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A two-day conference on market and consumer research — how insights teams work, and what AI, behavioural science, and UX methods are doing to the discipline. Greenbook runs it across three stages, sixteen hosted roundtables, and some sixty sessions, with live technology demonstrations and a startup pitch competition alongside the talks. Speakers include Stanford professor Byron Reeves; Kristen Griffith, insights director at Clorox; Rob Gaige, global head of marketing insights at Reddit; Kendra Shapiro, who leads consumer insights and UX research at Ancestry; Mike Carlon of Charter Communications; and Maya Kantak of Rocket, with further speakers from Microsoft, Visa, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Airbnb. Part of the programme is reserved for client-side researchers.

A hands-on capture-the-flag (CTF) challenge hosted during the Unprompted Conference, where participants deploy AI attack agents against live black-box enterprise targets to identify vulnerabilities and compete for prizes. Designed for security leaders, offensive security strategists, and engineering decision-makers evaluating autonomous defense capabilities. Breakfast and specialty coffee provided. Play from your phone with no setup required; drop in anytime between 7:30–9:00 AM. Hosted by Alt Security, Okta Ventures, and Runtime Ventures at San Francisco Proper Hotel.

A screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre (1989), followed by discussion with local photographer and film enthusiast Tommy Milutin. This haunting, dreamlike odyssey follows a traumatized circus performer navigating a surreal world shaped by his mother's influence, past violence, and distorted love—blending horror, spirituality, and psychological turmoil into a strikingly unconventional cinematic experience.

ODSC AI West 2026 is a multi-day conference bringing together practitioners, business leaders, and AI professionals to explore reskilling opportunities, emerging technologies, and leadership strategies in an AI-driven economy. The summit features keynotes, expert panels, and topic-focused sessions on AI applications, workforce transformation, and organizational strategy. Hosted by the Open Data Science Community at Hyatt Regency SFO.

The Open Data Science Conference (ODSC) AI West 2026 brings together data scientists, machine learning engineers, and AI practitioners for workshops and hands-on training led by industry experts. The conference features technical sessions on AI research, applications, and emerging tools, with opportunities to learn from leading practitioners across academia and industry. Multi-day program with keynotes, breakout sessions, and networking.

Learn how to build an end-to-end agentic geospatial pipeline using satellite and weather data on AWS and Wherobots. This technical talk covers practical approaches to processing geospatial intelligence at scale, combining machine learning with geospatial analysis. Hosted at AWS Builder Loft.

Kathi Zellweger and Mike Chinoy discuss Zellweger's firsthand experiences delivering humanitarian aid in North Korea, focusing on strategies for building trust, navigating institutional barriers, and supporting vulnerable populations in one of the world's most isolated countries. The conversation explores the practical and diplomatic challenges of NGO work in restrictive contexts.

A research seminar on landslide hazard assessment and forecasting across scales—from individual tree root systems to national risk mapping. Ben Mirus, Research Geologist at the USGS Geologic Hazards Science Center, presents recent work on the national landslide susceptibility map, annual frequency estimates, seasonality patterns, and the critical zone continuum linking atmosphere, biosphere, and groundwater to slope stability. Drawing on post-Hurricane Helene response efforts and long-term site monitoring, the talk addresses knowledge gaps in predicting when and where landslides will occur.

Sidra Hamidi, Assistant Professor at Trinity College, presents her book *After Fission: Recognition and Contestation in the Atomic Age* (Cambridge University Press, 2026). Challenging the assumption that nuclear status is merely a technical matter, Hamidi argues that states actively contest how their nuclear capabilities are recognized globally. Drawing on diplomatic history of India, Israel, Iran, and North Korea, she examines the Non-Proliferation Treaty's legal structure, technical ambiguities in nuclear testing, and debates over rights in the global nuclear regime. Her work illuminates how powerful states like the US recognize or reject states' desired nuclear status formulations—with implications for negotiating with countries like Iran and North Korea.

From Reliability to Resilience: Risk-Informed Asset Management for the Energy Transition. Lina Bertling Tjernberg, Visiting Professor at Stanford University and Professor of Power Grid Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, discusses advances in reliability-centered asset management, probabilistic risk assessment, and predictive maintenance for sustainable power grids. Drawing on two decades of research and industry application, including her leadership at Sweden's national transmission system operator, Bertling Tjernberg explores how risk-informed decision-making can support the transition to electrified, resilient energy infrastructure.

Ken Goldberg, Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley, discusses his work as part of the Berkeley Writers at Work series. The event takes place Tuesday, October 27, noon–1:30 pm.

Maisha T. Winn, Excellence in Learning Professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Education, discusses her historical ethnography *Futuring Black Lives*, examining Black institution builders of the late 1960s–70s who used publications and literary imagination to shape education for Black children. The book traces how Independent Black Institutions anchored shared Black values while preparing students in identity, purpose, and direction—a model Winn argues remains vital amid current racial disparities in schooling, disproportionate discipline of Black students, and attacks on children's literature through censorship and book bans. She demonstrates how historical archives of Black educational thought can inform contemporary equity and justice work in schools.

A monthly gathering for local women committed to democratic participation and community action. Democracy Hour provides a space for thoughtful conversation, shared learning, and collective organizing around civic issues. The program features inspiring speakers, film screenings, issue spotlights, and action sessions. Bring your lunch; free and open to all.

An introduction to materia's yearly theme exploring micropower and the non-human. The reading session engages Foucault's concept of the microphysics of power from *Discipline and Punish*, examining how power operates between state apparatuses and material bodies—understood in an expanded, non-human sense. Participants will consider contemporary manifestations like algorithmic governance and corporate attention capture. The session includes excerpts from Foucault, Jane Bennett's *The Force of Things*, Clarice Lispector's *The Hour of the Star*, and Nerea Barjola Ramos' *The Sexist Microphysics of Power*. Organized by materia, a Stanford-based Latin Americanist humanities collective.

A series of four seminars on advances in genome engineering for stem cell biology and therapeutic development. Featured speakers include James Gardner (UCSF) on normothermic perfusion systems for ex vivo human biology, Dan Wagner on single-cell phenotyping in CRISPR-edited embryos, Michelle Gbenedio on organoid development, and Alex Pollen on experimental techniques for village culture organoids. Sessions run Oct 13–Dec 8, 2026 at UCSF.

A reading and conversation with Palestinian American physician, poet, and translator Fady Joudah, whose newest collection, Exhibit G, comprises poems, essays, and photographs offering a Palestinian perspective on grief, resilience, and survival amid genocide. Joudah is an acclaimed translator of Arabic poetry, including works by Mahmoud Darwish, and has won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, Griffin Poetry Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and American Book Award, among others. He co-founded the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and practices internal medicine in Houston.

A presentation and discussion of *Depose: Luigi Mangione, the Right to Health, and the Unfinished American Revolution*, written by the December 4 Legal Committee, which created Luigi Mangione's legal defense fund. The book brings the American healthcare debate to fundamental political questions: Who profits from sickness? Who gets access to health? What would a healthcare system serving everyone look like? A spokesperson for the authors will present.

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon discusses combating public corruption, ensuring government accountability and equal treatment under the law, and protecting American democracy in conversation with Laura Faer, Senior Program Manager at UC Berkeley's Edley Center.

An open class session of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts' Intro to IDA course, exploring power, art, and practice through conversation with scholars working across disciplines—theater, performance, visual art, music, and film. Associate Professors Matthew Morrison (African and African American Studies) and Usha Iyer (Art and Art History) lead a facilitated discussion using the Long Table format, inspired by the practice of legendary queer performance duo Split Britches (Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver), examining how artists engage these themes both within and beyond the university.

A hands-on workshop on designing AI-integrated assignments that promote critical thinking, reflection, and deeper learning. Participants will redesign one of their own assignments and leave with a ready-to-use version. Led by Wendy Lee, Associate Professor in the College of Science at San Jose State University.

A series of educational sessions throughout October exploring the history and traditions of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), culminating in the 4th Camino de los Muertos on November 1st. The program examines the meanings behind key elements of the celebration—the ofrenda (altar), calaveras (skulls), catrinas (dapper lady skulls), cempasúchil (marigolds), and more—with particular focus on place, memory, and resistance in altar-making practices. Hosted by Santa Clara University, open to the community.

