Any other Banana Slugs catch this question on #ESPNJeopardy? If you missed it, the episode is now streaming on Hulu, Disney+, and the ESPN App. Thank you, @jeopardyofficial.bsky.social! #GoSlugs 🍌🐌

Taking UC Santa Cruz back to the 00s! 🏠📼🚗

Every big breakthrough starts with people who are committed to making positive change. The Donor Collective is built on a simple idea: meaningful change happens when we come together around the causes we care about. Last year, gifts under $250 totaled more than $1 million. https://bit.ly/4wWdAr6

Penguin poop is helping scientists understand climate change’s effects on the diets of Antarctic species. UC Santa Cruz ocean sciences professor Michael Polito brought color to this clever work 🐧 https://bit.ly/4yloU1g

California’s biodiversity is facing climate pressure. Protect rare species & train future conservation leaders! 🌿 Give to the UC Santa Cruz Aboretum now and your gift will be matched 1:1 up to $25k. https://bit.ly/4vTGzvq

Time to rewind back to the 60's at UC Santa Cruz. 👀🎥🎶 📸 Images Courtesy of UC Santa Cruz Special Collections

From UC Santa Cruz to managing Apple operations in the Soviet Union, David Gleason used his humanities degree to build an extraordinary career. Today, he still gives back as a mentor and Humanities Dean’s Council member. https://bit.ly/4v8zTsz

What happens to human ritual in the age of AI? "Body Proxy," an award-winning XR experience co-produced by @baskinengineering.bsky.social Assistant Teaching Professor Samantha Gorman, debuted at SXSW and explores this through satire. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3ROT4t3

We’re measuring the health of a waterways by looking at DNA! 🧬 UC Santa Cruz is using a $2.2M California Department of Fish and Wildlife grant to create an eDNA "health index" for California’s streams—spotting declines from the Mojave to the Redwoods before they turn severe. https://bit.ly/4wrUc5H

From de-extinction to saving today’s endangered species, the science shared at Friday’s genomics symposium at UCSC was groundbreaking! 🦣🧬 Huge thanks to Beth Shapiro for showing how DNA research is our best hope for preventing extinction. https://bit.ly/4tXQ2kz

Dr. Ramon Resa (Crown ’76, biology) started picking oranges and peaches at age three. 🍊🍑 Decades later, he’s a celebrated pediatrician who has spent 40 years caring for underserved families in his hometown. Read more about this UCSC alum: https://bit.ly/4d3tLLW

Congrats to UCSC’s Greer Murphy on winning ICAI’s 2026 Donald McCabe Research of the Year Award! 🏆 Her work focuses on making academic integrity policies more equitable and more student-centered. https://bit.ly/4tvZGtU

UC Santa Cruz in the 80's. 📼✨🌲🦭💙 📸 Images Courtesy of UC Santa Cruz Special Collections

“UCSC ‘had me at hello.’ I never even made it to the other two campuses that had accepted me.” Alumnus Tim Shannon (Cowell '71, history) has philanthropically supported the Humanities at UCSC and students' path to UCSC for 15 years. Here's how: https://bit.ly/4sQ5EG8

How do we build a resilient world? For our two newest AAAS Fellows, the answer lies in the deep histories of migration spaces and the chemical cycles of our coastal wetlands. Congrats to Katharyne Mitchell and Adina Paytan on this lifetime honor! https://bit.ly/4se3hf8

Three UC Santa Cruz professor-student teams won Keck Foundation funding. Learn more about how this not only supports the career trajectories of faculty and graduate students but supports high-impact science research: https://bit.ly/41Lcalx

From UC Santa Cruz art studios to the @BattleBots judging panel. Alumna Lisa Winter (Porter ’09) is proof that an Art degree can lead to the top of the robotics industry. As COO of Sensible Robotics, she’s building a more tactile and creative future. Read more: https://bit.ly/4m0OBOX

When Jim Pepper arrived on campus in 1972, Environmental Studies was dismissed by some as “tree-hugger” activism. 50+ years later, it’s a flagship program addressing climate change through sustainability & justice. Now, Pepper’s legacy is continuing to plant seeds of change: https://bit.ly/4ahAe3A

Most birds in Hawaiʻi can transmit avian malaria to mosquitoes, leading to multiple bird extinctions and threatening native species. 🐦🦟 But UC Santa Cruz scientists are helping guide conservation strategies like mosquito control + habitat protection: https://bit.ly/4bTA0SC

Humanities = real-world skills 💡 UCSC students graduate with the ability to analyze, communicate, collaborate, and adapt, skills that employers value across every industry. From tech to media to entrepreneurship, read how transferable skills power unexpected careers: https://bit.ly/4l2oLtv

Science doesn't happen in a vacuum. And for 18 years, the Lamat Institute has mobilized marginalized students' strengths and changed how astronomy is practiced. A new review in Nature Astronomy shows how equity + excellence leads to better science: https://bit.ly/4b4YXto

Born enslaved in 1742, David George spent decades running toward freedom and across colonies, wars, and continents 📘 A new book by historian Gregory O’Malley tells his extraordinary story and rethinks the American Revolution from the perspective of the enslaved. Read more: https://bit.ly/4azL0Dr

Applied mathematics professor Ashesh Chattopadhyay received a Sloan Research Fellowship to develop AI models that improve climate prediction and help forecast extreme Earth-system events, improving our responses to climate change while conserving energy resources: https://bit.ly/3Optzgp

Arts education starts with access. A new California Arts Council grant is helping students experience world-class exhibitions and pass that access on by mentoring high school students: https://bit.ly/40qqq2x

Since 1965, the women of UCSC have been breaking barriers, building community, and paving the way for future students. Here’s a look back at women banana slugs of the past. #WomensHistoryMonth

Biology labs still rely on manual work that slows research, but UC Santa Cruz alums want to change that. 🔬 Open Culture Science is building automated systems to keep cell cultures healthy and reproducible, helping scientists share experiments & speed up discovery worldwide: https://bit.ly/40jkKav

🚜💧Two UC Santa Cruz teams will create low-cost, open-source DIY irrigation systems and smart, electric tractors co-designed with small organic farmers with the support of @usda 2025 Specialty Crop Block Grants.: https://bit.ly/4scxewF #AgTech

⚠️ H5N1 avian influenza has been confirmed in northern elephant seals at Año Nuevo. The first cases in CA marine mammals. UCSC researchers are conducting urgent monitoring & testing 🦭Your gift keeps researchers in the field when it matters most: https://bit.ly/4sjJj3j

Meet Tresa Mariya Ignatius, Molly Forst, and Gabby Goss, three UC Santa Cruz undergraduates graduating in just 3 years instead of 4🎓 About 10.3% of students now finish early, thanks to stronger advising, structured degree plans, and summer classes–the highest in the UCs: https://bit.ly/4rlUIiK

🐋 Final week to see Weather and the Whale at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences, always with free admission! 🌊 This exhibition pairs new marine ecology research from the Friedlaender Lab with contemporary artworks exploring climate change, whale behavior, and environmental justice.