“Equitable access to tech education is vital for Indigenous students to make sure we don’t get left behind,” she says.

Boyer’s second robot, SkoBot, is her baby, born to help teach the endangered Ojibwe language, Anishinaabemowin, and other Indigenous languages. SkoBots are about 10 inches tall, wearable, and pretty freakin’ cute. The latest generation includes a makwa (bear) and a waabooz (rabbit) designed in collaboration with an Ojibwe tattoo artist from Boyer’s home state of Michigan. “Kids love them; kids relate to them,” Boyer says.

SkoBots sense motion and say “boozhoo” (hello) and other phrases in response. Boyer’s nonprofit, STEAM Connection, provides the kits for free, and students build the SkoBots themselves. Boyer is currently recording more words in the voices of Ojibwe children and elders (including her grandmother) to expand the robots’ repertoire.

Boyer takes her robots on the road to demonstrate technology as a tool to communicate, advocate, and relate while imparting hands-on engineering skills. But, she says, she hasn’t always felt welcome in STEM.

During her childhood in a tribal community in Sault Ste. Marie, MI, it took Boyer two years to save $800 to join the public high school’s robotics club. She was the only girl and the only Indigenous student.

“People in my community experience financial and other inequities in education, and that was a barrier to my own STEM education,” she recalls. “And then there’s the troubling energy around women in STEM. Even my own dad said women weren’t meant to be engineers.”

So, she’s here to prove that Indigenous women do belong in STEM—and wherever they choose to showcase their talents and make their voices heard.

Boyer has already racked up an impressive list of accomplishments: She was part of the White House Tribal Youth Forum and received the Echoing Green Fellowship and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation prize. She moved to San Diego three years ago and travels frequently. With trips to Poland, the UK, Ghana, and China coming up, she’ll show people all over the world how tech can help preserve cultural history for the next generation.

October 28, 2024

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“To be Indigenous is a protest and a constant advocating for the future of your community,” she says. “There’s a myth that Indigenous people exist only in the past. But we’re here now and we will be here in the future.”

The post 23-Year-Old Invents Wearable Robot to Preserve Indigenous Languages appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

This dance welcomes visitors into the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s For Dear Life, an examination of illness and disability on view into February 2025. The show is part of PST ART, a Getty initiative bringing together over 70 institutions to mount exhibitions themed around the relationship between science and art.

Featuring more than 80 artists, For Dear Life is the first survey of its kind since the 1960s. It follows “what some people talk about as a kind of second wave of the disability rights movement, often referred to as disability justice … and a surge of work being created around themes of illness and disability since the Covid pandemic,” says MCASD Senior Curator Jill Dawsey. But the exhibition, which spans decades, proves that artists with disabilities have always been here, producing pieces that probe the limitations and possibilities of their own bodies and minds.

The show takes an expansive approach in defining its central subjects. “We all fall ill. We all will become disabled, if we aren’t already. Disability is a category that applies to a quarter of the US population,” Dawsey says. “[It] is a thing that touches everybody.”

Grouped by era, the showcase begins in the mid-’60s, when feminist artists began to push the boundaries of what was considered worthy of scrutinizing in art. “[They were] making work about the vulnerable body, the unruly body,” Dawsey says.

Then came veterans’ explorations of the impacts of the Vietnam War in the ’70s, and, in the decades after, the work of those affected by the HIV and AIDS epidemic.

Pieces confronting substance use disorders bring context to the War on Drugs. Some link the use of pesticides in agriculture to illness and death. Others reference the Black Panthers’ community healthcare clinics in the mid-20th-century.

October 18, 2024

MCASD's New Exhibit Examines Illness & DisabilityRELATED ARTICLE

The result is an exhibition that resists the pressure to reduce social movements into bullet points on a timeline. Instead, it reminds the viewer that the waves of history always pass over the body, often to devastating effect.

Indeed, embodiment is core to the show, even as its more abstract works offer alternative ways to imagine corporality. In a piece by Senga Nengudi, spiky cones of clear vinyl filled with dyed water stretch across the gallery floor, evoking both sterile IV bags and limbs or organs, something illegible and alive.

In another, Richard Yarde’s Ringshout: Mojo, the watercolorist’s palm prints form a circle on the massive, 90-by-90-inch canvas. “His body enters the practice in a different way,” Dawsey says. “Even though he’s not representing his whole physical form, you have this large sense of the artist being in the work and moving around the work.”