A practical seminar on generative AI models, tools, platforms, and workflows designed to accelerate scientific research. Vivek Natarajan, AI researcher at Google DeepMind, will discuss new applications and methodologies for AI-guided research. Followed by a networking reception.

How does hydrodynamics emerge from the dynamics of discrete quantum particles? Matthew P.A. Fisher, professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara and member of the National Academy of Sciences, explores this question in open quantum systems of bosons, examining how spontaneous symmetry-breaking transitions separate quantum from classical dynamics. He will discuss observations of these transitions in cold atomic gas experiments and the role of information-theoretic quantities in characterizing dynamical phases.

A panel discussion on how U.S. universities must restructure to address 21st-century threats, particularly the ecological crisis. Convened by the UCSC Earth Futures Institute, a group of world-class visionaries presents findings on what knowledge society needs and how higher education must reorganize to generate it. Designed for UC students, faculty, administrators, and community members concerned about the role of universities in managing existential challenges.

A colloquium on extending Carmichael numbers — composite numbers that share a property of primes under Fermat's Little Theorem — to algebraic number rings including Gaussian integers. Brian Sittinger (CSU Channel Islands) will survey standard properties of Carmichael numbers and their generalizations in abstract algebraic settings. Hosted by Santa Clara University's Math/CS Colloquium Series.

A conversation with past and current leaders of UC Berkeley's Center for the Study of Sexual Culture surveying trans and queer studies scholarship, documenting attacks on LGBT studies, and exploring how the field might move beyond defensive responses. The dialogue will highlight the social movements, artistic interventions, and research reshaping the field. Featuring Mel Y. Chen (Gender & Women's Studies), Michael Lucey (French and Comparative Literature), and Roshanak Kheshti (Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies), moderated by Eric A. Stanley (Gender and Women's Studies).

A workshop on building scalable go-to-market systems for AI-native companies. Participants will learn why speed without a GTM operating system creates fragility, and what it takes to build systems that are fast, repeatable, and built to scale. Led by Lydia Flocchini and Tim Hillison—both 3x CMOs, GTM Partners Certified Partners, and repeat operators with a track record of nine successful builds across startups, scaleups, and Fortune 500 companies. Attendees will leave with a clear GTM operating system framework, a maturity assessment of their current GTM journey, and real examples from data to agentic GTM. A One Way Summit 2026 Official Side Event.

AI-generated code now arrives faster than validation pipelines can process, breaking the balance between code production and quality checks. This meetup brings together engineers rebuilding feedback systems for the agent era. Speakers and panelists will discuss why this gap matters for change success rates and recovery time, how pairing robust delivery pipelines with sub-minute validation improves efficiency, and how running only relevant tests keeps compute costs down. Hosted by Bond AI with a panel discussion, audience Q&A, and peer networking.

Ayesha S. ​Mahmud is an Associate Professor of Demography in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. She is a demographer whose research broadly examines the interplay between population change, environmental factors, and infectious disease dynamics. The event is moderated by Elora Shehabuddin, Professor of Gender Studies at UC Berkeley.

A Halloween-themed interactive investigation into a broken development environment, hosted by AI Valley and Flox. Attendees follow clues through suspicious dependencies and environment issues to diagnose what went wrong—with talks and live demos from Justin Castilla (Flox), Jessica Garson Beauchemin (Runpod), Amin Karbas (Resolve AI), and Dan Gross (FriendliAI). The event combines technical problem-solving with food, drinks, and networking; costumes encouraged.

Dr. Ed Chi explores the next generation of personal AI systems, moving beyond task-specific tools toward universal agents that understand users across multiple modalities—images, video, audio, language, and reasoning. The talk covers three key trends: integrated intelligence in multimodal foundation models, personalization and memory systems, and how agents adapt to users' preferences and context. Hosted by the Hong Kong Business Association of Northern California with networking reception.

A conversation on how engineering teams integrate AI into their workflows beyond code generation. Tanmai Gopal (CEO, PromptQL) discusses how customer context and team knowledge shape AI-assisted work; Iba Masood (Optimal AI) covers AI code review, quality, security, and measurement; Joe Maionchi (co-founder, RocketRide.ai) addresses moving AI prototypes to reliable production, including testing, debugging, and maintenance. Aimed at engineering leaders attending GitHub Universe.

A talk on founder psychology and resilience with Matteo Cassese, founder coach and keynote speaker. How do successful founders—Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Jensen Huang—leverage difficulty and chaos for growth while avoiding burnout? Cassese explores the internal work that shapes external success: transforming conflict into opportunity, the stories founders tell themselves, and unconventional approaches to confidence and mindset drawn from psychology, mythology, and contemplative practice.

Physicist and public intellectual Pervez Hoodbhoy examines recent signs of social and political change in Pakistan, asking whether they represent a genuine retreat from religious fundamentalism or a more limited and uncertain shift. Drawing on decades of activism for science and rationalism in South Asia, Hoodbhoy discusses his latest book *Pakistan: Origins, Identity and Future*. Moderated by Munis D. Faruqui, Director of the Institute for South Asia Studies and Sarah Kailath Chair of India Studies at UC Berkeley.

A reading and conversation with Fady Joudah, Palestinian American physician, poet, and translator. Joudah will discuss his newest collection, *Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza*, which combines poetry, essays, and photographs to document Palestinian grief, resilience, and life under genocide. A multiple-award winner—including the Yale Younger Poets Prize, Griffin Poetry Prize, and American Book Award—Joudah has also translated works by Mahmoud Darwish and co-founded the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. *Exhibit G* will be available for purchase and signing.

The Information's annual summit for women in tech, media, and finance — what the initials stand for — held over two days at a Yountville resort. The format is onstage interviews with chief executives across the three industries, together with panels, breakout sessions, and networking; published topics include AI agents, the changing shape of SaaS, robotics, crypto financing, and AI in creative work. Tuesday runs as an evening reception and dinner, with the main interview programme on Wednesday. Speakers had not been announced at the time of listing.

A talk on how AI is transforming the modern software engineering stack. Hosted by Mobile Monday Silicon Valley at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Nicholas Kristof, Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times columnist, bestselling author, and documentarian, discusses his path from an Oregon farm to leadership on global justice and climate issues. Kristof's journalism and films have brought urgent humanitarian and environmental stories to millions, bridging the gap between reporting and advocacy. This talk explores how journalism can drive change on the world's most pressing challenges.

A hands-on workshop on physical AI for engineers and developers, exploring how artificial intelligence applies to robotics and embodied systems. Hosted by Nebius and Voxel51 at Silicon Valley AI Hub.

USA Today bestselling author Adam Plantinga discusses his latest thriller, Dark Country, the newest installment in the Kurt Argento series. Argento finds himself shielding a teenage boy caught up in a dangerous manhunt in this explosive crime novel.

Cryptocurrency is reshaping illicit finance and international sanctions enforcement. Alexander Browder, founder of the Global Cryptocurrency Laundering Database, analyzes two decades of major cases to explore how digital assets and stablecoins enable sanctions evasion, state-backed activity, and money laundering by Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other actors. He discusses policy responses from governments, financial institutions, and tech companies, and shares how his research prompted UK and EU action—and led to his being sanctioned by Russia in June 2026.

A screening of Saving 4 Seconds, a documentary about Bay Area efforts to implement life-saving suicide-prevention policy on the Golden Gate Bridge. The film features interviews with local families, advocates, and elected officials who championed the policy, along with never-before-seen CCTV footage of bridge employees intervening to save lives. Hosted by SPUR Urban Center, a trusted civic institution.

A screening of The Unbroken Sky, a narrative dramatic film adapted from the memoirs of Francisco Jiménez, chronicling his family's journey as immigrant farmworkers in California—their labor in the fields, struggle to access school, and fear of deportation. The screening is followed by a fireside chat between Francisco Jiménez, Professor Emeritus at Santa Clara University, and Tomás Jiménez, Professor of Sociology at Stanford and Founding Faculty Director of the Institute for Advancing Just Societies. A Q&A with the production team—director Josh Peterson, executive producer Normandie Ramirez, and producer Robin Mortarotti—concludes the evening. Jiménez's four-book memoir series, The Circuit, Breaking Through, Reaching Out, and Taking Hold, is recognized among the American Library Association's 50 Best Young Adult Books of All Time.

