Students

  • Pursuing social justice

    Pursuing social justice

    Elena Losada received the Jessica Roy Memorial Scholarship in 2022. Learn more about how scholarships support students at UC Santa Cruz.

  • Pursuing cultural anthropology

    Pursuing cultural anthropology

    Gabriel Ephraim Kaplan Wall was awarded the Jeremy Demian Marx Scholarship in 2022. Learn more about how scholarships support students at UC Santa Cruz.

  • Sanya Cowal: Resilience and agency

    Sanya Cowal: Resilience and agency

    Sanya Cowal was awarded the Jessica Roy Memorial Scholarship in 2022. Learn more about how scholarships support students at UC Santa Cruz.

  • McKenna Smith: Pursuing biological sciences

    McKenna Smith: Pursuing biological sciences

    McKenna Smith was awarded the Keeley Coastal Scholars Award in 2022. Learn more about how scholarships support students at UC Santa Cruz.

  • COSMOS program serves as a portal for aspiring astrophysicist’s journey to UC Santa Cruz

    COSMOS program serves as a portal for aspiring astrophysicist’s journey to UC Santa Cruz

    Her high school experience on campus motivated and inspired Julia Stewart (Crown ’24, astronomy) to matriculate to UCSC. Now she is paving the way for the next generation of math and science protégés seeking their own North Star

  • Transforming Futures: Amanda Safi

    Transforming Futures: Amanda Safi

    Transforming Futures— a pilot program launched by UC Santa Cruz’s Institute for Social Transformation—awarded seven first generation, underrepresented, and/or low-income UCSC students scholarships to pursue unpaid internships over the summer. Amanda Safi interned with the Office of Congressman Jimmy Panetta.

  • Frontier Fellows: Peter Nguyen

    Frontier Fellows: Peter Nguyen

    The Earth Futures Institute’s Frontier Fellows program offers undergraduate research opportunities and funding at UC Santa Cruz. UCSC student Peter Nguyen studies a federally listed endangered flowering plant—Lupinus nipomensis.

  • Seeking Okinawan rights

    Seeking Okinawan rights

    UC Santa Cruz doctoral candidate Lex McClellan-Ufugusuku appeared before the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, exploring whether the people of Okinawa could be recognized as Indigenous—meaning they might have the right to block or stop new military bases under guidelines about Indigenous people set up by the U.N.

  • Maxwell Ward

    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…

  • Nicole Rudolph-Vallerga

    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.

  • Sean Lawrence

    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.

  • Teresa Faasolo

    Teresa Faasolo

    Teresa Faasolo decided to study computer engineering because she was good at math and highly interested in computers. The major proved more difficult than she had expected, but with help from the Multicultural Engineering Program, she regained her confidence—and found a family.

Last modified: Mar 18, 2025