Above: Students hanging out on Science Hill (photo by Elena Zhukova)
Cowell College
’77 Bill CASS’s second short story collection, Uncommon & Other Stories, was recently released by Wising Up Press. After graduating as a literature/creative writing major, Cass has gone on to publish over 300 short stories in a wide variety of literary magazines and anthologies. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net nominations, has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and has won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal.
’88 Greg NERI is the author of 16 books for young people and co-chair of the Antarctic Artists and Writers Collective. He was recently awarded an honorary doctorate in fine arts from SUNY for his literary output and polar science outreach.
Stevenson College
’84 Shari (ANDERSON) Allison retired from the Office of the Federal Public Defender, District of New Mexico, on April 30, 2023, after more than 26 years as a research and writing specialist in the Las Cruces office.
’84 Diane (KERN) Hamilton wrote about her experience with the Friendship Quilt project, which she said “started as a bit of whimsy just before embarking on my second trip to Shenzhen. It got way out of hand and eventually wound up as a huge quilt project that has captured the thoughts and dreams of over 550 makers from around the world and touched the lives of many more.” It was an amazing adventure for her, she said, “and may help inspire others to ‘have a go’ at their dreams.”
Merrill College
’91 Ethan SCHEINER’s book, Freedom to Win: A Cold War Story of the Courageous Hockey Team That Fought the Soviets for the Soul of Its People—and Olympic Gold, came out in print on July 4. Scheiner is a professor in the Department of Political Science at UC Davis.
Crown College
’05 Bridgitte RODGUEZ has written an upcoming picture book, illustrated by Natalia Bruno, A Walk Through the Redwoods.
’14 Katie PELON authored and illustrated her debut novel in 2023, The Case of the Abandoned Sea Otters, a chapter book for readers ages 6–8. The Case of the Abandoned Sea Otters is the first in a series of environmental mystery chapter books for children, and this case is focused on solving the enigma of sea otter pups being abandoned by their mothers in a fictionalized version of the town of Monterey. Backed by the marine mammal science Katie first learned in her time studying ecology and evolution at UCSC, her work aims to create engaging, educational experiences that inspire young readers to care about the impact we have on the ocean and what we can do to keep it healthy.
Kresge College
’02 Emma NADLER is the author of the debut memoir, The Unlikely Village of Eden, a funny and hopeful memoir about learning to adapt when life doesn’t go to plan, redefining family, and creating your own path. “The memoir tells the story of the giving, gracious people I was lucky enough to meet through my daughter Eden, who has multiple disabilities including significant developmental delay related to a rare genetic deletion, and how the community became family,” she wrote. Nadler notes that there are several shout-outs to UCSC in the book.
Porter College
’78 Lori GUSTAVSON retired from criminal defense trial law and is living on Vashon Island, Wash., just across the Sound from Seattle. Rock on College V!
’93 Eric STRAND, associate professor of English at Sophia University in Tokyo, has published a new book, The Global Frontier: Postwar Travel in American Literature.
’05 Tresha Faye HAEFNER’s debut collection of poems, When the Moon Had Antlers, was released in April.
Rachel Carson College
’92 John MALKIN’s third book, titled Punk Revolution! An Oral History of Punk Rock Politics & Activism, was published. It includes 250 interviews with band members from Dead Kennedys, Crass, Subhumans, X, Minor Threat, Bad Religion, MDC, Gang of Four, Sex Pistols, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth, The Slits, Talking Heads, The Ramones, and many more. Malkin lives in Santa Cruz and has continued to be involved in activism and music. He has hosted a local radio program for almost 30 years. Currently “Transformation Highway” airs on KZSC on Thursdays at noon.
College Nine
’18 Sarah Ghazal ALI’s debut poetry collection, Theophanies, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in January 2024—it was selected as the Editors’ Choice for the 2022 Alice James Award. A Djanikian Scholar, Stadler Fellow, and winner of the 2022 Sewanee Review Poetry Prize, Ali’s poems and essays appear in POETRY, American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor for West Branch and lives in the Bay Area.
Graduate Studies
’00 Maylei BLACKWELL (Ph.D., history of consciousness) published Scales of Resistance: Indigenous Women’s Transborder Activism. Blackwell is professor of Chicana/o and Central American studies at UCLA, author of ¡Chicana Power!: Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement, and co-editor of Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era. Her book tells the story of how Indigenous women’s activism in Mexico and California moves in and between local, national, continental, and transborder scales.
’13 Surya PAREKH (Ph.D., history of consciousness) announces the upcoming publication of Black Enlightenment. Examining the work of Black Enlightenment authors, the book reimagines the Enlightenment from the position of the Black subject. Parekh is currently assistant professor of English, general literature, and rhetoric at Binghamton University and co-editor of Living Translation.
’17 Chandranil CHAKRABORTTII (M.S. ’17; Ph.D. ’21, computer science), assistant professor of computer science at Trinity College, received a faculty research grant from the NASA Connecticut Space Grant Consortium, some of which will support an undergraduate research assistant to use machine learning on large, publicly available NASA datasets.
In Memoriam
’71 Michael KAGAN (Crown, psychology) died peacefully of lung cancer at his home in Tacoma, Wash., on October 18, 2022. At UCSC, Kagan spent a great deal of time with the legendary pioneer of “French-intensive, raised-bed biodynamic farming,” Alan Chadwick, who helped mentor Kagan in his techniques. Kagan taught at the Peninsula School in Menlo Park, moved to Kentucky to pursue farming, then moved to Tacoma, Wash., and started a family and married wife Julana. In Tacoma, he switched gears and took up rental property ownership and residential real estate. The couple later spent time in Almonte, Spain, with their daughter and family.
’75 Karin ROSENBLATT (Crown, biology), 67, passed away on September 17, 2021, at home in Champaign, Ill. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, from 1987–89 and remained there as a clinical assistant professor until 1991. She joined the faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1991, and was promoted to associate professor in 1997. Her extensive research career focused on environmental causes of gynecologic cancer and led to multiple publications and national presentations. She especially enjoyed teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
’77 Dr. Gary HEIT (Oakes, psychobiology) passed away February 14. His last days were spent at his beloved Mindego Hill in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Heit received his M.D. at Stanford University in 1992 and, following a seven-year residency program, joined the Stanford neurosurgical faculty. His contributions furthered the field of deep-brain and spinal-cord stimulation, improving the lives of those with movement disorders and pain syndromes. He built and directed the functional neurosurgical programs at Stanford and Kaiser Redwood City hospitals, and he cofounded a nonprofit promoting advanced neurosurgical care in developing countries. Complications from cancer forced Heit to retire from surgery. He passed away shortly after entering hospice.
’06 Naomi SEIBERT (Porter, chemistry) passed away in her sleep, unexpectedly, on February 26 in Boston. In college she chose chemistry as her field, followed by postgrad study at Johns Hopkins School of Engineering in Material Science, and spent her career working in biotech. She was happiest in a lab assisting in the development of new products.
’12 Riven (née Rosalie) Mealy STEVENSON (Merrill, computer science) passed away on May 29, 2023. A graduate of the Baskin School of Engineering, Stevenson worked as a software engineer at Adobe and Everlaw, among others. Stevenson lived in Oakland for many years and had recently moved back to San Francisco.