Dr. Catie Cuan, founder of ART Lab (AI Robot Technology) and pioneer in choreorobotics, explores what happens when artificial intelligence moves beyond screens into physical robots. Drawing on her background in dance and robotics, she argues that movement is not merely functional but expressive—shaping emotion, trust, and human connection. Through examples including robots trained to improvise, respond to human gestures, and move collectively, Cuan demonstrates how choreography informs the design of intuitive, responsive, and human-centered machines. Part of UC Berkeley's Design Field Notes lecture series.

How AI agents are becoming your next customer—and how to sell to them. Talks from Exa on agent search behavior and Browserbase on agent-driven purchasing, followed by a fireside chat between The Prompting Company and AgentMail on agent-to-commerce strategy. Watch a live demo of Muse researching and buying on a user's behalf. For founders and operators building devtools, infrastructure, APIs, or software targeting agent buyers. Networking with GTM teams and founders over light bites.

What happens when humanitarian workers operate in one of the world's most closed and repressive regimes? Kathi Zellwegger shares firsthand insights from her experience providing humanitarian aid on the ground in North Korea, offering rare perspective on daily life, state control, and the possibilities for engagement with the isolated communist state. In conversation with Mike Chinoy, journalist and Korea expert.

An Anti-Debate on the billionaire tax, a structured dialogue format where participants build on each other's insights to explore complexity rather than declare winners. Moderated by systems strategist Jenny Stefanotti, with San Jose State finance professor Annette Nellen and UC Berkeley law professor Brian Galle exploring the tax's merits, challenges, and trade-offs from multiple perspectives.

Frontier AI systems face real-world challenges at scale: GPU failures, cascading outages, and non-deterministic behavior threaten reliability. This session explores operational lessons from 2026's high-impact AI infrastructure incidents, featuring infrastructure leaders, SREs, and MLOps engineers discussing practical architectures for cluster resilience, inference under pressure, and redefining SLOs for probabilistic systems. Topics include mitigating compute failures, designing fallbacks and circuit breakers, measuring reliability in AI systems, and blameless postmortems from major 2026 outages. Hosted by Bond AI and Rootly.

A discussion-based reading club session on personal AI agents and their security architecture. This week's focus: Meta AI Research's safety approach for Muse, a personal agent that manages credentials, reads email and calendar, and acts on behalf of users. The session covers the history and mechanics of personal agents, security threats (prompt injection, data exfiltration, untrusted content), and Meta's layered defense strategy — isolated VMs, sandboxed runtimes, permission isolation, and approval workflows. Led by Thomas Redfern, Mat Allen, and the Learning Layer Labs team. No preparation required; discussion-based format with low-pressure environment for sharing insights.

A panel on securing AI agents in production, exploring real-world incidents, vendor evaluation, and build-versus-buy strategies for enterprise teams. Panelists include Mukund Sarma (VP of Security, Vercel), Jacob Brackett (Head of Application & Infrastructure Security, Notion), Aditi Gupta (Security Engineering, Sierra), and Saurabh Shintre (Founder & CEO, Realm Labs), moderated by Ron Miller of FastForward. Topics include agent security challenges, evaluating AI security tools, in-house versus vendor solutions, and critical actions for CISOs. Followed by Q&A, happy hour, and light bites.

A screening and conversation around Lynn Novick's forthcoming PBS documentary Crime and Punishment in America, executive produced by Ken Burns and Sam Pollard. Novick, an acclaimed filmmaker whose previous work includes documentaries on American history and institutions, will discuss how the United States became the world's leading incarcerator and explore the forces behind mass incarceration. Co-presented by Commonwealth Club World Affairs and KQED Live.

A teach-in and conversation exploring Stanford's legacy of student activism and multiracial solidarity. Student organizers from the Stanford Asian American Action Committee, League of Filipino Students, and Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine reflect on how the 1980s Rainbow Coalition won resources for communities of color, including the establishment of the Asian American Activities Center, and discuss lessons for contemporary organizing.

A county-led town hall on preparing West Marin for winter storms, flooding, and severe weather. County officials and emergency planners will discuss preparedness strategies, resource allocation, and community response to potential heavy rain, strong winds, king tides, and flooding that could result from El Niño patterns.

A reading and conversation celebrating *Best Literary Translations 2026*, an annual anthology edited by National Book Award winner Arthur Sze featuring poetry and prose translated from 62 languages—from French to Xitsonga, Korean to Guaraní. Translators Wendy Call (author and co-founder of the anthology, recent Fulbright Scholar to Colombia), Dmitri Manin (whose translation of Nikolay Zabolotsky's *Columns* was shortlisted for the NCBA and ALTA First Translation Prize), and Ilze Duarte (translator of Marilia Arnaud's *The Book of Affects*) will read from their work, discuss the craft and discovery of translation, and answer questions. The event concludes with a book signing.

Explore how our relationships with cities, parks, and the more-than-human world shape our future in this panel conversation inspired by Susanna Kwan's *Awake in the Floating City*, the 2026 One City One Book selection. Local community leaders working on place-based environmental justice consider what it means to be an ancestor and how the places we inhabit become part of our collective legacy.

A 3-part prompt-based storytelling workshop for adults and older adults led by Stagebridge, the nation's oldest performing arts organization for seniors. Participants can join a single session, multiple classes, or the entire series. Registration required by calling Montclair Branch at (510) 482-7810.

Fatimah Asghar discusses her debut poetry collection *Daughter of the Mountains*, which explores exile, displacement, belonging, spirituality, and lineage through meditative, formally inventive verse. The collection grapples with fulfillment, betrayal, love, loss, and longing, using vivid imagery and disruptive form to examine how place and environment inform spiritual practice. Asghar appears in conversation with poet Hieu Minh Nguyen.

A panel exploring film, the internet, and human agency in the digital age. Bara Kolenc, Gregor Moder, and Jure Simoniti (University of Ljubljana, Department of Philosophy) discuss where subjectivity is located when AI shapes cinema and ideology shapes desire online. Topics include Lubitsch's *To Be or Not to Be* as a meditation on theatrical power, and the dialectic between image and narrative in American versus European cinema. Moderated by Pavle Levi, Stanford Department of Art & Art History.

A screening of the 70-minute documentary Remathau: People of the Ocean featuring Dr. Nicole Yamase, the first Micronesian to earn a PhD in Marine Biology and reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The film explores her historic dive alongside themes of identity, culture, and belonging, reconnecting with the resilience of her people and the ocean navigation wisdom of earlier generations. Yamase, Director of Impact at OneReef, leads efforts to advance ocean science, conservation, and community-led stewardship across Micronesia. Hosted by Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability.

A behind-the-scenes look at infrastructure engineering inside Reducto, an AI-native company. Sid and Lijie from the Infra Team will discuss real projects spanning model deployment, cold starts, and complex customer environments—processing hundreds of millions of pages weekly. They'll share lessons from tackling infrastructure challenges across startups and large tech companies including Meta and Gusto. After the 20-minute talk and Q&A, attendees can test their skills in an interactive Capture the Flag competition with live leaderboard, plus food and networking with fellow infrastructure engineers.

A release-night celebration for the new ACOTAR novel featuring wine tasting with a special guest winemaker, book & wine trivia, costume prizes, photo opportunities, and the Suriel's Prophecy Board for reader predictions. Attendees are encouraged to dress in character — Night Court black, Spring Court florals, full Illyrian leathers, or power wear of choice. NA options available.

A hands-on engineering talk on steering AI agents with runtime policies. Nikita Agarwal, co-founder of Failproof AI and co-author of the FIRE paper, walks through how to write policies that intercept agent failures at critical moments—when a server dies mid-task, when an agent is about to overwrite irreplaceable data, or when output is almost correct. Learn to read failed traces, identify recurring mistakes, and convert them into allow/deny/instruct policies. Agarwal covers what good instructions look like versus generic ones, common policy pitfalls, and live testing on real agent failures. The final 20 minutes are open Q&A for production engineers.

