UC Santa Barbara (Video)

What role do oil companies have in tackling climate change? In this program, Paasha Mahdavi, Assistant Professor of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara, talks about the challenge of getting big oil to take climate change seriously. Mahdavi's research broadly explores comparative environmental politics and the political consequences of natural resource wealth. He is the author of Power Grab: Political Survival Through Extractive Resource Nationalization (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which shows how dictators maintain their grip on power by seizing control of oil, metals, and minerals production. Additional recent work includes the effects of oil-to-cash transfers on civic engagement; the political economy of fossil fuel subsidy reform; and the efficacy of policies to eliminate natural gas flaring. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 39442]

Filmmaker Sam Kadi joins moderator Juan Campo, professor of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara, for a discussion of the film Lamya’s Poem. Together, they consider how the film employs magical realism to interweave scenes from the lives of contemporary Syrian refugees with the experiences of 13th century poet Rumi. Kadi discusses the uses of animation in crafting a fantastical world, and shares perspectives on the important role of music, a conversation that continued with input from composer Christopher Willis, who was in attendance for the screening. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 39479]

Māori novelist Witi Ihimaera, author of the 1987 novel The Whale Rider, joins moderator Nicola Daly (University of Waikato) for a post-screening discussion of Niki Caro’s 2002 film Whale Rider. Ihimaera discusses the novel’s relationship to Māori stories and cultural practices, his writing process, and the film’s enduring legacy. This event was presented in conjunction with the 26th biennial Congress of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL). Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39338]

In this UC Santa Barbara GRIT talk, Dr. Meghan Morrissey discusses her work to get immune cells to eat cancer. Her goal is to uncover fundamental principles of macrophage signaling and tune macrophage function in the tumor microenvironment. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 39441]

How can we use raw materials to improve the environment? In this program, Susannah L. Scott, professor of chemistry at UC Santa Barbara, discusses how to efficiently use catalytic conversion of unconventional materials, such as biomass and synthetic polymers to create sustainable routes to renewable energy, fuels and chemicals. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 39440]

In the coming decades, individuals around the world must adapt to changing environmental conditions, often driven by climate change. Adaptation requires significant resources, prompting the question of whether existing economic and social inequities may be exacerbated when adaptation become accessible to some, but not others. Kyle Meng, associate professor of economics at UC Santa Barbara, explores what happens when one of the world’s most unequal cities experiences an unprecedented, nearly catastrophic environmental disaster. In 2017, following years of prolonged drought, the city of Cape Town announced an impending "Day Zero", at which point pipes would run dry. Using a variety of data sources, we show how households of different wealth levels adapted to Day Zero and discuss the long term implications of Day Zero for Cape Town's water use and public finances. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Agriculture] [Show ID: 39334]

How can we improve the human connection for people with autism? In this program, Ty Verno, director of the UC Santa Barbara's Koegel Autism Center discusses novel methods for measuring, understanding, and altering the social developmental trajectories of individuals with autism and related conditions. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 39439]

In Rome in 1644, four butchers were accused of killing seven of their fellow Roman citizens, stripping the meat from their bones, and grinding it together with pork to make sausage, which was then sold from their shop behind the Pantheon. Although the butchers were quickly executed, their tale was not so easily forgotten. In pamphlets issued around the event, the story of the butchers turned into a morality tale about what to and not to eat. Using these pamphlets, along with trial documents, edicts, and other contemporary diaries, historian Bradford Bouley explores the context of this unusual story of cannibalism, the veracity of the sources, and the meaning of meat and the ways it was produced in early modern Rome. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39336]

What are the shapes of stories? This is a longstanding question in narrative arts, from the plot arcs of novels and rhyme schemes of poems to the shot sequences of films. This program discusses two narrative media forms: interactive branching stories (as in games, gamebooks, and hypertext fiction) represented as networks, and graphic narratives (as in comics, manga and webtoons) with individual pages represented as grid compositions. Through description, encoding, and data visualization, we will explore the shapes of stories in comics and games. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39335]

Based on co-authored research, this talk shows how historical framing--drawing parallels between past and present events or actors--can mobilize protesters and keep them politically engaged in the face of unpopular policies and violent repression. Nicaraguan and Chilean activists and citizens saw their presidents and security forces as repeating reviled dictatorships’ behavior, making clear the importance of protesting against them. Using a survey experiment, we also demonstrate that historical framing can remain useful after protests have subsided, increasing Chilean respondents’ support for police reform a year later, though frames must be carefully targeted to be most effective. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 39333]

As sailors use constellations, wind direction, and current to determine their heading, so, too, do animals process diverse sensory information to set their course. Via this sensory processing, the animal’s brain develops a sense of direction, a prerequisite for navigating between points. To understand how the sense of direction is generated in the brain, we interrogate neurons in the brain of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. With numerous tools that allow observing the neural network structures and activities and perturbing them, we begin to understand how the brain transforms sensory information into a sense of direction. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 39332]

