The UC Santa Cruz Alumni Association is proud to present this year’s UCSC Alumni Awards honorees. These awards recognize and celebrate alumni who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievements, made distinct contributions to society, provided impactful contributions to UC Santa Cruz, and who have embodied the values and spirit of the university.
George M. Kraw, Keith Curry, Jacob Martinez, Kamari Maxine Clarke, Paul Fielder, and Neroli Devaney are the recipients of the 2024 UCSC Alumni Awards.
“We are proud to honor these exceptional alumni," said Assistant Vice Chancellor of Alumni Engagement John D. Pine. "The recipients of this year's UCSC Alumni Awards have made remarkable contributions to our university, the state, the nation, and beyond. We are truly excited to celebrate their achievements."
The UCSC Alumni Awards consist of five categories: Fiat Lux, Alumni Achievement,, Distinguished Graduate Alumni, UCSC Ethos, and Outstanding Recent Alumni.
Fiat Lux Award
Geroge M. Kraw (Cowell, ’71, history and Russian studies)
George M. Kraw (Cowell ’71) earned his BA in history and Russian studies from UC Santa Cruz. He was a member of the first UCSC rugby team. After graduating, he attended graduate school at Berkeley, where he received an MA in history and a JD from UC Berkeley Law. In 1981, he started his law practice in Silicon Valley, which eventually became the Kraw Law Group where he still works.
He remains active as a UCSC alumnus, and recently became a member of the UC Santa Cruz Foundation. Along with his wife Rafe, he sponsors a series of science and technology lectures at the UCSC Silicon Valley campus and has been active in several campus programs, including the UCSC rugby team, which he played on from 1967-71.
For his support and dedication towards UCSC and its students, faculty, staff, and alumni, George Kraw will receive the 2024 UCSC Fiat Lux Award. The award honors alumni and friends of UC Santa Cruz who have demonstrated outstanding achievement and distinguished service in support of the university’s programs and goals.
“I greatly appreciate this acknowledgment, and it reminds me that there is much to be done to help the school continue to thrive as one of the world’s great universities.”
Kraw was born in Oakland, CA in 1949, and is the grandson of Serbian and Croatian immigrants. In 1981, Kraw started his own law practice, initially specializing in corporate finance. After partnering with his first wife Sarah Kenyon Kraw, he became increasingly involved in the legal and financial issues of unions and their employee benefit plans. In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Kraw as union representative to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), where he helped draft investment policy statements and advised on the financial problems of underfunded pension plans. After he left the PBGC in 2005, his firm, the Kraw Law Group, continued to grow and now has 22 lawyers in offices in Silicon Valley, San Diego, and Phoenix.
Kraw is grateful for the experience and perspective he gained at UC Santa Cruz.
“My time at Santa Cruz taught me to think for myself, to act on my own, to escape group think and avoid unyielding acceptance of the faddish sensibilities of the moment,” Kraw said. “It gave me agency to develop my own ideas and act on them. It was directly responsible for my starting my own law firm in 1981, and never working for anyone else since then.”
Alumni Achievement Award
Keith Curry (Oakes ’99, American studies)
Dr. Keith Curry (Oakes ’99) earned his degree in American studies from UC Santa Cruz and his doctorate in education leadership from UC Irvine. He is the president of the Compton College and CEO of the Compton Community College District and currently serves as chair of both the National Panel on Black Student Enrollment and the Black Student Enrollment Expert Advisory Committee.
His recent honors include: the 2024 Diverse Issues in Higher Education—Diverse Champion Award, 2023 California Conference for Equality and Justice Humanitarian Award, 2022 California Community Colleges Chief Instructional Officers Equity Champion Award, and 2022 California Legislative Black Caucus Unsung Hero Recognition (35th California Senate District).
For his lasting, positive impact on the lives of others and consistent accomplishments throughout his career, Curry is the recipient of the 2024 UCSC Alumni Achievement Award. The award honors UC Santa Cruz graduates who have demonstrated distinguished professional achievement, leadership, and community service.
“I have received a lot of awards in my academic and professional career; however, this one means a lot because my journey began at UC Santa Cruz,” Curry said. “I often think about my first day on campus, and wanting to return home, but I stayed and finished. Now, I cherish every moment I have when I visit Santa Cruz, because I really enjoyed my time at this institution and in that community.”
In June 2020, Dr. Curry served on the California Higher Education Recovery with Equity Task Force. At the 2019 Community College League of California Annual Conference, the Campaign for College Opportunity and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund honored Dr. Curry as one of three 2019 Champions of Equity.
