Alumni

How a UC Berkeley group project sparked two decades of TV hits

December 19, 2025

For Cal alumni Sanjay Shah and Rachelle Mendez, lessons learned as undergraduate rhetoric majors forged a path to success in Hollywood.

In the late 1990s, Sanjay Shah and Rachelle Mendez were assigned to the same group project in a UC Berkeley rhetoric class. That collaboration would become a blueprint for two decades of friendship and creative partnership that led to parallel paths into the television industry, multiple hit shows, and prestigious awards like the Emmys.

Shah is a writer, showrunner, and executive producer on Everybody Still Hates Chris, an...

For 20 years, this UC Berkeley program has helped students who've been in foster care succeed

December 17, 2025

Tristan Lombard’s first interaction with what was then known as the Cal Independent Scholars Network was to call the Better Business Bureau and report a scam.

It was 2006, and Lombard’s pre-college years had looked different than most of his peers: He’d attended four different high schools, sold drugs, had brushes with law enforcement and experienced periods of homelessness. So, as what he terms a “very bitter 17-year-old,” he saw an invitation to create a wish list for move-in day dorm products and assumed it was a con.

It wasn’t. Rather, it was part of a fledgling program...

UC Berkeley physicist John Clarke accepts Nobel Prize in Sweden

December 12, 2025

This year's Nobel Prize winners were invited to officially accept their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in a special ceremony this week. UC Berkeley faculty John Clarke and Omar Yaghi were among this year's Nobel laureates, in addition to UC Berkeley alumni Michel Devoret and John Martinis. Among other festivities, the weeklong celebration featured lectures delivered by the Nobelists. John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis were presented with the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric...

A Startling Plan To Save Spotted Owls—From Barred Owls

December 5, 2025

This podcast featuring L&S alum and spotted owl expert, Rocky Gutiérrez, was originally published on Science Friday.

Man with glasses wears a handmade knit sweater with a long-whiskered owletThe spotted owl has been a conservation flashpoint for more than 30 years. While habitat loss has...

Anthropology Alumna Constance Chiang Pan establishes endowed Reading Room

November 18, 2025

UC Berkeley’s Anthropology Department recently opened the newly refurbished and endowed Constance Chiang Pan Anthropology Reading Room (CCPARR), made possible by a transformative gift from Anthropology and Economics Alumna Constance Chiang Pan.

The reading room is a vibrant new space for anthropology students and the entire anthropology community on campus, providing a welcoming and comfortable environment for individual and group study, as well as a dedicated place for anthropology student-led initiatives and hosting student groups. ...

Political Economy Alumna Purvi Kunwar encourages students to ‘learn how to learn’

November 13, 2025

Purvi Kunwar credits her interdisciplinary double major with laying the foundation for a dynamic career that has spanned public health, education and biotechnology.

Kunwar graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in political economies of industrial societies (part of the political economy program) and development studies (part of the global studies program). She then received her master’s in public health from UCLA.

From there, she began her career in healthcare, working at Kaiser Permanente and UCSF. She then...

“Action is my coping mechanism”: Wendy Marie Ingram on building community care in academia

November 13, 2025

“Action is my coping mechanism,” says Wendy Marie Ingram, Ph.D. ’15, accepting an award in Japan for her global advocacy in mental health. The UC Berkeley alum and founder of Dragonfly Mental Health has built a movement rooted in both science and lived experience, helping thousands of academics worldwide confront mental illness, prevent loss, and strengthen community care. What began in the wake of tragedy at Berkeley has become a model for institutional compassion: evidence-based training, peer connection, and cultural change that aims to prevent crisis.

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Then / Now / Next: Actor John Cho on finding independence and identity at UC Berkeley

November 6, 2025

Side by side portrait of John Cho with a photo of Cho in 1995 on the left and a photo of Cho in 2025 on the right

I remember being floored by John Cho (BA ‘96, English) in Justin Lin’s 2002 indie thriller Better Luck Tomorrow, which was based on a true story near where I grew up in southern California. The film was groundbreaking, shattering the model minority myth by depicting Asian American teenagers as complex,...

"Put Yourself Out There": Brandon '18 on Finding Your Career and Community at UC Berkeley

October 29, 2025
L&S Alum Spotlight:
Brandon Weiss '18 (he/him) Major: Integrative Biology: Ecology, Evolution & Organismal Biology

"College is just as much about figuring out who you are as a person as it is learning in the classroom," shares Brandon Weiss '18. From discovering a passion for veterinary medicine in the Pre-Vet Club at Berkeley, to meeting and proposing to his fiancé on campus, and now thriving in a meaningful career in emergency and critical care medicine for animals, Brandon has built a life full of joyful community and enduring connections.

Pan Scholars help extend UC Berkeley’s global reach to Taiwan

October 30, 2025

Over the summer, Kelly Ko loved taking the train to her internship in Taipei. The beautiful music that heralded its arrival was a refreshing change from BART’s jarring approach. At work, her managers would frequently take her out to lunch. Ko, who grew up speaking English and Cantonese in the Bay Area, was excited to practice her Mandarin with her coworkers.

Ko was participating in a six-person pilot program for Pan...