A moderated conversation with legendary turntablists DJ Qbert and DJ Shortkut exploring their creative journeys, technical innovation, and impact on turntablism as a respected musical discipline. The discussion covers their Filipino heritage, artistic longevity, and commitment to supporting the next generation through education and workshops. Moderated by Kendo the DJ, founder of Mixsterious. A short live demonstration of their technical skill and performance style may be included.

Julie Orringer, bestselling author of *The Invisible Bridge*, discusses her new novel *Luna, Phoenix, Queen*—a work exploring infidelity, literary provenance, and storytelling's transformative power. Orringer's fiction is known for its intricate narratives spanning continents and eras, weaving together historical and contemporary themes. This is an opportunity to hear directly from the author about her creative process and the ideas animating her latest work.

Learn how to craft a powerful pitch to land an agent, secure a book deal, or succeed at self-publishing. Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry, co-authors of *The Essential Pitch*, share strategies for one of publishing's most critical but underestimated tools. Ideal for aspiring and established writers seeking to navigate the publishing landscape.

Poet, author, filmmaker, and educator Amber Allen-Peirson reads from her poetry collection *The Unrooted Bloom*, exploring race, biracial identity, motherhood, family, grief, love, ancestry, and belonging. The intimate, lyrical poems move through the spaces between identities and expectations, asking where we belong, who we are when freed from others' needs, what we've inherited, and what we choose to carry or release. Throughout the reading, audience members are invited to turn these questions toward their own lives and identities.

A screening of When ICE Melts, a feature-length documentary about resistance to Operation Metro Surge and ICE enforcement in Minnesota's Twin Cities, with director Kip Hedges in person for a post-screening Q&A moderated by SFSU Faculty and CFA member Blanca Missé. The film follows organizers, community leaders, and working-class resistance across neighborhoods, workplaces, and unions, including footage of the January 23 mass strike. It examines strategic lessons in building democratic structures and solidarity to confront authoritarianism, designed as a resource for organizers and activists in other cities.

A technical talk on building software factories using coding agents, harnesses, and verification systems. Attendees will learn how AI-driven coding tools are being integrated into production workflows and what engineering practices enable scaling from experimental agents to reliable systems.

A community ballot-review gathering where attendees work through local and statewide measures together, ask questions, share resources, and discuss options before casting votes. The format is collaborative and low-pressure—you vote on what you feel informed about and skip the rest. Hosted at Manny's.

A lecture on Frank Netter's groundbreaking medical illustrations and the intersection of art and science in medical education. Dr. Wen Shen, an endocrine surgeon with a master's degree in the history of medicine, explores Netter's career and his profound influence on how physicians visualize and understand the human body. Part of the Orlo H. Clark Lectureship series.

A fireside chat with Patrice D. Douglass on the philosophical and social dimensions of Black ontology, absence, and what theorists call social death—the historical and ongoing erasure of Black humanity and presence. Douglass brings critical scholarship to bear on how Blackness has been theorized, negated, and reclaimed.

A four-session immersive workshop with Silvia Nakkach, Grammy-nominated composer and sound shaman, exploring sound as a living cosmic force. Participants will learn to improvise medicine melodies—spontaneous transmissions from nature and the spirit world—drawing on practices from Peruvian Amazon icaros, Afro-Brazilian invocations, Indian ragas, and healing invocations. The workshop cultivates deep listening, tonal centering, and vocal freedom as forms of spiritual attunement and musical divination. No singing experience required; open to anyone willing to listen, feel, and explore the sacred intelligence of the voice.

Morgan Eckroth (@MorganDrinksCoffee), 2022 US Barista Champion and Director of Onyx Academy, discusses their book *Coffee, for Here*, a practical handbook for brewing with confidence at home. From bean origins and flavor profiles to approachable brewing techniques, Eckroth meets readers at every level—whether beginners or refiners—breaking down each step with the warm hospitality and inventive approach that has made them a leading voice in coffee education across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

A technical talk on data infrastructure for self-improving AI agents. Jacopo Tagliabue, CTO of Bauplan and former AI lead at Coveo, discusses his paper 'Skill Issues' and explores topics including RL environments, agentic systems, and verification. Bauplan brings Git-like version control, reproducibility, and serverless execution to data pipelines powering modern AI systems. For technical engineers and researchers.

A monthly gathering for graphic novel enthusiasts featuring author talks, participant recommendations, and collaborative drawing and writing sessions. The October 27th meeting features Rina Ayuyang, an Eisner-nominated cartoonist and 25-year veteran of the Bay Area indie comics scene. Ayuyang's latest graphic novel, *The Man in the McIntosh Suit*, was named one of the best books of 2023 by the New York Public Library. Meetings held the fourth Tuesday of each month.

Rabbi Shais Rishon, spiritual leader of Ohel Eidot CHeMDaT"A (the first African American-led and -centered synagogue in Washington, D.C.), discusses his book *The Souls of Black Jewish Folk*, published under his pseudonym MaNishtana. Drawing on a personal legacy of African American Judaism stretching to the 1780s and his upbringing in the Chabad-Lubavitch community, Rishon explores how Jewish tradition, racial identity, and contemporary American life intersect. He will be in conversation with a member of the USF faculty.

What if election interference triggers mass civilian protests in November 2026? Can U.S. troops legally intervene with force against demonstrators? Moderator Michael Baker, a retired Rear Admiral and physician, examines the legal and constitutional constraints on military deployment against civilians, alongside escalating ICE violence in Minneapolis, Texas, and beyond. The event explores how militarization of domestic law enforcement raises the stakes for civic dissent.

A panel discussion on community leadership and social change featuring Claudia Leung (Director of Programs, New Breath Foundation), Tash Nguyen (community organizer, Restore Oakland), and Krishna Desai (attorney, Desai Tran), moderated by Kim Tran. Panelists will explore refuting the model minority myth, overcoming learned powerlessness, and building lasting community change. Attendees will gain new models and inspiration for taking active roles in social transformation. Childcare and light refreshments provided.

Elena Dudum celebrates her debut memoir, *They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful*, at the independent bookshop where she grew up in the West Portal community. Dudum discusses her new work exploring memory, identity, and homecoming.

A conversation with creative technologists Tru Narla and Mori Liu on cyberdecks, playful interfaces, and hardware as self-expression. Narla, formerly of Square and Discord, builds colorful alternatives to everyday electronics—a flower-shaped camera, plant monitor, and Taco Bell compass. Liu explores software as a medium for play and personal meaning through projects like Textjar and experimental websites. The talk accompanies tiat's exhibition *Every Thing Computer*, exploring machines that are tactile, embodied, and expressive beyond the screen.

Veteran journalist Jonathan Weber, founding editor of The San Francisco Standard, discusses his book *City on the Edge* in conversation with Bloomberg Businessweek editor Brad Stone. Drawing on nearly 200 interviews with elected officials, tech leaders, activists, and artists, the book chronicles San Francisco's transformation from cultural hub to global technology center, exploring the conflicts and pivotal decisions that shaped one of the world's most influential cities—and what they reveal about its future.

Thomas Frank discusses his new book *The Creativity Con*, a critique of how 'innovation' and 'creativity' have become ideological cover for policies that entrench class inequality and protect elite interests. Frank charts the construction of America's self-image from Sputnik to Silicon Valley, examining how these concepts have been deployed by business leaders, technologists, and politicians while actual policies reinforce the status quo—tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, offshoring, and urban reorientation. Frank is the bestselling author of *What's the Matter with Kansas?* and *Listen, Liberal*, founding editor of *The Baffler*, and former Wall Street Journal columnist.

How does compassion differ across cultures? Birgit Koopmann-Holm, Associate Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University, presents research on how people in the United States, Ecuador, Mexico, China, and Germany understand compassionate responses to suffering. Drawing on hypothetical scenarios and real experiences of bereavement, she shows that cultures systematically differ in whether they favor sharing in someone's pain, helping them toward positive emotions, or balancing both. These differences persist in real grief experiences, suggesting people from different backgrounds may need different kinds of support while grieving. The lecture explores what true compassion means across cultural contexts.

A monthly somatic practice lab led by ICF-certified coach Annalisa Jackson for women working on how they show up in romantic connection. Through embodied practices, reflection, and small-group sharing, participants learn to rewire reactive patterns in love and connection — moving from intellectual understanding of attachment styles to felt, nervous-system-based change. This month's focus: finding groundedness when uncertainty activates your body in romantic situations. No prior experience needed; each session stands alone.

