Past Speakers

November 17, 2024
Speaker: Mike Rotkin
Title: Shaking the Foundation

October 20, 2024
Speakers: Lee Taiz, Jennifer Colby, Judy Stabile
Title: Art and Artists on the Central Coast

May 19, 2024
Speaker: Don Smith, Professor, Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology
Title: Environmental Contributors to Attention Disorders: Causality and Therapeutic Approaches

April 21, 2024
Speaker: Lora Bartlett, Associate Professor, Education
Title: Going the Distance: The Teaching Profession in a Post-COVID World

March 17, 2024
Speaker: Leta Miller, Professor Emerita, Music
Title: Organized Labor and the Black Musician: A Fight for Equality

February 18, 2024
Speakers: Kevin Osborn, Mark Overgaard, Kevin Lohman, Photographers
Title: The Art of Photography

January 21, 2024
Speaker: Ronnie Gruhn, Professor Emerita, Politics
Title: A World Without Rudders

November 19, 2023
Speaker: Jonathan Pilch, Executive Director, Watsonville Wetlands
Title: Wetlands Conservation, Youth Leadership, and Climate Resilience in the Pajaro Valley

October 15, 2023
Speaker: Gregg Herken, Emeritus Professor of History
Title:  “A Tale Half-Told:  A Conversation about ‘Oppenheimer’ with Gregg Herken”

November 19, 2023
Speaker: Jonathan Pilch, Executive Director, Watsonville Wetlands
Title: Wetlands Conservation, Youth Leadership, and Climate Resilience in the Pajaro Valley

October 15, 2023
Speaker: Gregg Herken, Emeritus Professor of History
Title:  “A Tale Half-Told:  A Conversation about ‘Oppenheimer’ with Gregg Herken”

May 21, 2023
Speaker: Eleonora Pasotti, Associate Professor of Politics at UCSC
Title: “Resisting Redevelopment: Protest in Aspiring Global Cities”

April 16, 2023
Speaker: Dan Costa, Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCSC
Title: “Studying the Behavior and Physiology of Marine Megafauna in Nature”

March 19, 2023
Speaker: Eva Bertram, Associate Professor of Politics, UCSC
Title: “Work in the Gig Economy, Past and Present”

February 19, 2023
Speaker: Russell Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of Music, UCSC
Title: “Mariachi: Accompaniment and Conviviality”

January 15, 2023
Speaker: Tsim Schneider, Associate Professor of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz
Title: The Archaeology of Indigenous Refuge and Recourse in Colonial California

November 20, 2022
Speaker: William Sullivan, Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, UCSC
Title:   Microbes, Big Sur and Global Health

October 16, 2022
Speaker: Schmuel Thaler, Professional Photographer for Sentinel
Topic: Framing the World: A Life in Photography

May 15, 2022
Speaker: Gregory Gilbert, Professor of Environmental Studies, UCSC
Topic: “The Future of Forests on the UCSC Campus and Around the World”

April 24, 2022
Speaker: Rosemary Menard, Water Director, City of Santa Cruz
Topic: The Current and Future Status of Our Water Supply

March 20, 2022
Speaker: Sandra Faber, University Professor Emerita of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Topic: “Earth Futures”

February 20, 2022
Speaker: Burney Le Boeuf, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCSC
Topic: Elephant Seals: Coping with Challenges of Life at Sea and on Land

January16, 2022
Speaker: Sean Keilin, Professor of Literature UCSC
Topic:  “How Hamlet Reads”

November 21, 2021
Speaker:  Linda Burman-Hall, PhD.
Topic: “Mentawai Gibbons, Cosmology and Shamanic Song in Siberut”

October 17,2021
Speaker: Carolyn Dean, Distinguished Professor, History of Art & Visual Culture UCSC
Topic: The Secret Life of Stones: Rockwork in the Inka Empire

September 19, 2021
Speaker: Martin Quigley, Executive Director of the UCSC Arboretum
Topic:  The Landscape of Community

May 16, 2021
Speaker: Baldo Mainovic
Topic: The Importance of Krill in Marine Ecosystems

April 18, 2021
Speaker: Jim Gill, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Earth and Planetary Sciences, UCSC
Topic: The Importance and Surprises of Underwater Volcanoes

March 21, 2021
Speaker: Emily Aiken
Topic: Targeting COVID-19 Aid in Togo with Machine Learning and Digital Trace Data

