Alumni
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Maria Rocha-Ruiz named UC Santa Cruz’s Sea Dubs Wavemaker
Maria Rocha-Ruiz has been named UC Santa Cruz’s Sea Dubs Wavemaker, honoring her leadership expanding educational opportunity and mentoring generations of students across the Central Coast.
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Engineered imagination
UC Santa Cruz alumna Lisa Winter (Porter ’09, art) brings an artist’s eye to the arena of combat robotics—evolving from childhood Robot Wars competitor to BattleBots judge and robotics entrepreneur.
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Alumni-founded biotech firm enters partnership to advance treatment for undruggable targets
Unnatural Products, a biotech company founded by UC Santa Cruz alumni Cameron Pye (Ph.D. ’17, chemistry & biochemistry) and Joshua Schwochert (Ph.D. ’17, chemistry & biochemistry), opens up treatment possibilities for diseases once thought to be undruggable.
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The creation of the Cigarette Surfboard
Alumnus Ben Judkins’s (Kresge ’17, film and digital media) award-winning documentary follows the creation of the Cigarette Surfboard: A surfboard created by friend Taylor Lane from 10,000+ cigarette butts collected off beaches. Judkins’s documentary has helped influence legislation in Santa Cruz County, and will be screened at UC Santa Cruz on March 8.
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‘Petri Dish 2.0’: A new startup is bringing automation to biology’s most tedious tasks
Open Culture Science, a revolutionary new startup out of the UC Genomics Institute’s Braingeneers group, aims to accelerate the pace of biological research with their patented technology.
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Slugs in Love 2026: Celebrating love stories from UCSC alumni
UC Santa Cruz alumni share their stories of how they found one another among the redwoods.
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Humanities graduates apply human-centered thinking in impactful careers
Across disciplines, they point to critical thinking, ethical reasoning, adaptability, and empathy as core strengths developed through humanities coursework.
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From founding faculty to future generations
Celebrating Jim Pepper’s 50-year legacy of teaching, mentorship, and environmental leadership
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Two UC Santa Cruz alumnae make their Off-Broadway debut
Rosie Glen-Lambert (Porter ’14, theater arts) and Hailey McAfee (Rachel Carson ’13, theater arts) make their Off-Broadway debut at Soho Playhouse from January 14 to February 13. The limited Off-Broadway engagement follows a sold-out run at the Hollywood Fringe Festival where the duo’s production received multiple honors.
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American Astronomical Society honors four UC Santa Cruz affiliates
At this week’s national gathering, astronomy and astrophysics professors Bryan Gaensler, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, and Connie Rockosi were honored for outstanding contributions to the field, as was alumna Kathryn Johnston
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Alumna Tonje Switzer receives Green Heart Award for CZU complex fire and Santa Cruz storm recovery efforts
Santa Cruz Long Term Recovery Group Executive Director Tonje Switzer (Oakes ’16, sociology) was awarded the Mountain Affair’s Green Heart Award in October.
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Leading marine conservation across the Pacific
Alumna Stacy Jupiter (Ph.D. ’06, ecology and evolutionary biology) is the Executive Director of Marine Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society.