Bestselling historian and former criminal defense attorney Mark Shaw discusses his book *Girl Around the World*, which reveals the untold friendship between pioneering journalist Dorothy Kilgallen and aviator Amelia Earhart in the mid-1930s. Shaw explores how these trailblazing women supported each other's groundbreaking achievements—Kilgallen's famous 1936 24-day solo race around the globe and Earhart's historic transatlantic flights—and Kilgallen's response to Earhart's mysterious disappearance in 1937. Shaw is the author of *The Reporter Who Knew Too Much* and nearly 30 other books, with presentations garnering over 16 million YouTube views.

A lightning-talk meetup for Bay Area biosecurity professionals covering pandemic prevention technology, AI evaluation for biorisks, and synthetic DNA screening. Featured speakers include Jonas Sandbrink (CEO, BioTrust) on trusted access credentials for frontier biology, and Misha Gurevich (CEO, Aerolamp) on far-UVC technology. Hosted by Tessa Alexanian and Joey Bream in their personal capacities. The evening includes a meet-and-mingle, talks with Q&A, and informal discussion over snacks.

A discussion of Jenn Scott's debut novel *All the Tiny Beauties*, which spans 90 years in Oakland and explores shifting notions of self across generations through interconnected stories: a reclusive man, his estranged daughter, and a young housemate who form an unlikely friendship that defies age and expectation. Scott and facilitator Andrea Gough examine how the novel grapples with the fragility of identity, societal constraints on authentic selfhood, and the question of who we might become under different circumstances. Scott's work has appeared in *Fiction*, *Gettysburg Review*, and *Alaska Quarterly Review*; her debut collection *Her Adult Life* was longlisted for the PEN America/Bingham Award. Gough is an educator specializing in discussion-based curricula and the transformative power of literature to unsettle and expand thinking.

Zara Marielle reads from and discusses her debut fantasy novel *The Café of Infinite Doors*, a story woven from Scottish mythology and feminist themes. The novel follows Marceline, a sheltered twenty-three-year-old who discovers a magical café—a refuge from her controlling husband—run by a mysteriously feathered woman named Lucretia, her partner Kilda, and Sylvan. When the café's portals begin closing and darkness looms, Marceline must choose between her hard-fought freedom and protecting her newfound family. Marielle is a former ESL teacher and holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh.

A celebration of San Francisco's stairways featuring authors Mary Burk (Stairway Walks in San Francisco) and Alexandra Kenin (Urban Trails series). Moderator Liz Novoa hosts an SF stairway trivia game while Burk and Kenin share stories of the city's known and hidden stairways, best views, secret gardens, and a detailed map of SF's roughly 1,000 stairways. The grand finale of SF Stairway Month, organized by Glen Park Beautiful as part of the inaugural Walktober celebration.

Screenwriter Matthew Aldrich discusses his debut novel about a billionaire tech visionary who discovers a method to stop aging. A propulsive exploration of ambition, mortality, and the ethics of technological transcendence, featuring a book signing.

Prof. Thomas Targett separates fact from fiction in depictions of outer space, examining how Hollywood's portrayals in Star Trek, Star Wars, and other films and television shows compare to actual astronomy. A fun and informative exploration of where science and entertainment intersect.

A book talk and launch celebration for critical theorist and UC Berkeley author Grace Lavery's new work, *Personal Demons*. Lavery discusses her writing with Damon Young.

A regional summit convening 250+ senior women leaders from Bay Area business and civic sectors to discuss pressing issues shaping the region's economic and social future. Keynote from First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Hosted by the Bay Area Council at PG&E Auditorium.

The Future of Decision-Making Conference examines how AI-enabled systems are reshaping high-stakes decision-making across military commands, intelligence analysis, crisis management, and clinical settings. Hosted by Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, the conference brings together scholars, practitioners, and operational experts to discuss cognitive surrender, military decision-making and AI, and featured research presentations. Topics include how reliance on machine outputs reshapes professional judgment and how AI is changing command decisions in practice. October 28, 2026.

An in-person summit for enterprise IT leaders, technical decision-makers, and infrastructure architects scaling agentic AI systems at scale. Hear from enterprise leaders deploying and debugging AI agents in production, exchange technical strategies on inference economics, memory and context infrastructure, AI factory architectures, and agentic workload orchestration. VentureBeat curates a focused peer-networking environment designed for meaningful one-on-one conversations across industries and access to proprietary research on how enterprises are scaling agentic AI.

A conference bringing together customer experience leaders and AI experts to explore the intersection of AI and business strategy. Speakers include James Green and Hemant Taneja, alongside industry practitioners and researchers examining how organizations are deploying AI systems and rethinking customer engagement in an AI-driven landscape.

A Stanford HAI conference exploring the societal implications of rapid AI advancement, centered on workforce and labor concerns. Keynote speakers include Fei-Fei Li (Founding Director, Stanford HAI), James Landay (Denning Director, Stanford HAI), Jeff Dean (CEO, DiscoveryLoop), and Audrey Tang (Cyber Ambassador-at-large, Taiwan). The conference addresses widespread anxiety about AI's impact across sectors, examining questions of human worth and place in a shifting technological landscape.

A summit bringing together 1,000+ founders, investors, and innovators from 30+ countries to advance immigrant entrepreneurship and build connections across the global startup ecosystem. The event features keynotes, expert panels, and networking sessions designed to support immigrant-founded companies, attract venture capital, and showcase the economic contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs to innovation and job creation in the Bay Area and beyond.

Regenerate Conference explores the intersection of ranching and grassland bird conservation. Hosted by Point Blue Conservation Science, the conference brings together land managers, conservationists, ranchers, and ecologists to discuss sustainable grazing practices and habitat restoration that support bird populations and ecosystem health across working rangelands.

A hands-on printing workshop celebrating Halloween at UC Santa Cruz's Special Collections and Archives. Attendees can print their own designs on the BookBeetle, a replica Gutenberg-era common press, while exploring a curated display of Halloween-themed archival materials including movable books and historical documents. Open to all.

Theatre and Dance Professor Katie Dowse discusses the pedagogy of her course on costume design as world-building, examining how visual design communicates identity, hierarchy, environment, and ideology across theatre, film, and television. The course approaches costume as an interdisciplinary interface between fantasy, technology, contemporary global conditions, and visual storytelling, exploring how costume shapes relationships between body, space, material, and audience.

A talk on early childhood development measurement and monitoring. Susanne Martin Herz, MD, PhD, will discuss the Global Scales for Early Development (GSED), how developmental trajectories can be tracked similarly to physical growth metrics, and how the GSED and D-score inform population-level health monitoring and program design. Part of UCSF's Grand Rounds series exploring global health advances and research.

Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá (Not From Here, Not From There) is a multidisciplinary exhibition by artist Victor 'Marka27' Quiñonez exploring the experience of living between worlds. The show features altars, an immersive botanica, paintings referencing textiles and graffiti traditions, and brightly colored resin sculptures of melting Mexican paletas. Accompanying the exhibition, Elevar la Cultura—a twenty-two-foot-tall pyramid built from ice coolers adorned with ancestral textiles and sacred symbols—will be installed at Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos. The cooler sculptures symbolize immigrant labor and survival in the United States, transforming everyday objects into monuments of resilience and cultural pride.

Undergraduate researchers from Stanford's Archaeology Center present summer fieldwork findings. At'siri Gonzalez (Archaeology) discusses Indigenous memory and restorative practices in Hawaiian wahi kūpuna; Alex Turner (Archaeology) explores plantation stables at Roswell; Wei Lee (Archaeology and Medical Anthropology) presents findings from the Yangguzanzhai Archaeological Site in China; and René Nerio Martínez (Neurobiology, Archaeology & Classics) connects living systems and culture. Part of the Lunch Club series, a community forum for current issues in archaeology hosted by the Stanford Archaeology Center.

