Author: Dan White
-

Marian Avila-Breach
When Marian Avila-Breach, 25, transferred from a community college to UC Santa Cruz, she thought she knew what was in store for her during the next two years.
-
Zaire Armstrong
Zaire Armstrong, 22, is this year’s winner of the David A. Kadish Humanities Scholarship Award, which recognizes deserving students with a strong interest in the study of humanities.
-

Max Tarlov
Max Tarlov, 21, already had his major in mind when he started out at UC Santa Cruz. But a class called Syntax 1 deepened his engagement with linguistics, while helping him to develop critical thinking skills.
-

Nirupama Chandrasekhar
Nirupama Chandrasekhar, 21, has pursued rigorous and impactful research throughout her undergraduate career, impressing her professors with her independent work and collaborative research projects.
-

Taking care of business
UC Santa Cruz students are helping to keep area businesses afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re part of a program called GetVirtual, which doubles as an online entrepreneurship course and nonprofit consulting firm pairing students with local businesses hoping to transition to online orders and sales.
-

Alumnus leads massive effort to ramp up COVID-19 testing
UC Santa Cruz alumnus Joe DeRisi is one of the leading scientists in the fight against the novel coronavirus, helming a massive effort to ramp up state-of-the-art clinical laboratory testing for COVID-19 throughout California, while pioneering large-scale testing in Bay Area communities.
-

Momentum builds for COVID-19 Slug Support fundraiser
The COVID-19 Slug Support campaign is a runaway success, and its momentum keeps building day by day, with a fundraising total of nearly $150,000.
-

Art Torres: UC Santa Cruz’s fifth alumni regent
Art Torres (Stevenson, ‘68, government), a former California state senator and former chair of the California Democratic Party, was named the fifth UC Santa Cruz alumnus to represent the campus on the Board of Regents.
-

On a mission for masks
Catherine Sonquist Forest is on an urgent mission to crowdsource, manufacture, and deliver cloth masks to those who need them the most in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties during the COVID-19 crisis.
-

Raising funds for students in need
Hundreds of donors have kicked in more than $81,000 to boost the ongoing COVID-19 Slug Support Campaign, which is helping students in dire need because of the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
-

Careers of distinction
The recipients of this year’s UC Santa Cruz Distinguished Graduate Student Alumni awards are leaders in their fields, advocating for the humanities, pioneering sustainable food practices, making breakthroughs in biology and statistics, and nurturing the careers of future composers.
-

Fighting on the front lines of COVID-19
UC Santa Cruz alumnus Jon Mark Hirshon is an emergency doctor in Baltimore, fighting COVID-19 in a large metropolitan area that is just starting to feel the brunt of coronavirus.