REAL CONVERSATIONS

by Roark Chao, UC Santa Barbara

held at Brass Beer Brewing

Ever wonder how light is somehow responsible for everything spanning the facial recognition in your phone to the world-wide internet we love to use? Come join UC Santa Barbara graduate student Roark Chao in controlling the very behavior of light through smaller-than-light structures—better known as metasurfaces! Roark will detail the mechanisms of light generation from within commonplace light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and how modern engineers can use metasurfaces to achieve astounding results like “laser-fying” your LEDs!

by Madeleine Bow Jun Leibovitch, UC Santa Barbara

held at Brass Beer Brewing

“Quantum” might be a buzzy science word these days, but physicists’ evolving understanding of quantum mechanics continues to critically shape theories that describe the laws of our universe. Broader science and society are then concerned with how this knowledge is useful. Join UC Santa Barbara graduate student Madeleine Bow Jun Leibovitch to explore how scientists probe these topics in a lab using things like lasers, magnets, mirrors, epoxy, and lots of tinfoil to make use of the coldest objects in the universe. Madeleine will share how she uses these tools for investigating fundamental questions in quantum science.

by Mathilde Papillon, UC Santa Barbara's Geometric Intelligence Lab

held at Kiva Cowork, Santa Barbara

What if an artificial intelligence (Al) could propose dance moves tailored just for you? Dance moves that work for your body and have just the speed and style you want? PhD candidate Mathilde Papillon from UC Santa Barbara's Geometric Intelligence Lab shares her work building PirouNet, the Al that uses dance theory to understand and create personalized dance choreography.

by Meg Schimmel, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Weimbs Lab

held at Kiva Cowork, Santa Barbara

UC Santa Barbara PhD candidate Meg Schimmel will share her research on developing a revolutionary approach to treat autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), the most common inherited renal disease.

by Elle Murata & Hannah Grotzinger, UCSB Women’s Brain Health Initiative, Jacobs Lab

held at Brass Bear Brewing, Santa Barbara

The impact of pregnancy and menopause on brain health is largely unknown. Given their relevance to over half of the world’s population, research on these topics is critical. Graduate students Hannah Grotzinger and Elle Murata as review the current state of neuroscience research on pregnancy and menopause. In their talk, they provide a background on the importance of studying women’s brain health and share preliminary data from their studies.

by Molly Kaplan, UCSB Physics

held at Brass Bear Brewing, Santa Barbara

Are you curious about what happens inside a black hole? Perhaps you're wondering whether wormholes really exist, or pondering where you fit into the cosmos? If so, join us for a lightspeed journey through the cutting-edge in the field of quantum gravity, the theory that unites quantum mechanics and general relativity and describes the fundamental physics behind everything in our universe. During our tour, we'll delve into a decades-old mystery about information disappearing inside a black hole, and explore the new story that demystifies this information paradox. We'll also examine one of the main tools theoretical physicists use to understand quantum gravity: the holographic principle. This remarkable theory has unlocked new insights into the true nature of spacetime. No advanced science background is required, just bring your excitement and curiosity!

by Adele Myers, UCSB Women’s Brain Health Initiative

held at Brass Bear Brewing, Santa Barbara

50% of the world's population experiences menstrual cycles, pregnancy, and menopause. 85% of females aged 18-64 have used contraceptives. Yet, only a small fraction of research has been dedicated to understanding how these processes impact the female brain.

This lack of attention to female health is surprising, especially considering the increased risk of neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's, migraines, and multiple sclerosis in women.

Join Adele Myers as she delves into the understudied field of female reproductive health and its effects on the brain. In this talk, she will show how cutting-edge AI can help understand shape changes in the female brain during hormonal fluctuations associated with the menstrual cycle.

In Partnership with UCSB Geometric Intelligence Lab and the Jacobs Lab

by Michael Fischer

held at the Red Victorian, San Francisco

In the future, AI will change how software is created. Such AI systems would allow end-users to create customized software for their specific tasks. Michael will describe his research on using AI to build software and graphical user interfaces. First, he will describe a system that converts natural language commands into runnable programs using a translation model. He will then describe a second AI system that uses AI to create well-designed graphical user interfaces.

by Santani Teng

held at the Red Victorian, San Francisco

Vision dominates sensory processing, taking up almost half the human neocortex. But the visual cortex does not fall silent in blindness: it is recruited for a wide variety of nonvisual perception and cognition — including braille reading, echolocation, language, memory, and math — a phenomenon called crossmodal plasticity.

What good does it do? What kinds of computations does it support? Is it available to both blind and sighted people? Does it shed any light, so to speak, on common misconceptions about blindness? In this talk we will examine some adaptations to blindness, using sensory loss as a framework to guide fundamental questions about neural processing, human perception, and what it means to see.

held at the Red Victorian, San Francisco

Video games are fun, entertaining and creative but, as any art form, they can also be used to send a powerful message. Persona 5 is a good example of that. Taking place in modern Tokyo, it sharply presents all the defects of the Japanese society and a fantasist solution to it: Change hearts of the corrupted to bring justice.

Learn more about how video games can send a powerful message by making players think about the world they live on and the world their character is living on!