RNA cleavage is essential for processing and regulating all classes of RNA. Current methods profiling genome-wide RNA cleavage are biased towards cytoplasmic events and ignore compartmentalized differences. We have recently coupled subcellular RNA fractionation with degradome profiling to detect genome-wide nucleoplasm- and cytoplasm-enriched RNA cleavage in Arabidopsis thaliana . Using this enhanced profiling data we are studying RNA processing, including microRNAs, as well as RNA modification-mediated effects of RNA cleavage-mediated post-transcriptional regulation of the plant transcriptome. Our most recent results on miRNA processing and RNA modification-mediated regulation of the plant transcriptome will be presented. Speakers: Brian D. Gregory, Professor (Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania)

Historian David Henkin (UC Berkeley) discusses *Out of the Ballpark* (Oxford, 2026), a reconsideration of baseball's character and meaning that challenges familiar mythologies about the sport. Rather than treating baseball as uniquely American or examining only on-field action, Henkin traces the game's history across borders and centuries, exploring its structures, rituals, and resonances with labor, imperialism, race, media, and modernity. He's joined in conversation by philosopher Alva Noë (UC Berkeley), followed by audience questions.

Economic historian Jan de Vries, Ehrman Professor Emeritus of History at UC Berkeley, presents his newly published book *Life, Death, & Migration in the Early Modern City*, which explores urban demographic dynamics, migration patterns, and social life in a German city around 1700. De Vries is a pioneering scholar of Dutch economic development during the industrial revolution whose work has fundamentally shaped our understanding of early modern European urbanism and economic change.

Two UC Berkeley PhD researchers present work on postcolonial Africa and the archive. Derek Allen (Hispanic Languages and Literatures) discusses postcolonial identity in Luso-Afro-Brazilian literature and film depicting the Luso-African wars for independence and the Mozambican and Angolan civil wars. Chukwudi Isiani (History) explores how architecture functioned as an archive of imperial power in Eastern Nigeria from 1857 to 1960. Part of Berkeley's African Studies lunch seminar series.

A lecture on Alexander von Humboldt's largely undocumented 1802 expedition through Peru's far north—along the Andes spine and down the Marañón River to the Amazon. Dr. Sandra Nichols, a Berkeley geographer and documentary filmmaker, draws on Humboldt's recently discovered travel diaries, archival research, and ten years of exploratory visits with Peruvian colleagues to reconstruct this month-long journey and illuminate the region's unique geography, cultural heritage spanning 5,000 years, and contemporary conservation challenges. Humboldt's travels laid the foundations for biogeography and ecology and inspired Darwin, Muir, and American Transcendentalists; this talk recovers a forgotten segment of his transformative scientific legacy.

A panel examining Isaac Julien's 1991 film Young Soul Rebels, exploring temporality, memory, Black culture, and film theory. Rizvana Bradley (UC Berkeley) discusses the intervallic and phenomenology in Julien's work and Black critical theory. Donna V. Jones (UC San Diego) reflects on how film communicates history through multiple simultaneities, drawing on her experience watching the film in post-Thatcher Britain. Isaac Julien is present. Hosted by the Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz.

A seminar on Europa's dynamic ice shell and its potential to support life. Martin Kihoulou, a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at UCSC and recent Ph.D. in Physics of the Earth and Planets, presents evidence for tectonic-like activity on Jupiter's moon—including dilation bands and subduction zones driven by orbital cycles. He explores how vertical transport of chemical compounds across Europa's ice shell might create transient habitable conditions in the subsurface ocean, while addressing inconsistencies between observed surface age and current thermo-orbital models.

A guided observation-based exploration of 'a small ocean swallowed', an exhibition of contemporary art centering water, ecology, and human-environmental relationships. Led by Shelby Hendricks, the museum's group tour and family programs manager, participants will engage in close looking and discussion of work by six intergenerational and international feminist artists—Sholeh Asgary, Patricia Belli, Kiyo Gutiérrez, Jessie Homer French, Erin Jane Nelson, and Sunaura Taylor—whose pieces explore the material, sociopolitical, and cultural histories of specific waterways and grieve lives lost to human intervention while celebrating paths of collective healing and resistance.

A panel discussion on careers in plaintiffs'-side civil law, exploring opportunities to advocate for justice on behalf of individuals and families. Hear from lawyers at Public Justice, Our Children's Trust, and members of the National Plaintiffs' Law Association about their work in environmental, consumer protection, and civil rights litigation. Aimed at students and early-career professionals considering public interest legal work.

A discussion of decolonial approaches to human rights practice, examining the power imbalances between Global North and Global South advocacy organizations. The authors of *Decolonial Human Rights Practice: Tactics, Obstacles, and Futures* explore how domination persists within transnational human rights work and strategies for transforming it.

Chris Baker and Alysia Gonzales read from their work at the Writers Grotto's Words & Stories Reading Series.

A panel discussion on health privacy law strategy across biotech and pharma sectors. Heather B. Deixler (Latham & Watkins), Joanna Kim and Alexis Watson (Abbott) explore how in-house and outside counsel navigate evolving state-level privacy regimes. Moderated by Vincent Joralemon, Director of the Life Sciences Law and Policy Center at Berkeley Law.

A conversation on critical race theory with Osagie K. Obasogie, Haas Distinguished Chair and Professor of Law at UC Berkeley, and Savala Nolan. They will explore CRT's core tenets, its applications and misapplications across law, politics, and culture, and how students can deploy its analytical frameworks for social justice work inside and beyond law school. Obasogie's research spans law, race, and medicine, examining policing, bioethics, and reproductive technologies.

Lesley Currier of Shakespeare for Social Justice discusses the organization's work bringing Shakespeare courses and performing arts programs to fourteen California state prisons and rehabilitation centers since 2003. Participants will explore the crisis of mass incarceration in California and the U.S., and engage in creative exercises demonstrating theater's capacity to build empathy, foster connection, and transform lives. The event combines lecture with interactive workshop components.

A conversation with Professor Emeritus Charles P. Henry about his new memoir exploring his involvement in pivotal social movements—the search for social identity and the fight for civil and human rights. Drawing on personal experiences of place, memory, family, and Black Studies, Henry's narrative expands to broader issues including the Black diaspora, global community, and intersectionality. Henry is Professor Emeritus of African American Studies at UC Berkeley, former chair of Amnesty International U.S.A., and author of eight books on Black politics, public policy, and human rights.

A screening of two films centering disability narratives and experiences, part of UC Berkeley's commitment to accessible public programming. The event highlights filmmaking that amplifies disabled voices and perspectives, fostering dialogue around disability representation and social inclusion. Free and open to the public with accessibility accommodations.

A hands-on build night focused on developing open-source alternatives to paid creative tools using ComfyUI. Participants will collaborate on projects competing for a $10K grand prize. Hosted at Frontier Tower.

How are surveillance technologies and data systems transforming U.S. immigration enforcement, and what are the stakes for civil liberties and democratic oversight? This panel examines the convergence of AI-assisted identification, inter-agency data-sharing, and on-the-ground policing practices. Panelists include David Hausman (UC Berkeley Law, Deportation Data Project), Caitlin Patler (UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy), and Jennifer Urban (UC Berkeley Law, Samuelson Clinic), moderated by Deirdre Mulligan (UC Berkeley School of Information, former Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer). Part of the Matrix On Point discussion series.

Celebrate Día de los Muertos through Ecuadorian traditions with Chef Pastora. Learn about and taste colada morada, a traditional drink prepared for this season, as the chef explains its ingredients, preparation, and cultural significance. Participate in an interactive activity decorating guaguas de pan, the sweet bread traditionally enjoyed alongside the drink. A hands-on, family-friendly program blending food education with cultural celebration.

Dr. Alan Wiig, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Florida, examines how data centers shape cities and urban life. His research explores the intersection of urban geography and infrastructure, investigating the physical form, economic function, and political dimensions of AI data centers as they reshape metropolitan landscapes, labor markets, and resource systems.

How can machine learning transform compiler design to finally fulfill the promise that began with FORTRAN—generating high-performance, architecture-agnostic code across CPUs, GPUs, and specialized accelerators? Saman Amarasinghe, Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor of EECS at MIT and leader of the Commit Compiler Research Group, traces the history of compiler abstraction, explores how AI is reshaping traditional optimization, and examines whether the next generation of compilers can make hardware disappear once again. Amarasinghe's lab has developed StreamIt, Halide, TACO, Tiramisu, and numerous other influential languages, compilers, and tools.

