From the waves to the redwoods, it's all happening here.

The Arboretum opens its gates to the community free of charge the first Tuesday of every month. Come enjoy our gardens and wildlife. Don’t forget to stop by Norrie’s, our wonderful gift shop and plant nursery (Open Tues-Sun 10 am-4 pm). Community Days are popular, please consider carpooling or using alternative transportation. Current Arboretum members and UCSC Students always receive free admission.

Meet Provost Aims and Poppy the Chihuahua outside of the Crown College Office for yummy cookies and conversation. Stay and chat or grab and go.

Food, Socializing, and Excellent talks from the PyTorch Ecosystem ​5:30 – 6:30 Food and Socializing ​6:30 – 7:00 Rob Timpe – Using and Debugging Torch.compile ​7:00 – 7:30 Roy Shadmon – EdgeFL and Federated Learning ​7:30 – 8:00 Talk 3 ​Talk 1: ​Using and Debugging Torch.compile ​Torch.compile promises great speedups with a one line change, but can give cryptic error messages when it fails. We’ll describe some common failures and how to fix them, as well as recent efforts to both reduce failures and make the remaining ones easier to debug. Rob Timpe is a software engineer at OpenTeams where he works on the front end of torch.compile (Dynamo). Previously he was an ML engineer working on autonomous aircraft at Xwing, and computer vision at Microsoft. ​Talk 2: ​ EdgeFL and Federated Learning ​EdgeLake coordinates federated learning across distributed sites without moving raw training data to a central location. Each site trains locally, EdgeLake handles the distributed data and coordination layer, and the resulting models are shared across the network and deployed for inference at the edge — creating a continuous path from managing distributed data to training models to running inference, all at the edge. ​Roy Shadmon is a System Architect at AnyLog, where he works on EdgeLake and its applications in federated learning and distributed edge intelligence. He holds a PhD from UC Santa Cruz. ​Other speaker(s) announced soon

Grab a free cup of coffee* and chat with Provost Aims at Coffee with the Provost! Most Wednesdays through the Fall Quarter! 9:00-11:00am Meet us for (free) coffee, tea, breakfast snacks and good conversation outside the Merrill College Office, across from the mailroom. *Fair trade, organic, local women owned Alta Organic Roasting Company

Organized in partnership with the Center for Art and Advocacy, located in Brooklyn, New York, Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá ( Not From Here, Not From There ) by multidisciplinary artist Victor ‘Marka27’ Quiñonez features a wide range of artworks that issue a bold declaration of dual belonging, including altars, an elaborately immersive botanica, paintings referencing visual symbolism drawn from textiles, graffiti and community traditions, and, in a series called I.C.E. Scream , large, brightly colored resin sculptures in the shape of melting Mexican paletas (popsicles). As the exhibition title suggests (a phrase widely used in bilingual and bicultural communities), these artworks reflect the artist’s interest in the experience of living between worlds even as violent notions of nationalism and identity pervade. Accompanying the exhibition, Elevar la Cultura , an immersive sculptural installation featuring a twenty-two-foot-tall pyramid built from ice coolers adorned with ancestral textiles, sacred symbols, and mural work will be on view at Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos (1817 Soquel) November 7, 2026- March 7, 2027. As Quiñonez explains, this sculpture epitomizes the contradictions of living—and laboring—as an immigrant in the United States: “Most people see the cooler as a tool for leisure…for barbecues, tailgating, and celebrations. But for immigrant communities, the cooler is a tool and symbol for opportunity and independence. In every major city, you see families and vendors selling fruit, food, and water out of these coolers on the streets and in subway stations. They’re a necessity for survival and a way to start an honest living,” the artist shares. The Institute of Arts and Sciences will be the second venue to successfully present Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá to the public. First organized by Boston University Art Galleries and curated by Kate Fowle in September of 2025, the exhibition debuted to critical acclaim before gaining national attention after its abrupt removal from