Specializing in everything from neuroscience, to applied mathematics, to globalization, to oceans, they are among UC Santa Barbara’s most accomplished faculty. And in a series of lectures beginning this week they’ll introduce their current research to summer students and to the community.

The series, Ground-breaking Research & Innovative Technology — otherwise and better-known as GRIT Talks — is presented by UC Santa Barbara’s Office of Summer Sessions. The annual program gives notable university researchers an opportunity to share their vast and diverse expertise with a broad audience.

The talks are free and open to the public and are available for viewing online via UCTV. This year, each lecture will be held in Givertz Hall Room 1004, beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Dr. Linda Petzold's lecture will be "The Roles and Consequences of Randomness in Biological Systems". Stochasticity (randomness) is ubiquitous in biological systems. We will explore some of the ways in which it arises and is used to advantage by bioloocal systems, at a wide range of scales. 

Dr. Linda Petzold is currently the Mehrabian Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Computer Science, and Director of the Computational Science and Engineering Graduate Emphasis at the University of California Santa Barbara.  She is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of ACM, ASME, SIAM and AAAS.   She was named the UCSB Faculty Research Lecturer for 2011, was awarded the SIAM/ACM Prize for Computational Science and Engineering in 2013, received an Honorary Doctorate from Uppsala University in 2015, received the SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service in 2016, and was awarded the IEEE Sydney Fernbach Prize in 2018.   Her current research focuses on modeling, simulation and data analytics of multiscale systems in biology and medicine.