Learn about indoor air quality, children's environmental health, and practical strategies for creating healthier home environments. Representatives from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 will discuss common indoor air pollutants and asthma triggers—smoke, mold, dust, and pests—and explain how to use the Air Quality Index (AQI) to plan safe daily activities. Space is limited; reservations required.

A conversation on Pakistan's democracy, secularism in the global South, and the political demands of the current moment with Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a distinguished Pakistani physicist, public intellectual, and longtime advocate for science and secular thought. Hoodbhoy taught physics for 47 years at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad and founded The Black Hole, a community space dedicated to science, art, and culture.

A roundtable discussion with Yu Miri, 2022 Berkeley Japan Prize winner, on her work-in-progress play *OBON*, based on oral history interviews with approximately fifty members of the Japanese American community in Chicago. Yu Miri discusses her approach to writing the play, emphasizing how she listens to her interviewees' voices without authorial appropriation. She is joined by Dan O'Neill (EALC), Miryam Sas (Comparative Literature), and Andrew Leong (English) to explore key concepts including postmemory and tojisha. Yu Miri is author of *Tokyo Ueno Station* (winner of the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature) and *The End of August*, both translated by Morgan Giles.

A lecture on scientific explorations of neonatal pain and early life adversity. Dr. Kanwaljeet J. S. Anand, professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Perioperative & Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and director of the Stanford Child Wellness Lab, will discuss his research journey toward changing the paradigm for neonatal anesthesia and analgesia, and his ongoing work on child wellness and early life adversity. The lecture is followed by a reception.

An exploration of how enterprise AI adoption is reshaping infrastructure, security, and data practices across organizations. The event features presentations and discussions on emerging AI applications and their operational impact.

Paul Cohen, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Molecular Metabolism Lab at The Rockefeller University, presents research on how brown fat—the metabolically active tissue that converts energy to heat—affects human health and disease. Using large patient cohorts and novel imaging methods, Cohen's lab investigates the genetics and biology of brown fat to understand its role in metabolic health and its potential to mitigate obesity-linked diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. A systems-based approach to understanding a fundamental lever in human physiology.

Award-winning author Erika Krouse, the 2026 Joyce Carol Oates Prize recipient, reads from her work and discusses writing, storytelling, and the art of paying attention in conversation with Hannah Onstad. Krouse's most recent collection, *Save Me, Stranger*, was longlisted for The Story Prize; her memoir *Tell Me Everything* won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and was a New York Times Editors' Choice. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The Kenyon Review, and her story "Eat My Moose" won the 2025 Edgar Award for Best Short Story. She teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver.

A seminar series on AI and data science applications in research, meeting Wednesdays 4:30–5:30 pm through the 2026–27 academic year. Fall 2026 opener: Stephen Baccus (Stanford University) on mechanistically interpretable models of neural computation in the early visual system, discussing how convolutional neural networks reveal the computational logic underlying retinal and visual cortex responses to natural stimuli. Winter and Spring speakers to be announced.

Carina Hong, founder of Axiom Math, discusses AI systems for mathematical reasoning at Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Speaker Series. The series features entrepreneurs and innovators sharing insights on building and scaling ventures.

Llisa Demetrios, Chief Curator of the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity and granddaughter of Ray and Charles Eames, discusses infinite curiosity, design, and possibility. The conversation offers fresh perspective on the Eames legacy—one of design's most enduring influences—and invites makers, thinkers, students, and anyone seeking to create with intention and joy to connect and learn together.

A recurring conversation series hosted by UC Santa Cruz's Right Livelihood Center, held every other Wednesday evenings in the dining hall. Each session frames a different theme — from personal meaning-making to activism, mental health, and immigration justice — and invites students across all majors and colleges to gather over food and tea for facilitated dialogue on questions that matter. The structured salon format prioritizes student voice and collective thinking about social change.

Build your own AI agents for real estate workflows — transaction coordination, acquisitions, property search, and construction — using Genspark's AI workspace. Led by Corey Griffin, a real estate business owner who has deployed 10 agents for his own company, this hands-on session walks you through setting up agents that plan, research, and execute work autonomously. No experience needed; bring your laptop and a free Genspark account (created before arrival). Designed for realtors, investors, contractors, title professionals, and business owners curious about AI agent capabilities.

Explore the German-American influence on Bay Area innovation from the Gold Rush through Silicon Valley. Award-winning author Sandra Bonura discusses Claus Spreckels, the German-born 'Sugar King of California' who built an industrial empire. German journalist Arndt Peltner examines German immigrants' broader role in shaping the region. Silicon Valley entrepreneurship specialist Anne Cocquyt traces continuing connections between German innovation and contemporary Bay Area enterprise. Reuters editor Judith Langowski moderates, followed by audience Q&A.

A symposium connecting UCSC students with BIPOC environmental and sustainability professionals, organizations, and career pathways. Attendees will learn directly from practitioners across environmental fields, explore diverse career opportunities, and build professional networks. The event centers BIPOC leadership and businesses in the sustainability sector, offering students resources, mentorship, and connections to support their academic and career development in environmental work.

How can decolonization take shape within a former colonial power's political framework? Audrey Célestine (NYU) examines Aimé Césaire's cultural policy as mayor of Fort-de-France through the lens of Léopold Sédar Senghor's 1976 visit to Martinique. Drawing on Césaire's work as both intellectual and elected official, Célestine explores the tensions between local, national, and diasporic political imaginaries—and the central role culture played in defining an emancipatory project pursued within, rather than outside, the French political framework.

A discussion of Mark Danner's essay collection *Crossing the Rubicon*, which examines the erosion of American democratic institutions and the rise of authoritarianism from the 2000 election through 2026. Danner, a renowned political journalist and contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, traces how the U.S. arrived at its current state of polarization, offering portraits of key figures like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and critiquing mass media's role in politics. He is joined in conversation by Emeritus Professor Michael Pollan, followed by audience Q&A.

A conversation with ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang, who argued and won the landmark Supreme Court case defending birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara. Wang reflects on her two decades fighting for civil rights and civil liberties, recounting how birthright citizenship came under attack 130 years after its last Supreme Court settlement, the recent history of immigrants' rights litigation, and the legal challenges emerging under the Trump administration. Hosted by author and cultural critic Jeff Chang, recorded live as part of KALW's Notes from the Edge podcast.

A Medical Humanities Research Workshop exploring the intersection of medicine, culture, and human experience. Speaker Bryant Lin, MD, a primary care physician, educator, and researcher at Stanford University, discusses how the humanities inform and transform medical practice and understanding. Part of Stanford School of Medicine's ongoing Medical Humanities Research Workshop Series, supported by the Humanities Center, Division of Literatures, Cultures & Languages, and Department of Anthropology.

A panel exploring redistricting, gerrymandering, and threats to electoral representation ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The discussion will cover the history of redistricting in the US, racial versus partisan gerrymandering, state independent redistricting commissions, California's Prop 50, recent changes to the Voting Rights Act, and Supreme Court actions affecting electoral fairness. Moderated by Melanie Springer (UC Santa Cruz), with panelists Sonal Shaw (The Texas Tribune), Elspeth Wilson (UC Santa Cruz), and Erik J. Engstrom (UC Davis). Part of the 2026-27 Resilient Democracy event series.

A hands-on workshop featuring real robotics demonstrations and practical AI applications, hosted by Nebius and Voxel51. Attendees will engage directly with physical AI systems and explore how machine learning integrates with robotics hardware.

A delightfully eerie celebration of Edward Gorey, the iconic artist and 'Godfather of Goth,' featuring short performances, behind-the-scenes stories, film clips, and surprises hosted by author Carol Verburg. Guests are invited to wear Gorey-inspired costumes or bat attire for prizes, though dressing up is optional.

A screening and artist talk on *Rebellion*, a collaborative audiovisual work by Deborah Oropallo and Andy Rappaport depicting protesters across the United States and around the world. The artists discuss how they created the immersive encounter, bringing together imagery and sounds of dissent to explore protest as both a political act and a collective visual language. Part of the inaugural Meet the Moment International Video Art Festival, which features moving image works in storefronts, reclaimed buildings, and streets throughout San Francisco.