Effective management of thermal-fluids transport has become a critical challenge in many energy, water, and electronic applications due to the increasing power density and shrinking length scales. In this talk, I will first describe our effort to manipulate multi-phase fluid motion using light-responsive surfactants. Upon illuminating droplets and bubbles with light, the surfactants at the fluid-fluid interfaces go through photo-isomerization, which changes the local interfacial tension and introduces a Marangoni flow. The resulting interfacial shear stress generates a net force on the bubble or the droplets, causing them to depart or slide along the surface. We demonstrate real-time manipulation of multi-phase fluidic systems using low intensity light which can potentially enhance phase change heat transfer. I will also describe our effort to achieve passive salt-rejecting solar thermal desalination by thin-film condensation in microporous membrane which utilizes ample three-phase contact area, salt diffusion and a low vapor transport resistance. With our design, we demonstrate continuous desalination of seawater for 7-days in one Sun with no salt precipitation. These examples demonstrate the potential of combining fundamental thermo-fluid science and advanced micro/nano engineering approaches to address many of the pressing thermal challenges in energy and water systems. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 39330]

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) have been extremely successful in predicting, optimizing, and controlling the behavior of complex interacting systems. Robustness and explainability of existing AI/ML methods, however, remain big challenges, and clearly new approaches are needed. In this program, Ambuj K. Singh, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the UC, Santa Barbara, explains that the human brain motivated the early development of the field of deep learning, and neuroscientific concepts have contributed to the profound success of deep learning algorithms across many areas. The next leap in AI/ML may again come from a deeper understanding of modularity, robustness, and adaptability of brain architectures. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 39331]

Dr. Stuart Finder, a renowned clinical ethicist, will discuss the meaning of ethics as it is encountered and understood in actual healthcare contexts. This lecture will explore what matters to patients, families, and healthcare professionals in real-world clinical settings. Using concrete examples, ranging from end-of-life choices to reproductive decisions, to simply coming up with appropriate care plans, Dr. Finder will show how clinical ethics is grounded in the real dynamics and complexities that drive contemporary healthcare practices. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 39150]

Groundwater is often referred to as an invisible resource, hidden beneath our feet. Groundwater wells—the infrastructure used to access groundwater—are small, distributed, and lost among landscapes. By contrast, our surface water infrastructure is large and visible—reservoirs that support water supply and recreation, dams, and . In this talk, Debra Perrone reveals the results of a five-year research project to record the location and construction details of millions of groundwater wells. The research provides vital insights into the haves and have nots of water and identifies strategies to minimize the impacts of groundwater depletion. Series: "GRIT Talks" [Science] [Show ID: 39278]

As new climate disasters remind us every day, our world is not stable—and it is changing in ways that expose the deep dysfunction of our relationship with water. Increasingly severe and frequent floods and droughts inevitably spur calls for higher levees, bigger drains, and longer aqueducts. But as we grapple with extreme weather, a hard truth is emerging: our development, including concrete infrastructure designed to control water, is actually exacerbating our problems. Because sooner or later, water always wins. Science journalist Erica Gies introduces us to innovators in what she calls the Slow Water movement who start by asking a revolutionary question: What does water want? Experts in ecology, engineering, and other fields are already transforming our relationship with water. Figuring out what water wants—and accommodating its desires within our human landscapes—is now a crucial survival strategy. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39149]

Professors France Winddance Twine (Sociology, UCSB) and Lisa Parks (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) join Marc Francis (Assistant Editor of Film Quarterly) in a conversation about power dynamics and inequality in the tech world of Silicon Valley, showing and discussing clips of the shows Super-Pumped and WeCrash. The topics they discuss expand upon their published article in Film Quarterly, addressing the exploitative working conditions for women and people of color inside this industry. Their conversation highlights the wastefulness and corruption of massive Silicon Valley corporations and unpacks larger cultural assumptions about corporate self-regulation and the celebrity personas of CEOs. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39055]

Writer/director Todd Field joins moderator Tyler Morgenstern (Assistant Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center) in a post-screening discussion of TÁR. Field details the origins and development of the film, including the creation of protagonist Lydia Tár. He elaborates on the public persona she curates in the film and larger thematic questions of exploitation, cultural authority, and the geopolitics of abuse. They also discuss the involvement of non-profit organization Xapiri Ground and their work with the Indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest, as well as photographer David Díaz Gonzales, who created a key image with actress Cate Blanchett for the film. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39057]

Director/executive producer David Mandel joins Patrice Petro (Dick Wolf Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center) for a post-screening discussion about the HBO miniseries White House Plumbers. In their discussion, Mandel details the origins of the show and distinguishes it from other noteworthy historical adaptations of the Watergate scandal, emphasizing its focus on overlooked figures and its balancing of political drama and tragedy. He also shares his experiences working with lead actors Justin Theroux and Woody Harrelson, as well as the efforts he and his crew made to faithfully recreate the show’s period aesthetic in the midst of a pandemic. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 39056]

Sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities across the country have been subjected to increased hate incidents, including verbal harassment, civil rights violations, and physical assaults. Since its founding in March 2020, thousands of incidents have been reported to the Stop AAPI Hate coalition. Manjusha Kulkarni will discuss how Stop AAPI Hate is addressing anti-Asian hate through civil rights enforcement, education equity, community-based safety, and building a movement against systemic racism. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 39081]