Technology
Alumna and Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei and civil-rights activist Dolores Huerta named in Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2026
Daniela Amodei graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2009 with a B.A. in literature and a minor in politics. In 2022, UCSC’s Research Center for the Americas was renamed in honor of social justice icon Dolores Huerta; the university continues to collaborate with the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
Daniela Amodei graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2009. Dolores Huerta is a longtime supporter of UC Santa Cruz and continues to collaborate with the university through the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
Anthropic—the company behind AI chatbot Claude—is at the forefront of global AI advancements. The AI behemoth and premier rival of ChatGPT was founded by UC Santa Cruz alumna Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president, alongside her brother, Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO. The sibling duo are at the center of conversations surrounding AI guardrails, usage, and safety, and have been named in Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2026.
Daniela graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2009 with a Humanities degree in literature and a minor in politics. In a February interview with ABC News, Daniela emphasized the importance of the humanities, especially during the rise of AI.
“I ultimately believe in a world where AI is very smart and capable of doing so many things, the things that make us human will become much more important,” Daniela responded when asked if she would still have pursued a literature degree knowing about AI.
“I actually think studying the humanities is going to be more important than ever,” she added. “A lot of these models are actually very good at STEM, but I think this idea that there are things that make us uniquely human, understanding ourselves, understanding history, understanding what makes us tick, I think that will always be really important, and I think the ability to have critical thinking skills and learning how to interact with other people will be more important in the future than less.”
In addition to Daniela Amodei, Dolores Huerta has been named in Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2026.
Dolores Huerta has spent more than 60 years leading community organizing and lobbying efforts to address issues like labor rights, gender discrimination, voter registration, education reform, LGBTQ rights, and economic inequality on behalf of farm workers, immigrants, women, youth, and others in California and the United States.
In 2022, UC Santa Cruz renamed the Research Center of the Americas in honor of Dolores Huerta, and has continued to collaborate with the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
The Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas (Huerta Center) is the first in the University of California system to advance a broad program of interdisciplinary research that brings together Chicanx/Latinx and Latin American studies, including over 90 faculty and hundreds of students at UC Santa Cruz. The Huerta Center has hosted scholars from Latin America, collaborated with Mexican institutions and individual scholars across the Americas, and is a member of Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (Latin American Council of Social Sciences).
“With the students coming to the center, and with papers that will be published here, I know that we will be able to change history, make history, and make the world a better place,” Huerta said at the Center’s renaming ceremony and 30th anniversary in 2022.