List of University of California, Santa Cruz people

This page lists notable alumni and faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz

Notable alumni

Academia

• William D. Adams - President of Colby College, Waterville, Maine
• Alexander Gonzalez, PhD 1979 - President of California State University, Sacramento
• Tod Machover - MIT Media Lab

Arts and letters

• Susie Bright - Writer, sex activist
• Laurie Garrett, BA 1975 - Newsday science reporter and author, Pulitzer Prize winner
• bell hooks, PhD 1983 - Feminist social critic
• Miranda July* - Filmmaker and writer
• Kent Nagano, BA 1974 - Conductor of the Los Angeles Opera and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
• Dana Priest, BA 1981 - Washington Post reporter and author. Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting.
• Lore Sjöberg* - Writer
• Jeremy Strick - BA - Director, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA)
• Bernt Wahl, BA 1984, BS 1986 - Author and entrepreneur, Fulbright Fellow. November 1985 coined UC Santa Cruz motto "Fiat Slug".
• Lawrence Weschler, 1974 - Author

Business

• Hilary Beech, MS, International Economics - CEO at Centre for Economic Policy Research
• Vaughn Stakes, BA, Politics - CEO at The Triathlete Store, President at Metropolis Research
• Susan Wojcicki, MS - Vice President, Product Management at Google
• Stephen Sefcik, BS, Business Management Economics - Notable Alumnus

Entertainment and broadcasting

• Jello Biafra* - Singer and songwriter of the Dead Kennedys
• Richard Harris - National Public Radio science reporter
• Camryn Manheim, BA 1984 - Actress
• Marti Noxon, BA - TV Producer
• Bradley Nowell*, Singer and songwriter with Sublime
• Joe Palca, PhD 1982 - National Public Radio science reporter
• Matt Kroll, Musician
• Rebecca Romijn* - Supermodel, actress
• Maya Rudolph, BA 1995 - SNL cast member
• Andy Samberg, BA -- SNL cast member
• Ally Walker, BS - Actress
• Gillian Welch, BA 1990 - Singer and songwriter

Law

• Ellen Leonida, defense attorney for Scott Dyleski

Politics and public Life

• Bettina Aptheker PhD - leader in the Berkeley Free Speech Movement
• John Doolittle, BA 1972 - Member, U.S. House of Representatives, California 4th Congressional District
• Ron Gonzales, BA - Mayor of San Jose, California
• Victor Davis Hanson, BA 1975 - Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
• Huey P. Newton, PhD 1980 - Founding member of the Black Panther Party
• Timothy Morgan, BA - California Committeman Republican National Committee
• Jessica Parral, California senator
• Aaron Peskin, San Francisco Board of Supervisors member
• Joanna Concepcion, Filipino diplomat
• Alondra De Haro, Beyoncé Knowles' lawyer
• Annika McClure, boss
• Thor, Boisterous, hella-caring viking
• Marc Humpert, acclaimed Ian Fleming critic and biographer.

Science

• Richard Bandler* - Co-founder of Neuro Linguistic Programming
• Joseph DeRisi, BA 1992 - Molecular biologist, Professor at UC San Francisco, MacArthur Fellow, known for work on SARS and malaria
• J. Doyne Farmer, PhD 1981 - Physics Researcher at Santa Fe Institute
• Yoav Freund, Phd 1993 - Computer Scientist, Professor at University of California, San Diego, Invented AdaBoost
• Steven Hawley, PhD 1977 - Astronaut
• Geoffrey Marcy, PhD 1982 - Professor of Astronomy at UC Berkeley and planet finder
• Marc Okrand, BA 1972 - Linguist, creator of the Klingon language
• Julie Packard, BA 1974 - Executive Director, Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Cheryl Scott, BS 1974 - Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention operations in Tanzania from 2001 to 2005
• Rob D. Shaw, PhD 1980 - 1988 Macarthur Award for work on Chaos Theory
• Kathryn D. Sullivan, BS 1973 - Astronaut, first American woman to walk in space

* Attended but did not graduate.

Notable faculty

• Ralph Abraham - Professor Emeritus of Mathematics; notable for founding the Visual Mathematics Institute and for his pioneering work on Chaos Theory
• Bettina Aptheker - Professor of Feminist Studies and History
• Elliot Aronson - Professor Emeritus of Psychology, author of The Social Animal and Nobody Left to Hate: Teaching Compassion after Columbine, creator of the Jigsaw Classroom model, and one of the few psychologists to win the American Psychological Association's highest honor in all three fields.
• Reyner Banham - late Professor of Art History and a pre-eminent architectural historian, in particular of the modern era.
• Tom Banks - Professor of Physics. Known for work on string theory, elementary particle physics, and cosmology.
• Norman O. Brown - late Professor Emeritus of Humanities
• James Clifford - Professor of History of Consciousness. Renowned for groundbreaking publications of postmodernist and postcolonial interpretations of anthropology and ethnography: Writing Culture and The Predicament of Culture and Routes.
• David Cope - Professor of Music; notable for his experiments in A.I. and computer-created musical compositions
• Angela Davis - Professor of History of Consciousness; writer and activist
• John Dizikes - Professor Emeritus of American Studies, author, won the 1993 National Book Critics Circle Award.
• Frank Drake - Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Proposed the Drake Equation.
• Sandra M. Faber - Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics. Instrumental in inventing Cold dark matter theory and fundamental work in the field of Galaxy formation and evolution. Member of the NAS.
• Donna Haraway - Professor of History of Consciousness. Doctorate in biology. Often cited author of feminist history of science and culture studies of cyborg. Books: Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science and Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.
• David Haussler Professor of Biomolecular Engineering. He and his team assembled the public draft human genome and developed the UCSC Genome Browser as part of the Human Genome Project
• David A. Huffman - Deceased. Founding faculty of the Information and Computer Science Board. Developed the famous Huffman coding
• Tom Lehrer - lecturer in American Studies and Mathematics. Also well known for his satire and songwriting.
• Gordon Mumma - Professor Emeritus of Music, composer
• Jerry Nelson - Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics. The scientist who pioneered the use of mirror segments, making the Keck telescopes possible, member of the NAS.
• Harry Noller - Professor of Biology. RNA research.
• Ira Pohl - Professor of Computer Science, Fellow of the ACM; well known for the theory of heuristic search. Author of many CS books, including A Book on C.
• Joel Primack - Professor of Physics, noted cosmologist; renowned for Cold Dark Matter Theory proposed along with Sandra Faber (see above) and Sir Martin Rees.
• Geoffrey Pullum - Professor of Linguistics and Distinguished Professor of Humanities. Co-author of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
• Nirvikar Singh - Professor of Economics. Notable for research on federalism, governance, and economic reform in India.
• Robert L. Sinsheimer - Professor Emeritus of Biology and former Chancellor.
• Ben Stein - Economist, actor and former White House speechwriter
• Elizabeth Stephens - Performance artist and longtime partner of artist/sex expert Annie Sprinkle [1]
• Roland G. Tharp - Professor Emeritus of Education. Considered to be the most influential expert in modern social constructivist theories in education.
• Stephen Thorsett - Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Dean of Physical and Biological Science. Known for work on properties of compact stars.
• Stan Woosley - Professor of Astronomy and AAAS member, noted for his work on supernova gamma ray bursts