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������Ƶ Downtown Lectures:

Spring 2026:

Ecologist Shares Climate-Smart Planting Strategies

������Ƶ ecologist Laura Drake Schultheis shares her research about plant flammability and defensible spaces in the face of climate change in a ������Ƶ Downtown Lecture on Wednesday, March 11, at 5:30 p.m. at ������Ƶ Downtown | Keith Center, . The talk, “Rooted in Resilience: Adaptive Planting Strategies in Wildland-Urban Interfaces,” is free and open to the public. Parking for the lecture is available at either . No tickets are required; the limited seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, please call (805) 565-6051.

“I will share examples of native plant restoration and efforts to improve community defensibility in fire-prone areas like Santa Barbara,” she says. “I hope people are encouraged by the conversation and empowered to get involved in the work being done to restore our native ecosystems and reduce fire risk in our own communities.”

Schultheis, a ������Ƶ alumna who earned a master’s degree in ecology and a doctorate in plant ecology from UC Santa Barbara, has played an integral role in the restoration of a fire-resilient oak woodland west of ������Ƶ’s campus. She and her students have planted about 60 native coast live oaks where Montecito Fire removed dead and dying eucalyptus trees in the summer of 2023.

“While no plant serves as a complete barrier to fire, there is some evidence that healthy, mature oak canopies can slow the spread of fire compared to non-native species like eucalyptus,” says Schultheis, a ������Ƶ assistant professor of biology.

Last summer, she and student Isabella Garcia ’25 presented a paper, “Purposeful Planting: Characterizing Plant Flammability Using Functional Traits for Defensible Space,” at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, one of the largest ecology conferences in the nation.

Other research has analyzed the structural and functional traits that contribute to the flammability of 20 Santa Barbara native plant species. This summer she and a team of ������Ƶ undergraduates will expand on this work through a collaboration with researchers at UC Santa Barbara.

Schultheis has also on the effects of drought and opportunistic fungi on big berry manzanita shrubs. 

The ������Ƶ Foundation sponsors the talk, part of ������Ƶ Downtown: Conversations about Things that Matter.

Advancements with AI 

Computer science professor Mike Ryu and ������Ƶ vice president of advancement and chief information officer Reed Sheard will speak about developments with AI on Thursday, April 23, at ������Ƶ Downtown | Keith Center, . The talk is free and open to the public. Parking for the lecture is available at either . No tickets are required; the limited seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, please call (805) 565-6051.

Fall 2025: 

Talk Examines America’s Long Affair with Tariffs

Alastair Su, ������Ƶ assistant professor of history, speaks about “Tariff Nation: Talk Examines he Rise, Fall, and Return of America’s Most Contentious Tax” on Monday, Dec. 8, at 5:30 p.m. at the , 631 Garden St., in downtown Santa Barbara. The ������Ƶ Downtown Lecture is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations required. is available on the streets surrounding CAW or in nearby city parking lots. For more information, please call (805) 565-6051.

“Once dismissed as relics of the past, tariffs are back with a vengeance,” Su says. “My talk traces their rise, fall and return — and what their comeback says about America today.”

Su, who graduated from Harvard before earning a doctorate in history from Stanford University, will offer a 250-year overview of how the United States imposed tariffs, starting with Hamilton’s Reports of Manufactures, got rid of them in WWII before finding support for them again starting with Trump’s first administration.

He began teaching U.S. history at ������Ƶ in 2021, and is completing his first book about America and the opium trade in the 19th century. He was awarded a 2025 Graves Award in the Humanities, which will support his work on his forthcoming book, “Flowering Gold: American Capital and the Opium War.”

The ������Ƶ Foundation sponsors ������Ƶ Downtown: Conversations About Things That Matter as well as the annual ������Ƶ President’s Breakfast in late February.

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Talk Explores Energy and Climate from the Ground Up 

Ben Carlson, assistant professor of physics at ������Ƶ, explores the scientific foundations of today’s most pressing energy and climate issues in a ������Ƶ Downtown Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 9, at 5:30 p.m. at the , 631 Garden St., in downtown Santa Barbara. The talk, “Energy and Climate Through the Lens of Basic Science,” is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations required. is available on the streets surrounding CAW or in nearby city parking lots. For more information, please call (805) 565-6051.

Carlson, who earned a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, says the lecture expands on a course, Physics for Future Presidents, that focuses on the impact of basic science on the modern world.

“I’ll highlight how the concept of energy density is a lens through which to examine energy — from batteries, to fossil fuels to nuclear power — and explore the challenges and opportunities of transitioning to sustainable energy systems,” he says.

Earlier this year, Carlson and thousands of researchers worldwide were honored with the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, awarded to the at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as several related experiments.

In 2022, he received a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant to further his search for evidence of the presence of mysterious dark matter.

He joined the ������Ƶ faculty in 2021 after teaching at the University of Pittsburgh as a Samuel Langley postdoctoral fellow.

The ������Ƶ Foundation sponsors ������Ƶ Downtown: Conversations About Things That Matter as well as the annual ������Ƶ President’s Breakfast in late February.