanic landscapes, freshwater hydrothermal systems like geyser-fed hot springs, evaporative environments, crater and soda lakes, and other concentrating freshwater environments.

Learn more with the link in comments. 🔗

Image credit: Siegfried Poepperl / Pexel

05/15/2026

We are celebrating major strides in innovation at UC Santa Cruz! 🎉

🧬 Congratulations to Richard (Ed) Green, professor of biomolecular engineering, who received a UC Santa Cruz Lifetime Achievement Award recognizing a career defined by groundbreaking advances in genomics and computational biology, and for translating fundamental science into lasting societal impact. Methods developed in his lab have been widely applied, licensed, and commercialized across biotechnology, forensics, and genomics—and his technology has served as the foundation for three regionally based startups.

🧠 Another breakthrough innovation, NeuroSWARM3, received the Translation of the Year Award. Developed by the Yanik Lab led by Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ali A Yanik, NeuroSWARM3 is a neurophotonic technology enabling wireless, minimally invasive monitoring of brain activity at unprecedented scale and resolution. Over the past year, the innovation has made significant progress toward real-world application and commercialization.

Join us in congratulating Ed Green and Ali A Yanik! Link in comments to learn more. 🔗

Image left to Right: Mike Beck, Richard (Ed) Green, Chancellor Cynthia Larive, Bud Colligan, and Ali Yanik.

05/11/2026

Hype yourself up in the mirror. Make your fingers walk around on something. Create a ritual. 👉 People are tasked to carry out these actions in a new extended reality (XR) experience called “Body Proxy”—because they are uniquely human.

Body Proxy is a satirical, speculative fiction piece that follows the narrative of an company recruiting humans to carry out physical actions in the world.

Co-produced by UC Santa Cruz Assistant Teaching Professor of Computational Media Samantha Gorman, at her creative studio Tender Claws, the experience debuted at SXSW 2026 where it won the XR Experience Jury Award! 🎉

“When people are seeing and engaging with this installation, they become more aware of what is possible now,” Gorman said. “The time is here, and it is up to us how we want to shape what our presence is in the world in relation to AI. Things that seem far-futuristic are being done and decided now.”

Read more with the link in comments. 🔗

Image description: At the Flux Festival showing of Body Proxy, a participant performs a uniquely human task on behalf of a fictional AI company. Photo courtesy of Tender Claws.

05/05/2026

👏 Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Yuanchao Xu on receiving a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award—one of the organization’s most prestigious grants in support of early-career faculty.

With support from the award, Xu will develop protocols to improve the security and efficiency of the software and hardware that power complex data centers.

“Security of the public cloud is more important than ever before, as much of our digital life now depends on it. AI agents, chatbots, and AI-assisted collaboration platforms—all of those applications run on the public cloud,” Xu said.

“As we offload more of our tasks to the public cloud, security is more important than before to guarantee performance.”

🔗 Learn more with the link in comments.

📸 Image description: Baskin Engineering branded graphic with Yuanchao Xu's portrait photo and supporting text that says "National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient! | Yuanchao Xu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering."

04/22/2026

Congratulations to students and alumni who have been awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship!

For more than 75 years, the fellowship program has played a critical role in developing the talent pipeline that sustains U.S. leadership in science and engineering.

This year’s awardees from UC Santa Cruz include both current students and alumni continuing their studies at institutions across the country. We’re proud to celebrate our Baskin Engineering community:

Charles Ferguson (Ph.D., bioengineering)
Loni Halsted-Ruelas (B.S. '25, computer science)
Piper Mahn (B.S. '26, biomolecular)
Naomi Rehman (B.S. '25, computer engineering & computer science)
Noah Williams (Ph.D., biomolecular engineering & bioinformatics)
Fan “Sarah” Xia (B.S. '23, biomolecular engineering & bioinformatics)

Join us in congratulating these outstanding scholars!

🔗 Link in comments to read more.

04/15/2026

A new ranking shows UC Santa Cruz students are among the top coders in the country! 🎉

The campus made its debut on CodeSignal's 2026 University Report, a data-driven ranking of universities based on the demonstrated programming and software engineering skills of their graduates.

Built on tens of thousands of verified, proctored coding assessments, the ranking places UC Santa Cruz among the top 50 universities nationwide—and in the top 30 among public universities—for producing graduates with the skills today's top employers are hiring for.

“Our graduates are entering the workforce with the ability to translate strong technical skills into real-world contexts,” said Jim Whitehead, Associate Dean for the Undergraduate Experience at . “As AI transforms the software engineering landscape, proven career readiness is more crucial than ever.”

Link in comments to learn more.

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