February 21, 2021
Speaker: Professor Leta Miller
Topic: Phoebe Hearst and her philanthropic support of music

January 17, 2021
Speaker: Associate Professor Rebecca Covarrubias 
Topic: You never become fully independent

November 15, 2020
Speaker: Matt Wetstein, President Cabillo College
Topic: Politics and Ideology in the U.S. and Canadian Supreme Court

October 18, 2020
Speaker: Professor Jennifer Loros, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College
Topic: Biological Clocks and Circadian Rhythms

September 20, 2020
Speaker: Professor Ben Read, Professor and Department Chair of Politics, UC Santa Cruz
Topic: China under Xi Jinping

February 16, 2020
Speaker: Carol Greider, Dr. Greider is Bloomberg Distinguished Professor on sabbatical at UCSC
Topic:Telomeres: From Curiosity-Driven Research to Human Disease

January 19, 2020
Speaker: Rick Flores, Director of Horticulture at the UCSC Arboretum
Topic: The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band: Relearning Traditional Ecological Knowledge to Steward Mother Earth

November 17, 2019
Speaker: Dr. Robert Kaplan, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Public Health Stanford and UCLA
Topic: More than Medicine: The Broken Promise of American HealthOctober 20, 2019
Speaker: Dr. Jim Estes, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Topic: Sea Otters

May 19, 2019
Speaker: Ingrid Parker
Topic:Invasive Plants, Chemical Warfare Belowground and Forest Restoration

April 28, 2019
Speaker: Michael Chemers
Topic: N3RD: Monsters, Digital Media, and Performance

March 17, 2019
Speaker: Juan Poblete
Topic: What Reading Is, Was and Maybe

February 17, 2019
Speaker: Regina Langhout
Topic: Immigration Policies in the United States, Understanding Violence Nationwide and in Santa Cruz
Deportation and Forced Separation on Immigrants

January 20, 2019
Speaker: Carlos Dobkin, Professor of Economics at UCSC
Topic: Effects of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age on Health and Crime

November 18, 2018
Speakers: Chad Cockrum and Susan Strome, MCD Biology UCSC
Topic: Personalized Genomics – A Glipse into ’23and Me’

October 21, 2018
Speaker: Andrew T. Fisher, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, UCSC
Topic: “Mapping, Modeling, Measuring and Monetizing Enhanced Groundwater Recharge with Stormwater”

May 20, 2018
Speakers: Kim Steinhardt and Gary Griggs
Topic: “The Edge: The Pressured Past and Precarious Future of California’s Coast”

April 15, 2018
Speaker: Yulianna Ortega, Director of STEM Diversity Programs 
Topic: “Preparing Under Represented Students for Science Careers”

March 18, 2018
Speaker: Beth Shapiro
Topic: Two Tales of Terrestrial Termination: Understanding extinction using ancient DNA

February 18 2018
Speaker: Bruce Thompson, PhD
Topic: Russian Espionage from Lenin to Putin

January 21, 2018
Speaker: Adam Millard
Topic: Cities and sustainability in a world of autonomous vehicles

November 19, 2017
Speaker: Shelly Stamp
Topic: Women in Early Hollywood: The Untold Story

October 15, 2017
Speaker: Grace Barcheck
Topic: Doing Science at the End of the World

May 21, 2017
Speaker: Jody Greene
Topic: Yes, we DO care about Teaching! Building a 21st Century Teaching Center at UCSC

April 23, 2017
Speaker: Lee Taiz
Topic: Flora Unveiled: The Discovery and Denial of Sex in Plants

March 19, 2017
Speaker: Bruce Lyon
Topic: Animal Behavior as revealed by the study of birds

February 19, 2017
Speaker: Kerstin Wasson
Topic: Rising to the challenge: Salt Marsh Resilience at Elkhorn Slough

January 15, 2017
Speaker: Flora Lu
Topic: Native Amazonians, Cultural Change, and Oil Extraction in Ecuador’s Biodiverse Rainforests

November 20, 2016
Speaker: Michael Orbach
Topic: The Cultural Context of International Response to Climate Change

October 16, 2016
Fred DeJarlais
“Do Maps Win Wars?”

