Alumni

SEED & SMASH: The Kapors' gift to diversify the next generation of science and tech leaders

June 2, 2021

Freada Kapor Klein '74 and Mitch Kapor"Diversity in STEM enhances discovery and provides a catalyst for social change by enabling an equity of experience. Our ultimate goal is to diversify the next generation of STEM leaders and empower them to achieve their academic and professional aspirations. We aim to change the face of science and technology."

- Chancellor...

Elaine Kim on a reckoning with race many years in the making

June 23, 2021

Elaine Kim, founder of Berkeley Ethnic Studies departmentBefore Elaine Kim came to Berkeley as a Ph.D. student in 1968, she was used to being the only Asian person in the room. Kim, who is Korean American, was born in New York and raised in a predominantly working class white suburb of Washington, D.C., the daughter of a migrant farmworker mother and waiter-turned-diplomat father.

She would go on to be the...

L&S Alumna, ‘Autumn’s Child,’ Gives Back To Sports World & Cal

May 19, 2021

Alumna Akiko Thomson-GueveraAkiko Thomson-Guevera continues to give back to the sports world, years after hanging up her goggles.

An iconic figure in the Philippines and beyond, the Cal women's swimming alumna and three-time Olympian enjoys helping the next generation of athletes achieve its dreams. She is currently the president of the Philippine Olympians Association and...

Meet Alan Huang '21

June 17, 2021
L&S Student Spotlight: Alan Huang '21
Majors: Music (Arts & Humanities Division) and Neurobiology (Biological Sciences Division)

Alan Huang Class of 2021. Photo by Kevina XiaoA natural multitasker, Alan Huang pursued two seemingly disparate majors in the College of Letters & Science: music and neurobiology. He found harmony in...

What Pedro De Anda Plascencia '21 Wants His Fifth-Grade Self to Know

June 3, 2021

Pedro De Anda Plascencia '21 holds English and political science degreesPedro De Anda Plascencia recently graduated with two degrees in English and political science from the College of Letters & Science. He is an Achievement Award Program (TAAP) Scholar in UC Berkeley's Class of 2021. Following is an excerpt from his speech delivered at this spring's TAAP...

In Memoriam: Frank Davis '55, Biochemistry Pioneer

June 2, 2021

Frank Davis '55 passes away at age 100Frank F. Davis ‘55, UC Berkeley alumnus and inventor of a process used in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, died of pneumonia on May 19. He was 100.

Davis was born in 1920 in Pendleton, Oregon, and raised during the Great Depression. During his teenage years, he was often forced to rely...

L&S alumnus, Wally Adeyemo, delivers keynote address at Berkeley's commencement

May 19, 2021

Wally Adeyemo speaks at graduation 2021In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo, the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and UC Berkeley alumnus, delivers the keynote address at Berkeley’s commencement on Saturday, May 15.

“The Berkeley community is made up of people that show up in all the places where decisions and history tend...

A Conversation with Gene Yang '95, L&S Alumnus & Award-Winning Cartoonist

May 5, 2021

On the evening of March 16, 2021, a man opened fire in three Atlanta-area businesses and killed eight people, six of whom were of Asian descent. In response to those tragic shootings, “#StopAsianHate” and “#AsiansAreHumansToo” became all too familiar refrains as thousands across the country protested the rising tide of anti-Asian bias and violence. Gene Luen Yang, a renowned cartoonist, turned to his pen and paper and used the medium of comics to channel his own thoughts and emotions.

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Commencement speaker and L&S alumnus, Wally Adeyemo, followed a remarkable road to leadership

April 15, 2021

On a solemn late-summer afternoon in 2001, just a few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, UC Berkeley student body president Wally Adeyemo stood with campus leaders on the steps of Doe Library and offered consolation and hope to the grief-stricken campus community.

Jenny Kwon, his friend since the early days of their freshman year, was among the 12,000 people on Memorial Glade that day, listening to insights that Adeyemo had drawn from the Bible and from history, and to his eloquent appealthat they should rise above anger and the desire for retribution.

“It was just...

Interview with Michael Quigley '80

Michael Quigley ’80 joined the Charter Hill Society in 2014 and is the Honorary Chair for South Korea. We asked him about his path at Cal and about how the events of 2020 have affected his work at Kim & Chang, one of the world’s top 100 law firms. You graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in economics before receiving a juris doctorate from Pepperdine. How has your Berkeley education served you in your professional path and more broadly?

I arrived at Cal from Orange, California in 1975 as a rough stone. To this day I am certain that my...