University of California Audio Podcasts (Audio)

As part of the UC San Diego Author Talk Series, class of '76 alumnus and two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter and author Rex Pickett talks about his most recent novel, “The Archivist,” a murder mystery that takes a deep dive into the archiving world set in a fictional Geisel Library. Joining Pickett in the discussion are Brian Schottlaender, UCSD University Librarian Emeritus, Caryn Radick, Digital Archivist, Rutgers University, and UCSD's University Librarian Erik Mitchell. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Education] [Show ID: 38519]

Enjoy this excerpt from La Jolla Symphony and Chorus’ recent presentation of Powerful Nature. Ruben Valenzuela, founder and artistic director of the Bach Collegium, San Diego, guest conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, also known as the Pastoral Symphony, so named by the composer himself. This work travels through a series of feelings that evoke scenes to celebrate the beauties of nature. It became popular to many when it was featured in Walt Disney’s 1940 film, “Fantasia” – remember the mythical creatures cavorting in an ancient Greek world? Whatever images this piece conjures for you, you’re sure to appreciate this inspiring performance. Series: "La Jolla Symphony & Chorus" [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 38413]

Alondra Osuna moved to the United States from Guadalajara, Mexico. Her parents encouraged her academic passions and she set her sights on a college degree. She enrolled in community college then transferred to UC San Diego. She is now in graduate school hoping to pursue a career in college counseling. She shares the insights she has gained as a first generation immigrant student and how to find community on campus as a transfer student. Series: "Education Channel" [Education] [Show ID: 38268]

The county of San Diego has instituted inclusionary hiring practices to recruit neurodivergent individuals to the workforce and ensure departments have the proper skills to interview, train, and work with these members of the San Diego community. Garret Hoff, Brandy Winterbottom, Brian Lafferty, and Megan Elledge-LeVota discuss how this initiative came to be and what it means for the future.

Series: "Autism Tree Project Annual Neuroscience Conference" [Public Affairs] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 38394]

UC Santa Barbara's Clint Schow discusses how to bring low-power O-band coherent optics to data centers. Schow received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. After positions at IBM and Agility Communications, Dr. Schow spent more than a decade at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, as a Research Staff Member and Manager of the Optical Link and System Design group. He has led international R&D programs spanning chip-to-chip optical links, VCSEL and Si photonic transceivers, nanophotonic switches, and new system architectures enabled by high- bandwidth, low-latency photonic networks. In 2015, Dr. Schow joined the faculty of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Dr. Schow has been an invited speaker and served on committees for numerous international conferences. He is a Fellow of the OSA and the IEEE, has published more than 200 journal and conference articles, and has 33 issued patents. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38468]

Ravi Agarwal is a technical sourcing manager at the Facebook Infrastructure group. In this role, he is responsible for driving advanced packaging architectures and foundry for both networking and AI/ML compute applications to meet Facebook future workloads. He is driving Chiplet Business Workstream in Open Domain-Specific Architecture (ODSA) Sub-Project within the Open Compute Project (OCP) working with ecosystem partners to enable Chiplet marketplace. Prior to Facebook, he spent 12+ years at Intel Corporation and Amkor Technologies, where he held several leadership positions. In his last role at Intel, he was Chief of Staff to Intel Global Supply Chain Corp. Vice President. Ravi received PhD dual major in Materials Science & Engineering and Polymer Science from North Carolina State University and MBA from University of California Berkeley. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 38469]

How can we better understand the earliest stages of human development? Jianping Fu, Ph.D., University of Michigan, discusses his work using stem cell-derived embryoids. Series: "Stem Cell Channel" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 38320]

The discovery and resolution of genetic variation is critical to understanding disease and evolution. Our most recent work sequences diverse human and nonhuman primate genomes using both ultra-long and high-fidelity long-read sequencing technologies. Advances in this area have made possible the first telomere-to-telomere assemblies of the human genome and much more complete chimp, gorilla and orangutan genomes providing new biological insights into regions typically excluded from human genetic and comparative studies. We have discovered mega basepairs of duplicated sequence and/or rapidly evolving sequence present in humans that are absent from other non-human primates. These changes have predisposed our species to recurrent rearrangements associated with disease but also have led to the emergence of new genes important in the expansion of the human frontal cortex of the brain. Our data suggest that large-scale genome structural variation has played and continues to play a crucial role in the evolution of the human species. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 38297]

Leanne Chukoskie, Ph.D., Northeastern University, discusses her work using video games and play-based studies to learn more about autism and uncover potential therapies. Play-based relationships in early childhood are some of the primary tools that teach us where to look and find important information. Video games provide an excellent form of environmental learning by incorporating autonomy (user picks the game), purpose, mastery, uncertainty, competition, and peer reinforcement, and they’ve been linked to improvements in perception, visuo-spatial attention, movement skill, and memory. See how Chukoskie uses video games to study behavior, make assessments, and create interventions to help people with autism. Series: "Autism Tree Project Annual Neuroscience Conference" [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 38392]

Explore the politics, economics and art in the time of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Gregorio Luke, UC San Diego lecturer, author, specialist in Mexican art and culture and former Director of the Museum of Latin American Art, presents a fascinating portrait of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, including their paintings, photographs and rare film footage.

This lecture is part of the San Diego Opera's world premiere of "El último sueño de Frida y Diego" ("The Last Dream of Frida and Diego") by Grammy Award–winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize–winning librettist Nilo Cruz. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 38454]