Student Success
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Giving basic needs a needed solution
The Redwood Free Market provides free food and basic needs to UC Santa Cruz students to combat food insecurity.
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Full circle community
As an Alumni Association Scholarship recipient now in her fourth year studying computer engineering, Katia Avila Pinedo (Merrill ’24, computer engineering) has not only benefited from UCSC’s strong community—she’s helped build and sustain it.
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Allied for exponential impact
The Black Men’s Alliance, established in 1994 as an organization to create community for Black students at UC Santa Cruz, now boasts a population of 60 engaged and active alumni—and wants to expand further.
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A welcoming place in the redwoods
The Lionel Cantú Queer Resource Center is a place for students to claim and proclaim their voices.
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CIDER Pilot Training Program helps students reach new heights in drone research and industry
18 students participated in the CIDER’s first-ever Pilot Training Program, which prepared them for success in research and industry opportunities.
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Benny Mosqueira
Benny Mosqueira felt driven to make something of himself, and he arrived on campus intending to become a medical doctor. Instead, the first-generation college student was captivated by the research opportunities he found at UC Santa Cruz and decided to pursue biomedical research as a career.
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Brittany Caldwell
Brittany Caldwell, a scholar focused on the impact of early-grade math instruction, has pulled off an impressive feat: earning her Ph.D. in math education and teaching hundreds of students in seminars, all while raising three children.
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Candy Martinez
The daughter of Oaxacan migrants, Candy Martinez has found a meaningful way to reconnect with her roots, investigating the ways in which Indigenous communities process and heal grief and trauma.
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Chailen August
Chailen August’s time at UC Santa Cruz put him on a path he never expected. Not only did he embark on a study of drill rap and its interpretation in Ghana, Africa, but, as part of a study-abroad program, he also had a visceral experience of what his enslaved ancestors may have endured.
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Maxwell Ward
Maxwell Ward always wanted to be an archeologist, following tales of adventure like the search for the tomb of Genghis Khan. But he realizes now that treasure hunting is the smallest part of being an archaeologist. The biggest part today is ethics, and helping make the discipline accessible to native people who have been historically…
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Nicole Rudolph-Vallerga
Being half Latinx and half white, Nicole Rudolph-Vallerga always felt like she didn’t quite fit into either group. So she created her own community with her fall senior art show.
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Sean Lawrence
With his work studying the relationship between Germany’s Deutsche Bank and the Ottoman Empire, Sean Lawrence shows that many things we think of as unique to our modern capitalistic world really have roots dating back much further.