Dr. Curry credits UCSC for fostering many skills that he still uses today.
“At UC Santa Cruz I was able to be involved in student organizing, which has helped me a lot in my professional career,” he said. “I learned how to prepare an agenda, conduct a meeting, and how to follow-up on items after the meeting. Also, I was provided with so much support services from various departments, and now as the president/CEO of Compton College I want to make sure our students have a wealth of support services.”
Alumni Achievement Award
Jacob Martinez (Oakes ’04, evolutionary biology)
Jacob Martinez (Oakes '04), who earned a degree in evolutionary biology from UC Santa Cruz, founded Digital NEST (Nurturing Entrepreneurial Skills with Technology)—a technology workforce development hub providing youth in rural communities with high-demand technology skills, mentoring, and hands-on experience. Since its founding in 2014, it has expanded, with locations in Watsonville, Salinas, Gilroy, Modesto, and Stockton.
For his lasting, positive impact on the lives of others and consistent accomplishments throughout his career, Martinez is the recipient of the 2024 UCSC Alumni Achievement Award. The award honors UC Santa Cruz graduates who have demonstrated distinguished professional achievement, leadership, and community service.
Martinez’s older sister graduated from UCSC, and Martinez attended her college graduation when he was in middle school. He fell in love with the campus, which ultimately led to his decision to transfer to UCSC. Nowadays, Martinez stays connected to campus leadership and serves as an external advisor to the chancellor of UC Santa Cruz. He received The James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award in 2020, and a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur Fellow in 2018.
Martinez stays connected to UCSC students, searches for talent to hire at the Digital NEST, and volunteers to mentor students.
“I believe in the campus's mission and in the students who choose to attend. UCSC students are special, and it's an honor for me to continue to be associated with them.”
Martinez is grateful for the experience he gained at UCSC, setting him up for success post graduation.
“I learned the importance of building a network [at UCSC],” Martinez said. “It was as a student that I was able to attend my first professional conference, SACNAS. It was that experience where I learned how to show up as a professional, how to network at a conference, and how to leverage relationships. Those skills are what helped lay the foundation of my ability to connect with people professionally.”
Distinguished Graduate Alumni Award
Kamari Maxine Clarke (MA ’94, anthropology) (Ph.D. ‘97, anthropology)
Kamari Maxine Clarke (MA ’94, anthropology) (Ph.D. ‘97, anthropology) is the distinguished professor of transnational justice and sociolegal studies at the University of Toronto. With extensive research on legal institutions, international domains, and the politics of globalization, Clarke has authored numerous books and articles, led a range of individual and collaborative research projects, and is an internationally recognized sociolegal scholar of law, culture, and power. She is currently working on two research projects. One focuses on geospatial technology, human rights evidence and the problem of ocularity—that is, contemporary challenges with modes of seeing and knowing truth. The other is concerned with the Problem of Absence-Presence in the Black Atlantic World. She is a dedicated teacher and mentor who has directed over 40 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Clarke is the recipient of the 2024 UCSC Distinguished Graduate Alumni Award. The award recognizes UC Santa Cruz graduate alumni for notable achievement in a career directly related to their degree program.
“It is an honor and a privilege to accept this award,” Clarke said. “Various UCSC programs are among the last survivors of truly critical, change-making education, and I consider myself lucky to have been taught by so many dedicated scholars and some of the greatest thinkers of our time.”
Clarke attended UCSC in the 1990s at a time when the anthropology department just launched a new and cutting-edge Culture and Power Ph.D. program. She says that her dissertation advisors were supporting thinkers and teachers, passionate social and political theorists, scholars of law and language, Africanists and gender theorists and were themselves making a critical mark in the fields that they embodied.
“I was in the third class of the new program and felt fully supported and nurtured. My advisors ensured that I had the funding, grant writing support, feedback and writing and intellectual space that I needed to learn, grow and thrive in a field in transition.”
Since 1999, Professor Clarke has held faculty positions at Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, UC Los Angeles, Carleton University, and the University of Toronto. She has trained a new generation of scholars impacting legal and anthropological scholarship and practice. Clarke has received numerous fellowships, grants, and awards, including from the National Science Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Open Society, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the 2021 Guggenheim Prize for career excellence in anthropology. She is also a member of the Royal Canadian Society’s Academy of Social Science.
She is grateful for her time in UC Santa Cruz’s graduate division.
“The reading that I did then, the intellectual conversations, the exposure to key academic networks and the friendships that were an outgrowth of our sustained engagement and they continue to nourish who I’ve become.”