Mobility aids and prosthetics also stand in for—or expand definitions of—the body (a placard under filmmaker and activist Ray Navarro’s photograph of a cane reads “THIRD LEG,” while a wheelchair is labeled a “HOT BUTT”), and many featured artists approach them and other aspects of living with disabilities with a wry humor—and a powerful sense of ingenuity.

Take Rainer’s Hand Movie, the way it distills and compresses choreography to create a form of dance that feels wonderfully strange and new. Or Sandie Yi’s Crip Couture series, which, as Yi wrote in a 2020 manifesto, “uses wearable art as a medium to articulate new meanings of disability.” Painter Katherine Sherwood’s work shifted after she experienced a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 44 and, with her dominant hand paralyzed, relearned to paint with the other.

So often, stories about artists with disabilities center around them “overcoming” or “triumphing” over their impairment, language “that implies that [not being] disabled is the better and more normative position,” Dawsey adds. For Dear Life offers a different perspective: Disability as an impetus for creativity and innovation.

“It can really transform artists’ work,” Dawsey says. “It becomes a catalyst for developing new processes and new subject matter and new politics. Illness and disability are actually very generative.”

The post MCASD’s New Exhibit Examines Illness & Disability appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Palomar is also collaborating with Sharp HealthCare to expand offerings for both organizations’ patient populations: In North County, Sharp patients can access services from Palomar Health, while Palomar patients will have more care options for specialties not currently covered, like transplants and advanced oncology procedures.

But even before launching its new alliances, Palomar was drawing national recognition, including a spot on Newsweek’s list of the world’s best hospitals for six consecutive years. In 2024, it was one of only five healthcare systems nationwide to earn a specific award recognizing the forensics and trauma teams’ work to support victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence, elder abuse, and human trafficking.

Though the org closed its labor and delivery ward in Poway in 2023, Palomar Medical Center Escondido recently rebuilt its Level III NICU to expand capacity from four to 12 beds. The Escondido maternity facility was named among US News and World Report’s best hospitals for maternity care in 2024.

And while the organization is expanding its reach through partnerships, Palomar, like many providers in the healthcare industry, has struggled to recruit and retain staff. According to National Nurses United, half of Palomar’s registered nurses and more than half of its caregivers left between January 2022 and May 2024. But amidst these challenges, Palomar Medical Center Escondido’s emergency department (ED) won the 2023 Lantern Award, which recognizes EDs that provide excellent care to patients and a healthy work environment for staff members.

This year, Palomar Health launched a new ambulatory surgery center at its Escondido hospital, where patients can expect cutting-edge treatments like robotic spinal and orthopedic surgeries, robotic urology procedures, and ophthalmologic laser procedures.

And, in 2026, the organization will open the Palomar Behavioral Health Institute (PBHI), an 84,700-square-foot facility where adolescents, adults, and geriatric patients can access services such as medication therapy and management, support groups, education, therapy, and inpatient mental health treatment. PBHI will also be the West Coast’s first home of the Help for Heroes program, providing mental health and substance abuse treatment for veterans, active duty service members, and retired military personnel.

The post Palomar Health to Open New USD Wellness Center appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“Our sound is clean; it’s clear. It cuts through,” Taylor says. But when asked how long it took to engineer that classic Taylor sound, he laughs. “Oh, I did not [engineer it]. It was just like, ‘Oh, you really like it? Oh, okay, yeah, I meant to do that.’ We made a guitar that was very innocent, half an accident, but it helped change the music industry.”

Taylor, who started making guitars at 16, only knew one thing when he began: He’d turn his passion into a career. Three years later, he partnered with Kurt Listug, who was 21 at the time. The pair purchased a small guitar shop in Lemon Grove and began building.

On October 15, 1974, they founded Westland Music Company, which became Taylor Guitars in 1976. This year, the company celebrates its 50th anniversary. Having grown sales worldwide to $125M, Taylor counts among its fans some of the music industry’s biggest artists: John Fogerty, Jewel, Zac Brown, Jason Mraz, Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift, to name a few.

But it took more than three decades before Taylor Guitars was a household name. In the ’80s, music was all about heavy metal, synth, and glam—acoustic guitars weren’t exactly flying off the shelves.

