Commencement

The 21-year-old from Kerala, India, is graduating with a double major in physics and mathematics, she speaks four languages, she has won numerous awards, and—oh, yes, she’s a published author of science-fiction novels.

Nhial, a 2020 UC Santa Cruz graduate who was born in San Diego County, knew her family’s saga but wanted to explore more deeply the stories of women in the deadly conflicts that had wracked South Sudan rather than the men that history usually centered on.

Nitin Vidyasagar is looking forward to graduation and a new position in a cell biology lab. Over the next two years, he will assist UC Berkeley Assistant Professor Samantha Lewis in exploring mechanisms cells use to maintain mitochondrial DNA.

When he was a child in Peru, Diego Alonzo Martinez Mori’s mother would sometimes bring him to the medical office where she was a secretary. Seeing the doctors in their white coats helping people, it looked like something he’d like to do when he grew up. Now on the verge of his graduation from UC…