May 15, 2016
Miriam Ellis, Lecturer in French Emerita, UCSC
“Miriam Ellis International Playhouse”

April 17, 2016
Gregory O’Malley, Associate Professor of History, UCSC
“The Escapes of David George:
One Man’s Struggle with Slavery and Freedom in the Revolutionary Era”

March 20, 2016Chris Le Maistre, Managing Director of the Center for Adaptive Optics, Retired, UCSC
“Adaptive Optics applied to Astronomy and Vision Science”

February 21, 2016
Gail Hershatter: Distinguished Professor of History and East Asian Studies Co-Director, UCSC
“Did Chinese women have a revolution? If so, what remains?”

January 17, 2016
Kristy Kroeker, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCSC
“Sea Change: Ocean life in a high-CO2 world”

November 15, 2015
Gary Young, poet, printer, and book artist.In 2010, he was named the first ever Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz county.

October 18, 2015
Mark Carr: Professor of Physical & Biological Sciences, UCSC
The forest and the fish: a case study in science and policy of coastal marine ecosystems

May 17, 2015
Bettina Aptheker, Professor, Feminist Studies, UCSC
Women, Revolution, and Gender Transgressions

Sunday, April 19, 2015
Nancy Ellen Abrams
A God that Could be Real

March 15, 2015
Jill Steinberg, Clinical Psychologist, Professor Emeritus at SJSU, Founder of MyRetirementWorks.com
Personal and interpersonal factors in creating a successful retirement

February 15, 2015
Gary B Griggs, Director, Institute of Marine Sciences, Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences, UCSC
Oceans—Our last frontier: Coastal Ocean Issues and Innovation in the Institute of Marine Sciences.

January 18, 2015
Speaker: Alan S. Christy, Associate Professor, East Asian Studies Director, Co-Director, Center for the Study of Pacific War Memories
The Keystone of the Pacific: A History of America in Okinawa

November 16, 2014
Speakers: Barry Bowman, Professor of MCD Biology, UCSC
Teaching College Biology

October 19, 2014
John Dizikes, Prof. Emeritus of American Studies, UCSC
Poets: Forgotten and Unknown

May 18, 2014
Prof. Helene Moglen
From Frankenstein to Facebook

April 27, 2014
Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack
The New Universe and the Human Future

March 16, 2014
Prof. David Sweet
Henry Wallace’s America

February 16, 2014
Terrie M. Williams, Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Heart Health: Lessons from Nature’s Extreme Athletes

January 19, 2014
Mary W Silver, Professor Emerita of Ocean Science
Night Lights and Poisons in the Sea

November 17, 2013
Lester Miller, MD, Rheumatologist;
Susan O’Brien, Arthritis Foundation Speakers’ Bureau

October 20, 2013
Gitta Spindel Ryle
Gitta Spindel Ryle, a long-time OLLI member, told us how she and her sister Renee escaped the Nazis and found refuge during WWII in several locations in occupied and Vichy France. The audience was much moved.

May 19, 2013
Jame R. Hein, Ph.D, Marine Geologist, Senior Scientist, USGS
Potential contributions from deep-ocean mineral deposits to the global minerals wealth of the Earth, their complement to land-basted deposits, and the environmental implications of extraction of these minerals.

April 21, 2013
Prof. Douglas Kellogg, MCD Biology
The search for cancer cures

March 17, 2013
Elliot Aronson, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, UCSC
My Fifty-five Years of Research on Changing Attitudes and Behavior: Have We Learned Anything Useful?

February 17, 2013
Bruce Daniels, Director, Soquel Creek Water District, Climatologist.
Climate Change — Earth Running a Fever

January 20, 2013
Charles Hedrick, UCSC Professor of History
Ancient Greece and Contemporary China

November 18, 2012
John O. Jordan, Professor of Literature, Director, Dickens Project
Portrayal of London in Dickens’s Novels

October 21, 2012
Ron Duncan — Conservation/Customer Service Field Manager, Soquel Creek Water
Your water footprint, economics, conservation, & water supply alternatives

May 20, 2012
Mark Hylkema, Ph.D.
The Castroville Mammoth Project and Search for the First People of the Americas

April 22, 2012
Isebill Gruhn, Professor of Politics, Emerita.
Is the World Going to Hell? Issues and Solutions.