“We started selling in Los Angeles during the Laurel Canyon days. And, you know, music was changing a lot then,” Taylor says. “Acoustic guitars were always hard to play. The necks were too big, the strings were too high; it took a death grip to play them.”

But Taylor and Listug had faith in their product. They packed up their axes and headed to the 1985 National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show, an annual trade event that is the largest of its kind today.

There, they showcased a new line of guitars called the Artist Series, limited-edition models finished in colored stain. One of Taylor Guitars’ distributors challenged them to make a 12-string purple guitar for Prince, who had just released “Purple Rain,” garnering him global stardom.

Prince played his new 655 Artist Series guitar in a Live Aid video that year, though he requested no branding be shown at the time. Luckily, the industry found out who was behind the artist’s new instrument. The calls from musicians trickled in. The shift had begun.

Acoustic guitars began reclaiming their popularity. In 1989, MTV Unplugged started showcasing musicians playing acoustic versions of their songs. Riding this wave of renewed interest, Taylor Guitars ramped up production in the ’90s and early aughts. Taylor refined his guitar-making process and, in 1992, found the business a new home in El Cajon, where they remain today, occupying eight buildings.

Around that time, a young Taylor Swift purchased a Baby Taylor, which she used to write songs in the backseat of her car. Swift’s dad dropped off a cassette tape to Taylor’s office while the now-billionaire Swift was still flying under the radar, Taylor recalls.

“I know that every dad thinks his daughter’s special, but mine really is. Would you listen to that cassette?” Swift’s father said to Taylor. In 2008, Swift held her Fearless album release party at the factory.

Two years later, the company hired Andy Powers—an Oceanside native who began crafting guitars at the age of 7 and previously ran an instrument-building business of his own—as Taylor’s design successor. Powers re-engineered the brand’s entire lineup of guitars, created new body styles, offered a more diverse range of musical sounds, and developed new guitar voicing architectures. Taylor Guitars sealed its name as one of the best in the industry.

But today, as we tour the facilities, Taylor’s stories are less about the many musicians he’s worked with and more about the families his company—which became fully employee-owned in 2021—has been able to help along the way.

“[Wuhan] came to us from Cambodia,” says Taylor, who gave her a job shortly after she arrived in the states. “She worked for six months and got a raise. She was like, ‘I never thought that life could be like this.’”

Walking along the factory floor, we’re surrounded by half-finished guitar bodies, tiny lasers, larger-than life robots buffing wood, and workers installing fretboards, applying back bracing, and cutting sound holes. Wherever we go, Taylor takes the time to say hello to his countless employees by name.

I ask him what he’s most proud of after half a century of crafting instruments. Even with his focus on his team, I still half-expect him to gesture toward a wall of various celebs playing his guitars. But his reply is swift: “That we were able to make this career out of guitar-making for all these people. That’s what I’m most pleased with.”

The post Taylor Guitars Turns 50: How a Beautiful Mistake Changed the Industry appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

In collaboration with generative AI platform Abridge, Kaiser’s San Diego facilities have rolled out the region’s biggest deployment of “assisted clinical documentation” technology, and Tseng is excited about its potential for the entire healthcare industry.

His AI assistant, he says, “[doesn’t] miss things. It improves quality and efficiency.” AI has applications for diagnosis, as well. For example, “in radiology, we can use it to pick up diseases earlier by analyzing images of potential strokes and [helping doctors prioritize which scans they review,] based on severity,” Tseng explains.

Kaiser Permanente also rolled out two new hospitals in San Diego County in recent years. The latest, San Marcos Medical Center, opened in August of 2023. It has a labor and delivery ward, a neonatal ICU, a 24-hour emergency department, and 206 single-patient rooms.

Like many health systems in the area and the nation, Kaiser Permanente is no stranger to struggles with staffing. In late 2023, San Diego Kaiser workers went on strike as part of walkouts across four states to protest exhausting working conditions related to labor shortages and pay that didn’t cover the current cost of living. The walkouts resulted in a new contract that led to what President Biden called “historic” increases in healthcare worker wages.

Two of Kaiser’s San Diego medical centers nabbed a top-60 spot on US News and World Report’s 2023 list of the best hospitals. The publication named Zion Medical Center in Mission Valley and San Diego Medical Center in Kearny Mesa (both Kaiser facilities) among the best hospitals for maternity care this year. Contrasting a recent trend in maternity ward closures across California, the new San Marcos maternity ward opened shortly after two local facilities shuttered L&D services.