How data infrastructure and database systems are evolving to support autonomous AI agents in production. The talk covers data freshness, parallel request handling, access control, and metadata discovery across the data stack. Speakers include Savannah Whitman (VeloDB) on enterprise AI agents querying databases; Sijie Guo (StreamNative) on agent runtime failures and cost control; Jaz Ku (PuppyGraph) on mapping relationships across thousands of tables; and Adi Wabisabi (Datastrato) on scoping agent access to user permissions. The event concludes with a panel and Q&A.

A hands-on workshop on running AI models locally on your own computer. Participants will learn how to deploy and manage AI systems independently, without relying on cloud services or external platforms. Ideal for anyone interested in AI infrastructure, self-hosting, and practical machine learning applications.

How does architecture shape society, and what can we learn from the built environment's relationship to political and cultural change? Laura Sánchez Carrasco and Íñigo Cobeta, both associate professors at Madrid's School of Architecture (ETSAM), present research on postwar North American and Spanish architecture and their transatlantic connections. Sánchez Carrasco specializes in architectural history combined with digital analysis; Cobeta's recent work focuses on public schools and the relationship between architecture, territory, and civic space. Both are part of an ongoing research project tracing connections between Spanish and American architecture from 1976–2006.

Mark Applebaum, Edith & Leland Smith Professor of Composition at Stanford University, explores what made the Beatles unique and transformative. Over seven years across thirteen albums, the band evolved dramatically and changed music for decades. Applebaum—a composer, jazz pianist, and TED talk speaker seen by over five million viewers—examines whether their impact came from innate musical ability, creative songwriting, commitment to experimentation, or sheer charm. Leave hearing the Beatles in a new light.

A celebration of *Mark of the Warrior*, the sequel to the New York Times bestseller *Breath of the Dragon*, featuring authors Shannon Lee and Fonda Lee in conversation with Andrea Stewart. The novelists discuss their collaborative fantasy epic.

Award-winning poet, translator, and physician Fady Joudah discusses and reads from Exhibit G: Poems, Essays, and Photographs of Gaza (2026), a finalist for the National Book Award. Writing from the perspective of a Palestinian American doctor witnessing Gaza's destruction from the United States, Joudah examines the paradoxes of his position—caring for the sick while complicit in their suffering, writing in English while defending a colonized people, finding beauty and survival amid devastation. The book explores how beauty persists through Palestinian resilience and the nonhuman world as refuge from human-inflicted war. Hosted by UC Santa Cruz's Center for the Middle East and North Africa with the Humanities Institute.

A pitch competition and networking event hosted by Swissnex San Francisco, connecting Swiss innovators and startups with North American investors and industry leaders. The event brings together Switzerland, North America, and global partners in science, education, innovation, and the arts. No substantive educational program or speaker agenda is described.

A hands-on workshop in microfluidic cell-free manufacturing—a technique for producing proteins and biologics outside living cells. Participants will work with microfluidic systems to understand the principles and applications of cell-free protein synthesis, a growing field in synthetic biology and biotech manufacturing.

A ProductTank SF meetup focused on building products designed for AI agents. ProductTank is a global community for product managers and builders to discuss emerging challenges and opportunities in product development. This session explores how to design, develop, and ship products that leverage agent-based AI systems, covering product strategy, user experience, and technical implementation for agent-driven applications.

Author-researcher Ashia S. Ajani and community organizer Keala Uchôa discuss *Tending the Vines*, which unpacks the rhetorical and ethnobotanical lives of plants moved across the Western Hemisphere. The book examines how plants have served as metaphors for Black incursion and symbols for Black liberation, while complicating notions of "invasive" species and belonging. Ajani contextualizes plant migration through an eco-griot and abolitionist lens, while Uchôa brings her work at the intersection of abolition and environmental justice. A conversation on diasporic plant relatives and tender living amid the decline of empire.

A talk on strategies for securing autonomous AI systems and managing emerging security threats in the field. Hosted at Orrick.

Author Mary R. Thompson presents and reads from her work exploring the intersection of human language and natural world expression. The evening begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by the reading at 6:00 p.m. at Readers Books.

Join poet and bookseller Haley Hutchinson for a reading and conversation about her debut collection *Her Womanhood of Mine*, a lyric chronicle of girlhood, embodiment, and becoming. Rich with sensory detail and emotional nuance, the poems explore domestic life, relationships, and the raw grittiness of self-discovery. Hutchinson is a graduate of Middlebury College, editor at Gal Pal Media, and bookseller at Russian Hill Bookstore.

A screening and discussion of The Haunted Bay, an Amazon Prime documentary series exploring reported paranormal activity at Bay Area locations. Creator and producer Ying Liu discusses her investigations into historic San Francisco theaters, bars, the USS Hornet, and other sites, examining both rational explanations and unexplained occurrences while uncovering the history behind each location. Liu will take attendees behind the scenes of the documentary and share what goes into investigating a haunting, followed by audience Q&A. Part of Pub Scholar's lecture series at Bay Area bars.

A recurring philosophical salon exploring thought experiments and ethical arguments. This session focuses on objections to utilitarianism, with recommended readings on philosophical norms and counterarguments to utilitarian theory. Past discussions have ranged from personal identity and free will to animal ethics, artificial intelligence, and the nature of morality itself. Attendees engage in facilitated dialogue around philosophical questions in an intimate setting.

A lecture on how poetry teaches us to sit with life's biggest questions—love, grief, curiosity, doubt, belief, and awe. Poet and critic Dean Rader, a University of San Francisco professor and T.S. Eliot Prize winner, guides attendees through accessible 20th and 21st-century poems exploring what it means to be alive. No literary background required. Followed by Q&A.

Five published authors read from their latest work in horror, science fiction, and speculative fiction. Featured writers include Cynthia Gómez (The Nightmare Box and Other Stories), Loren Rhoads (In the Wake of the Templars, Unsafe Words), Sumiko Saulson (Happiness and Other Diseases, Black Magic Women editor), Kristina Ten (Tell Me Yours, I'll Tell You Mine), and Tamika Thompson (The Curse of Hester Gardens, 2024 Indie Book Award winner). Hosted by Telegraph Hill Arts and Literature at Telegraph Hill Books.

Parini Shroff, bestselling author of *The Bandit Queens*, discusses her new novel *Some People*, a witty and poignant story about a man on the brink of divorce forced to care for his injured future-ex-mother-in-law. Over seven days of recuperation, Nathan Whitlock navigates complex family dynamics, cultural misunderstandings, and unresolved tension with Malti Patel while her daughter is away. Shroff explores themes of love, forgiveness, and the search for understanding and acceptance amid personal upheaval.

A fireside chat on voice AI product design and development, with Aiqi Liu (Head of Voice Product, Cartesia), Elissa Perdue (Lead Voice Engineer, Lorikeet), and Carl Cummings (CPO, Speak) discussing how to build voice agents people want to use. Topics include voice design choices, human vs. AI sound, control vs. naturalness, and industry misconceptions. Hosted by Bond AI with cocktails, light bites, and hands-on demos of Cartesia's voice playground.

A discussion of Rebekah Moyer's *Simple Kitchen Magic*, which offers whole-food recipes and home remedies for common ailments grounded in holistic nutrition. Moyer is a content creator and third-generation nutrition enthusiast who spent a decade pursuing self-directed study in holistic health, inspired by her family's food traditions and her kombucha-brewing mother. She shares accessible, nourishing meals using whole-food ingredients and practical remedies for everyday wellness.

Dr. Priti Patel, Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at John Muir Health, discusses how AI tools are transforming patient care and workforce efficiency in healthcare systems. Drawing on her background as a family physician and clinical informaticist, Dr. Patel will explore where AI adds value in healthcare today, practical implementation strategies, and the ethical guardrails necessary for safe and responsible deployment.

The first of a four-part series of lectures on the origins of the Arts & Crafts Movement in 19th-century England, examining the philosophical and aesthetic contributions of John Ruskin and William Morris. The event explores how these influential figures shaped modern design and architecture through their critique of industrialization and promotion of craftsmanship.

Eric Beck Rubin discusses his fictional account of the final stages of pursuing the right to die. A deeply personal exploration of end-of-life autonomy and mortality through narrative.