UCSC Ethos Award
Paul Fielder (Merrill ’84, psychobiology) (Ph.D. ’89, biology)
Paul Fielder (Merrill ’84, psychobiology) (Ph.D. ’89, biology) is the recipient of the 2024 UCSC Ethos Award. The UCSC Ethos Award honors alumni whose contributions to their communities embody and reflect the ethos of UC Santa Cruz. These individuals champion diversity, foster inclusive communities, are deeply committed to social justice and equity, and dedicated to seeking truth and advancing knowledge in service of society. They celebrate others’ heritage, uniqueness, and contributions with a deep respect for human dignity and desire for transformational change.
“I am both honored and humbled to receive the UCSC Ethos Award,” Fielder said. “I am delighted to have my alma mater recognize me for my accomplishments. I also appreciate the many people who supported my career and submitted me for this award."
Fielder received his undergraduate degree in psychobiology and Ph.D. in biology with a focus on reproductive endocrinology from UC Santa Cruz with Professor Frank Talamantes.
"My time at UCSC not only helped nurture me into an independent thinker and creative scientist but also instilled a keen sense of my responsibility to use my skills to help give back to society and future scientists,” Fielder said.
He was a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford University School of Medicine. During these early years at UCSC and Stanford, Fielder gained a strong appreciation for the importance of diversity and inclusion in science and in using one's skills to help better society through medical-related research and mentorship.
In 1993, Fielder joined Genentech, Inc., and has spent the last 30 years at Genentech to understand the basic mechanisms controlling the kinetics and distribution of protein therapeutics and pharmacodynamic biomarkers. Fielder’s scientific and leadership efforts have directly and indirectly contributed to the discovery, development, and approval of many of Genentech’s top biological therapies. He has also contributed to over 90 publications in basic biology, endocrinology, biomarkers, and preclinical and clinical pharmacology.
More recently, Fielder has been a pioneer in helping to shape Genentech’s efforts in diversity and inclusion. He has helped develop and sponsor multiple early-in-career programs and university collaborations to help develop and train new scientists with an emphasis on encouraging people from diverse backgrounds to apply for, and succeed, in careers in biotechnology. Fielder is also the recipient of the Developer Award from the Genentech Women’s Professional Group as a recognition of his mentorship and allyship of women in science.
Fielder acknowledges how UCSC played a part in his development into the person he is today.
"The culture at UCSC not only challenges you to be brave, independent, and creative, but also to develop as a person who cares about people and helping others."
Outstanding Recent Alumni Award
Neroli Devaney (College Nine ’19, sociology)
Neroli Devaney (College Nine ’19, sociology) wasted no time putting her UCSC education and KZSC student experience to work after graduation. She returned home to Arcata, CA and connected with the local arts agency Playhouse Arts to start a local radio station, Humboldt Hot Air, a grassroots internet radio station that has become an essential community hub for folks to share their ideas, art, and music. Humboldt Hot Air boasts over 60 volunteer DJs, an expansive selection of talk and music programming, collaborations with dozens of local organizations, and impressive community support.
Devaney’s dynamic and determined leadership resulted in the FCC awarding Humboldt Hot Air the license to broadcast as KHHA 94.7FM.
For her notable professional achievements and contributions to society, Devaney is the recipient of the 2024 Outstanding Recent Alumni Award, which recognizes UC Santa Cruz alumni who graduated within the past 10 years who reflect the values and mission of UCSC.
“I am honored to be a recipient of UCSC's 2024 Outstanding Recent Alumni Award,” Devaney said. “I believe that grassroots, community labor is often undervalued by larger institutions so it feels really special that UCSC recognizes the work I have done, and the value that community radio stations can hold. I hope that receiving this award can put a spotlight on not just myself but also on KZSC as an essential resource within the UCSC community.”
“While I got my degree from UCSC in Sociology, I often joke that really, I got my degree in community radio from KZSC! Working with KZSC shaped my career path in so many ways. The obvious one being knowledge and training in noncommercial radio, but more than that, KZSC gave me experience with fundraising strategies, coordinating events, working in teams, and navigating nonprofit governing board structures. I definitely would not be doing what I am today without the guidance, encouragement, and platform of KZSC.”
Devaney is grateful for her UCSC education and KZSC experience that she credits with opening doors for her to achieve success in a career she is passionate about.
She invites her fellow Banana Slugs to tune in and follow along on the journey at humboldthotair.org.
Award recipients will be honored at the UCSC Alumni Awards Celebration on Friday, October 25th. Visit the UCSC Alumni website to learn more about the UCSC Alumni Awards and to register for the inspiring celebration event.