Additionally, the organization’s cancer survival rates consistently beat the National Cancer Institute’s SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) averages. A study published in 2024 showed Kaiser patients with colorectal, breast, and lung cancers have better survival rates after five years than other patients tracked in SEER data.

Tseng attributes this to Kaiser Permanente’s integrated model, where members have access to preventive care, smoking cessation programs, and cancer screenings—along with a national referral system providing regional Kaiser doctors with a comprehensive database related to cancer treatment, to ensure they’re delivering the most up-to-date and effective therapies.

The post What’s Next for Kaiser Permanente? appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

And it’s not letting age slow it down.

At Scripps Clinic’s Shiley Center for Orthopaedic Research and Education (SCORE), scientists are currently in the discovery phase of developing tissue from human stem cells to use in rotator cuff treatment. The eventual goal is to create a biologically engineered tendon to replace or repair the patient’s torn rotator cuff.

“This is a common injury, and as our population ages, there’s a pressing need to find new solutions,” says lead researcher Darryl D’Lima, MD, PhD, and director of orthopedic research for SCORE at Scripps Clinic.

This year also marked 40 years of the Mohs Micrographic Surgery and Dermatologic Oncology Fellowship, led for all four decades by Dr. Hubert Greenway. Dr. Greenway teaches doctors a technique pioneered by his mentor, Dr. Frederic Mohs, who developed a method of removing skin cancer layer by layer, checking for cancer cells along the way and preserving healthy tissue in the process. Dr. Greenway has performed 45,000 Mohs surgeries and trained 68 physicians to disseminate the technique as skin cancer cases increase each year.

Aside from treating formidable health issues, Scripps Health faces a growing, industry-wide challenge: violence against healthcare workers. Workplace violence at all five Scripps hospital campuses jumped by 31 percent in 2023, reaching 2,335 total incidents. Healthcare staff experience demeaning comments, verbal abuse, and assaults on a regular basis.

Scripps Health President & CEO Chris Van Gorder is part of a countywide task force addressing the problem, and the organization recently hired a retired FBI special agent to enhance staff security and safety training.

Next up for Scripps Health? A new, 227,000-square-foot, three-story building that will expand acute care services and increase the number of hospital beds. Lusardi Tower at Scripps Encinitas is scheduled to open in 2025, housing private inpatient rooms, operating facilities, intensive and progressive care units, and a pulmonary institute.

The post Scripps Celebrates 100 Years of Medical Breakthroughs appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The Prebys Foundation is looking to change all that. In May, the San Diego–based charitable organization, in partnership with the Science Philanthropy Alliance, awarded $500,000 grants to 14 local women scientists working to transform human health. Intended to fund projects by research leaders from underrepresented groups, the org’s Research Heroes initiative also has the potential to transform treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, infectious viruses, and other illnesses. Meet the program’s first cohort.

Xin Jin

Xin Jin is an assistant professor of neuroscience at Scripps Research. She is exploring brain development’s cellular mechanisms to better understand and track the progression of disorders like autism and schizophrenia.

Stephanie Fraley

Stephanie Fraley is an associate professor of bioengineering at UC San Diego, leads a lab focused on improving infectious disease detection and finding treatments for cancer metastasis (or spread) to combat two leading causes of death around the globe.

Rachel Blaser

Rachel Blaser is a professor of psychological sciences at the University of San Diego. She was awarded the grant for her groundbreaking research on human cognition and memory, which aims to detect early signs of cognitive decline, potentially transforming the approach to diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Dannielle Engle

Danielle Engle is an assistant professor and the Helen McLoraine Developmental Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies’ Regulatory Biology Laboratory. She’s working to discover a quick and simple diagnostic marker for pancreatic cancer, similar to the PSA test for prostate cancer or screenings for colon cancer.

Razel Milo

Razel Milo is an associate professor of nursing and health science at the University of San Diego, as well as a family nurse practitioner and behavioral science researcher. She’s creating surveys in Tagalog to measure the life satisfaction and stress levels of Filipino Americans, hoping to improve healthcare for that community.

Angelica Riestra

Angelica Riestra is an assistant professor of biology at San Diego State University. She is developing ways to fight the parasite that causes trichomoniasis, a common sexually transmitted infection with links to cervical cancer, HIV, and other health issues.