March 18, 2012
University Astronomer Sandra Faber.
Structure & History of the Cosmos, Origins of Elements, Extrasolar Planets

February 19, 2012
Mark Stone, County of San Mateo Supervisor, member of California Coastal Commission.
Swimming the English Channel

January 15, 2012
Chancellor George Blumenthal.
The Challenges Facing Public Higher Education Nationally and How UC Santa Cruz is Adapting

November 20, 2011
Speaker: Professor Marvin Chester.
What Quantum Mechanics Says

October 16, 2011
No speaker

May 15, 2011
Marco Barricelli, Artistic Director, Shakespeare Santa Cruz

April 17, 2011
George Newell
The Tannery Arts Center — An Artists’ Community in Santa Cruz

March 20, 2011
Brian Liddicoat — Attorney and Amateur Historian
The Lost Railroad Tunnels of the Santa Cruz Mountains

Feb 20, 2011
Gary Griggs — Distinguished Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences; Director, Institute of Marine Sciences
Climate Change and Consequences for Coasts and Populations

January 16, 2011
Forrest Robinson, Professor of Humanities in the Department of American Studies
Mark Twain and Slavery

November 21, 2010
Jerry Nelson, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics
The Thirty-Meter Telescope: Galileo’s Legacy 400 Years Later

October 17, 2010
UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal

Apri1 18, 2010
Nicole Paiement, Professor of Music, and Brian Staufenbiel, Director of the Opera Program
The UCSC Opera Program and this Spring’s “L’elisir d’amore”

March 21, 2010
Jonathan Fox, Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies
Indigenous Mexican Migrants: Recognizing Ethnic Difference

February 21, 2010
Susan Wollowitz, Ph.D., Vice President of Chemistry and Manufacturing, Medivation, Inc.
The Drug Development Process

January 17, 2010
Martin A. Berger, Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture
The Politics of Civil Rights Photography

November 15, 2009
Gage Dayton, Ph.D., Administrative Director of the UCSC Natural Reserve System
From Deserts to Shining Seas: The University of California Natural Reserve System

October 18, 2009
Eleonora Pasotti, Assistant Professor of Politics.
Political Branding in Cities: The Decline of Machine Politics in Bogotá, Naples, and Chicago

May 31, 2009
Frank A. Perry, Research Associate, Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History
Lime Kiln Legacies

April 19, 2009
Marco Barricelli, Artistic Director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz
Building a Season with Shakespeare Santa Cruz

March 15, 2009
Stephen Thorsett, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics
and Dean of the Division of Physical and Biological Sciences
Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Science and Economic Development

February 15, 2009
Virginia Steel, University Librarian
Creating Library 2.0

January 18, 2009
Michael Isaacson, Narinder Kapany Professor of Electrical Engineering
and Acting Dean, Baskin School of Engineering
Technology for a Changing World: Biotechnology, Nanotechnology,
and Information Technology

November 16, 2008
David Sweet, Professor Emeritus of Latin American and World History
Human Rights for Americans

October 19, 2008
Emily Brodsky, Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Why Earthquakes Happen

May 18, 2008
Kimberly Jannarone, Assistant Professor of Theater Arts,
Sit Down and Shut Up: The Evolution of the Audience in Modern Theater

April 20, 2008
Nicole Paiement and Brian Staufenbiel, Professor and Lecturer of Music, respectively
Menotti’s “The Consul” (UCSC’s Spring Opera Performance)

March 16, 2008
Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison, Environmental and Ecological Artists
Environmental Art, Greenheart Vision

February 17, 2008
Mark Hylkema, Archeologist, California State Parks
Lifeways of the Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas

January 20, 2008
Bruce Bridgeman, Professor of Psychology
The Population / Environment Connection

November 18, 2007
Lisa C. Sloan, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Global Warming and California’s Future Climate

October 21, 2007
Michael M. Hutchison, Professor of Economics
Financial Crises Around the World, Old and New

May 20, 2007
Jim Faris, Former Film Editor and one of the founders of LifeLong Learners
The Role of the Motion Picture Editor in the Art of Making Movies

April 15, 2007
Terrie Williams, Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology
Aging Gracefully with Seals and Bobcats

March 18, 2007
Brian Catlos, Associate Professor of History
Islam, Muslim Spain, and the West

February 18, 2007
Kenneth Lyons, Reference Librarian, McHenry Library
Today’s Library: Local-to-Global Information From Technologies Old and New

January 21, 2007
Isebill Gruhn, Professor Emerita of Politics
The United Nations: 20th Century Relic or Vehicle for the 21 st Century?

November 19, 2006
Ellen Suckiel, Professor of Philosophy and Provost of Stevenson College
The Ethics of Stem Cell Research

October 15, 2006
Mara Mather, Associate Professor of Psychology
The Senior Brain: Growing into Wisdom