Events

Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma) is a 1,193-acre living laboratory and outdoor classroom in the eastern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, home to globally significant biodiversity. The preserve provides a foundation for understanding natural systems through experiential education and multidisciplinary research.

Dr. Jorge Ramos is the Executive Director of Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve ('Ootchamin 'Ooyakma), overseeing research, education, and stewardship. After earning his PhD focused on carbon cycling in wetland ecosystems, he worked at Conservation International, advancing community-based carbon projects with multiple conservation co-benefits globally. 

https://jrbp.stanford.edu/

Join us as we fill backpacks for students living at Haven House, a family shelter in Menlo Park. To make this easy and affordable, we purchase backpacks and school supplies in bulk, and fill the backpacks in an assembly line. With your help, many hands make light work!

Suggested donation: $20.

Bestselling author, historian and journalist Susan Wels will present: An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a 19th-Century Sex Cult and a President's Murder. From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York—the Oneida Community—was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community—Charles Guiteau—assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core.

Jose Antonio Vargas was born in the Philippines; when he was twelve, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in Mountain View, CA. Jose first learned of his immigration status when he was 16 and tried to obtain a CA drivers licence.  Jose's high school English teacher introduced him to journalism and he did an internship at the Mountain View Voice.  He earned a degree in political sicence at San Francisco State University.  Later he was part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Price for Breaking News Reporting.

Vargas founded Define American, a nonprofit organization to open dialogue about criteria people use to define who is an American.  His memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published in 2018. Also in 2018 the Mountain View Whisman school board members named a new school after Jose Antonio Vargas. Vargas announced in January 2025 that he had obtained a 3-year O-1 "extraordinary ability" visa.

https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2018/06/21/board-votes-to-name-school-after-jose-antonio-vargas/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Antonio_Vargas

Matt Braker has served as a prosecutor with the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office for over 25 years, bringing justice and compassion to some of the county's most challenging cases. As the head of the Homicide Unit, he oversees all homicide prosecutions, the Cold Case Unit, and Officer-Involved Shootings.  A two-time recipient of the prestigious Napolean J. Menard Trial Advocacy Award, Matt was most recently honored in 2017 for successfully prosecuting three jail guards in the high-profile murder case of mentally ill inmate Michael Tyree.

Beyond the courtroom, Matt has been an engaged and passionate member of the Rotary Club of San Jose since 2015 and was recently the Club President.

The Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance (SCVBA) was founded as the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society in 1925, and with over 1,000 members, is one of the largest National Audubon Society chapters in California.https://scvbirdalliance.org/who-we-are

Matthew Dodder, the Executive Director, has been passionate about birds since he was 14 years old. He has taught a popular birding class at the Palo Alto Adult School since 1999, sharing his love and curiosity about birds with scores of students. As ED he brings to SCVBA a varied skill set and an unapologetic concern for the welfare of our avifauna. At home with his wife Kelly, Matthew adores laughing, cooking, and drawing birds. His avian artwork, from initial sketches to finished portraits, can be found on his blog: https://neornithes.wordpress.com.

In new research, scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory used the Stanford-SLAC Cryo-EM Center to capture, for the first time, the formation of an immune signaling complex inside intact human cells. The team used cryo-electron tomography, a technique that allows researchers to generate 3D reconstructions of cellular structures preserved in a frozen state. The method makes it possible to observe molecular assemblies inside cells at extremely high resolution.

Ahab hunting down Moby Dick. Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner. Learning Latin. Walking over hot coals. Standing in a long line for boba tea or entrance to a small, overpriced clothing retail store. Forking up for luxury nonsense. What do these activities have in common? They’re all examples of the overvaluation of what economists call “sunk costs”: the price you’ve already irretrievably paid in time, money, effort, suffering, or any combination of them for an item, an experience, or a sense of self-esteem.

“We make fallacious decisions based on what we’ve invested in something, even if the probability of actually gaining an objective advantage from it is zero,” said Neir Eshel, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “And it’s not just us. This has been shown in animals across the animal kingdom.” Blame dopamine: the “do it again, do it some more” brain chemical that’s been much talked about in connection with pleasure, learning, and habit formation.

Engineers Without Borders USA is a national organization that connects hundreds of student and professional chapters across the country with communities in need around the world. The Stanford University Chapter, recently founded in 2025, has partnered with the Peltetec community in Ecuador, who is currently relying on an outdated and deteriorating water supply system. In this presentation, students from the Stanford Chapter will discuss their recent trip to Peltetec and their continued work to fund and execute this project.

Abby Maxman is the President and CEO of Oxfam America, where she leads with a transformative vision for a more just and equitable world. Under her leadership, Oxfam America is advancing its commitment to addressing the root causes of poverty, inequality, and injustice, through locally led partnerships in humanitarian policy and practice, and advocating for economic justice, gender equality, climate action, and rights and dignity in crisis.

https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/people/abby-maxman/