Mia Huang

Mia Huang is an associate professor of chemistry at Scripps Research, is studying the biological functions of glycans, a complex sugar molecule in the human body, with the aim to predict and reduce pregnancy health risks by finding early markers for potential complications.

Marygorret Obonyo

Marygorret Obonyo is an associate professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine, is finding new methods to identify genes that increase the risk of developing gastric cancer—the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths—and forge effective new treatments for the disease.

Erica Ollman Saphire

Erica Ollman Saphire is the president and CEO of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. She’s working to determine why we get sick by researching how viruses interact with the immune system. She captures images of pathogens to learn where they are susceptible to antibodies.

Sonia Sharma

Sonia Sharma is an associate professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, is studying immune system differences between sexes, with the ultimate goal of creating new treatments for Alzheimer’s, which disproportionately impacts women.

Tatyana Sharpee

Tatyana Sharpee is a neuroscientist and professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Drawing on her background in physics, she’s creating an algorithm to predict the impact of strokes, schizophrenia, and other diagnoses on the brain.

Sujan Shresta

Sujan Shresta is a researcher and professor at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology. The grant will help fund her mission to develop a vaccine that inoculates against multiple flaviviruses, a category that includes dengue, Zika, and West Nile.

Lisa Stowers

Lisa Stowers is a neuroscientist and professor at Scripps Research focusing on the brain’s structure—especially the way it processes scents—in order to help progress treatments for depression, autism, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other disorders.

Daniela Valdez-Jasso

Daniela Valdez-Jasso is an associate professor of bioengineering at UC San Diego. She’s seeking ways to diagnose and treat pulmonary hypertension—high blood pressure of the lungs—before the need for a lung transplant.

The post 14 Women Working to Transform Human Health appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Californian identity is deeply intertwined with the palm, for good reason—along with the Gold Rush, the palm tree was one of California’s early big wins in branding.

Palm mania started slowly, explains Donald Hodel, an emeritus horticulture advisor for the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Canary Island date palms, he says, were first brought over by mission-building padres in the late 1700s. They wanted the real-deal fronds when Palm Sunday came around.

From there, palms built up some serious nonsectarian steam. Hodel tells me that, in the late 1800s, developers used palm trees as a siren song for East Coasters, summoning them westward to seek out paradise. They planted Mexican fan palms around citrus orchards and manufactured postcards depicting California as healthy, tropical, and exotic.

After World War II, young veterans exiting the military came west for “their own piece of the pie,” which included a “postage-stamp-sized lot” with, of course, a palm planted out front, Hodel says.

“They are iconic,” he adds. “Rightly or wrongly, [palms] became associated with the upper echelons of the economic ladder.” A frond-crowned tree in your yard meant you’d made it.

Nowadays, those non-native palms are to southern California what pine trees are to Christmas. They’re culturally entrenched—which explains why governments will go to great lengths to protect them. The Encinitas City Council, for example, recently approved a $382,250, five-year plan to defend the Moonlight Beach heritage palm, which involves dousing it quarterly with insecticides, conducting regular inspections, and removing nearby infestations.

At this point, there is only preventative treatment—spraying and crossing one’s fingers—or doing nothing and just rolling the dice. Either way, the palm may die, leaving tree lovers not only bummed out but broke: A tree corpse can cost $6,000 (or more!) to remove.

It’s been tough for palm people in California. Austin Kolander, an arborist with Aguilar Plant Care and first responder on the weevil front, spends his days breaking the news to homeowners that, due to a weevil attack, there’s no hope for their beloved palms. “This woman today was so distraught,” he says. The dying palm had been planted 80 years before by her grandfather. It wasn’t just a tree to her—it was a tether to her familial history.

Luckily, a seasoned pro is on the case. Hoddle (with the help of his entomologist wife, Christina Hoddle) previously cracked the code on the Asian citrus psyllids’ decimation of California’s orange groves.
He’s now working nonstop to find an answer to this weevil problem before the impending desert date palm blitz.

A predator is helpful to get an animal population into check, but the weevil doesn’t have one in California, so Hoddle began a search. In Brazil, he found a tachinid fly, which would have inspired the likes of Hannibal Lecter. It, like the weevil, deposits its eggs atop the palms, but then the freshly hatched maggots wiggle down and entomb themselves within the weevil’s cocoon. “They eat the larva alive,” Hoddle says.

Then, they pupate, using the emptied-out cocoon as a sleeping bag.

The issue is that the fly currently won’t reproduce in a lab setting. Even if Hoddle manages it, there’s still a long process involved in green-lighting the introduction of a new natural enemy.

But there is some hope: He’s also currently testing a method he calls “attract and kill” in a 10-square-mile area that includes Rancho Santa Fe and Fairbanks Ranch. The process involves a hanging contraption that lures the weevils using their own pheromones—it’s like backstabbing them with their own horniness.

He points to a tiny vessel. “This is weevil pheromone aggregate.”

“What does it smell like?” I ask.

“It smells like weevil pheromone aggregate,” he says, laughing.

I bring my nose in close. Hints of musk, rust, and maybe old BandAid. Not great, but if it was a candle called Weevil Nookie, someone out there would pay 40 bucks for it.

Once the weevil lands on the trap, the insect is dosed with a puddle of potent poison. “Instead of hundreds of gallons of insecticide,” Hoddle explains, “we’d just have to put out a couple of ounces over vast areas.”

It’s still not foolproof. If it works—and, based on the numbers of weevils that have fallen for the traps so far, it does look great—and is deployed widely, the remaining Canary Island date palms will likely only have a 70 percent survival rate. But that’s far better than the 70 percent death rate so far.

The public can help the fight, as well, by reporting any symptomatic palms one observes to the University of California, Riverside’s Center for Invasive Species Research.

As we wrap up our tour of destruction, Hoddle spots a massive palm he’s been keeping an eye on for the past six years. It’s dead, with telltale signs of weevil activity. He can’t completely blame the weevils, though, he says.

Ten new insects are established in California each year, three of which become a problem agriculturally or ecologically. “Don’t blast through signs at the airport asking you to declare produce when your bags are full of mangos,” he pleads. The repercussions can be enormous: increased taxes to pay for eradication programs; higher prices for produce; more insecticides in our water, land, and bodies.

“Bugs don’t stay in your own backyard,” he says. “They spread, and then we all end up paying the price for it.”

The post Weevils Are Coming—CA’s Date Industry is at Risk appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

With all restaurants do to nourish us, we invite you to give back to them by voting for your Reader’s Choice favorites in several categories.

Vote in as many categories as you like, but you can only cast one vote per category. If the altruistic love of your favorite spot isn’t enough, your vote will enter you to win a $200 gift card to the Catamaran Hotel Resort and Spa.

Winning restaurants earn bragging rights for the entire calendar year—and your continued love and support. So, go on. It’s up to you to decide on our city’s next culinary icon.

Voting has closed. View the Best Restaurants 2024 Winners here.

The post Vote Now for San Diego’s Best Restaurants 2024 appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

WSL Junior Championships 

The world’s best youth surfers will compete in Oceanside this week during the WSL World Junior Championships, stoked for the chance to earn a wildcard spot in the Challenger Series. This is the first time Oceanside will host the competition. Of the 24 men surfing, keep an eye out for Brazilian surf prodigy Ryan Kainalo, Encinitas native Levi Slawson, and reigning WSL World Junior Champion Jarvis Earle. On the women’s side, Australian Sierra Kerr, Canadian phenom Erin Brooks, and Malibu’s own Talia Swindal are among the frontrunners for the title. 

1 Oceanside Pier, Oceanside

The Wiz

Before The Wiz officially returns to Broadway in April, the show is embarking on a cross-country theater tour for the first time in four decades, with a series of eight shows planned at the San Diego Civic Theatre. Adapted from L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz is acclaimed for its funk and R&B-filled score that produced timeless songs like “Ease on Down the Road,” and “A Brand New Day.” With a crew of Tony-, Emmy- and Academy Award–winning artists, this modern-day production of The Wiz incorporates ballet, jazz and pop music to take the Emerald City to the 21st century. 

1100 Third Avenue, Downtown

January 11-15

Borrego Springs Film Festival

Local film fanatics are being summoned for five days in the desert to enjoy narrative, documentary, animation and short films during the 11th annual Borrego Springs Film Festival. In addition to the screenings, the festival includes a gala, filmmakers panel discussions, an awards ceremony, afterparties and more. Come for the stunning setting of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which has inspired much art of its own, and stay for the deluxe festival experience. Attendees can purchase a pass for $175 and tickets can be purchased by block (groups of 1-7 films) for $10 each.

590 Palm Canyon Drive, Borrego Springs

January 12-14

San Diego Rodeo

The San Diego Padres with C5 Rodeo Company Inc. and Outriders Present will host Petco Park’s first-ever rodeo, kicking off a three-day competition with cowboys competing for a prize of more than half a million dollars. See these athletes put their bravery to the test as they try taming their bucking broncos during a weekend full of family-friendly fun, all leading up to the announcement of the winner on Sunday. Saturday’s show has sold out but tickets for individual seats and ballpark suites to the San Diego Rodeo can still be purchased for Friday and Sunday.

100 Park Boulevard, Downtown

Powers New Voices Festival 2024

The 11th annual Powers New Voices Festival begins this Friday with readings of 10 new plays from American playwrights, including works from a handful San Diegan artists. Held in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, the festival will begin Friday night at 7:30 p.m. with six 10-minute play readings from San Diego playwrights during “Celebrating Community Voices” as the Old Globe spends the weekend highlighting the local theater community. Tickets to all festival readings require a free reservation. 

1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park

January 12-13

Poway Winter Festival

Even though Christmas has passed, it’s not too late to experience a winter wonderland, with the Poway Winter Festival commencing this Friday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 3:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Poway Community Park. Attendees can enjoy sledding down a mound of snow, eating s’mores by the fire, skating around the ice rink, playing carnival games, and running around in the snow.  

13094 Civic Center Drive, Poway

January 13

San Diego Resolution Run 

If your list of New Year’s resolutions included getting in running shape or breaking a personal record, then Saturday’s San Diego Resolution Run is your time to shine. Runners can sign up for 5K, 10K and half marathon options as they race through Mission Bay. All race participants will receive a t-shirt, finisher’s medal and chip-time results. Following the race, they will be greeted by a wellness village with health-conscious food, discounts and products. 

1292 East Mission Bay Drive, Mission Bay

San Diego Underground Film Festival

Local artists and creatives will display their eclectic talents at UCSD Park & Market’s Media Arts Center Theater this Saturday with a day’s worth of screenings and live performances from 2 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at the 9th annual San Diego Underground Film Festival. The festival lineup will feature a wide selection of experimental films, live music, Q&A sessions, projector performances and more. Anyone interested in attending the festival can reserve their free general admission here.

1100 Market Street, Downtown

Tiffany Bociek: “Enduring Exuberance”

“Enduring Exuberance” is artist Tiffany Bociek’s exploration of her past, present and future and will be on display Sparks Gallery through March 3. The exhibition consists of three wax paintings that embody various states of well-being, with layers reflecting the passing of memories through generations to create a detailed family line. Attendees can RSVP for the exhibition’s free opening reception here. 

530 6th Avenue, Gaslamp

San Diego Monster Jam

Brace yourself for a rockin’ motorsports experience as 12,000-pound monster trucks conquer the dirt in tests of speed, skill and pure awesomeness during the first of two weekends at Snapdragon Stadium. Audiences can expect to see crazy stunts, high-flying backflips and competitive racing from the most daring monster truck drivers. Attendees who are interested in a VIP experience can pay extra for the Monster Jam Pit Party to see their favorite supercharged trucks and meet their favorite drivers prior to the event, and enjoy inflatable slides, a remote control truck course and trophy photo ops. 

2101 Stadium Way, Mission Valley

January 14

42nd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade

Harbor Drive will host the 42nd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade, coordinated by the Zeta Sigma Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. and the San Diego Alpha Foundation. This year’s parade theme is A Healthy Community Thrives Together! and will feature floats, high school bands, drill teams, plus universities, fraternities, sororities, churches and youth organizations. The festivities will also include a 5K walk/fun run and a health and wellness festival at Ruocco Park from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.   

Harbor Drive, Embarcadero

Carlsbad Marathon & Half Marathon

Starting and finishing at The Shoppes at Carlsbad, the Carlsbad Marathon and Half Marathon takes place along Buena Vista Lagoon, offering prime views of the Pacific on Highway 101. Participating runners will receive a long-sleeve race shirt, a quarter-zip pullover, a souvenir cinch bag and post-race refreshments at the Finish Line Festival and beer garden.  

2525 El Camino Real, Carlsbad

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