Above: Aerial of Baskin Engineering (Photo by Nick Gonzales)
Stevenson College
’78 Leslie KARST’s upcoming murder mystery, Molten Death (April 2, Severn House), is the first in her new series set in tropical Hilo, Hawai’i. A glimpse of a quickly melting corpse at the foot of a volcano has amateur sleuth and food enthusiast Valerie Corbin shocked. But how can she investigate a murder, when there’s no evidence the victim ever existed?
Karst will celebrate the release of the book Thursday, May 9, at 7 p.m. at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Merrill College
’78 Lisa BERNSTEIN, now known as Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein), published her second full-length poetry collection, God in Her Ruffled Dress (What Books Press), in fall 2023 and did six book-launch events to date, in Berkeley; San Francisco; Livermore; Venice, Calif.; and Miami, with participation in the L.A. Festival of Books upcoming April 2024. Her previous poetry collection, The Transparent Body, appeared in Wesleyan University Press’s prestigious new poets series in 1989. Between the two book publications, she released seven albums as a singer-poet, available on all music platforms, and performed extensively in the Bay Area as well as New York. She lives in Oakland.
Crown College
’00 Jared SCHUETTENHELM of Bracewell LLP was one of seven lawyers to be elected partner, effective January 1, 2024. Schuettenhelm was promoted from senior counsel to partner in the firm’s intellectual property litigation practice. Prior to becoming an attorney, Schuettenhelm worked for nearly eight years as a process engineer and scientist in the medical device industry. Best Lawyers has recognized Schuettenhelm as “One to Watch” in intellectual property law, and Managing Intellectual Property has recognized him as a “Rising Star.”
Oakes College
’00 Julie Del CATANCIO was appointed by the Newark, Calif., mayor to serve on the Newark Planning Commission.
John R. Lewis College
’13 Nina Shayan DEPATIE launched her own family law firm in Los Angeles, which is called Shayan Family Law, APC. Depatie was rated a Rising Star by Super Lawyers and was recently named one of the 10 best divorce attorneys in Los Angeles by Forbes.
Graduate Studies
’06 Bahiyyah MAROON (M.A. and Ph.D., anthropology) recently published an acclaimed book of essays, Black Lives, American Love. Maroon returned to UC Santa Cruz as a featured speaker in the Anthropology Colloquium Series and a special guest of the multi-campus research group Abolition Medicine and Disability Justice and The Humanities Institute, a prestigious interdisciplinary hub for contemporary social theory. She also led a limited-seating workshop for doctoral students and faculty called “Writing Beyond the Academy” to discuss how she learned to translate her academic research into meaningful, accessible prose.
’06 Sora Y. HAN (Ph.D., history of consciousness) announces the upcoming publication of her book Mu, 49 Marks of Abolition by Duke University Press in March. Han offers a poetic and radical work of legal theory and criticism that works at the confluence of Korean and Black anticolonial thought and freedom struggles to articulate new visions of freedom. She is a professor of criminology, law and society, comparative literature, and African American studies at UC Irvine, and the author of Letters of the Law: Race and the Fantasy of Colorblindness in American Law.
’17 Cameron PYE (Ph.D. chemistry and biochemistry), CEO and cofounder, and Joshua SCHWOCHERT (Ph.D. ’17, chemistry and biochemistry), cofounder, announced $32 million in Series A funding for their company of Unnatural Products, led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and TechBio-focused ARTIS Ventures.
Unnatural Products, based in Santa Cruz, is a biotech company pairing AI with chemistry to usher in the next generation of molecularly targeted therapeutics. Other new investors include First Spark Ventures, The Venture Collective, Humain Ventures, LongeVC, and Not Boring Capital, alongside participation from existing investors. The funds will be used to advance the development of UNP’s technology platform and expand the company’s focus beyond oncology into new opportunities.
Pye also serves on the UCSC Innovation & Business Engagement Hub’s Advisory Council.
In Memoriam
’69 Wally FARRELLY (Cowell) died July 29, 2023, following a brief illness. Farrelly was director of cultural events in the College of the Arts at California State University, Fullerton, for 35 years. He was dedicated to the arts and to arts education. He is survived by his widow, Lorrie MCCLAIN Farrelly (Stevenson ’69), his children and grandchildren, and his sister, Jill FARRELLY Byrnes (Cowell ’71).
’87 Daniel STEVENSON (Merrill) died December 29, 2023, after being unconscious for 16 days following a serious bus crash on the UCSC campus. He majored in psychology, which served him well as an adult in dealing with people, relationships, and social situations. He held a variety of jobs until he settled into bus driving for the Santa Cruz Metro (1998–2019). From 2021 to December 12, 2023, he drove the campus shuttle buses for UCSC. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
’20 Isaac ZIMMERN (College Nine) was one of four people who died in a plane crash off the shore of Half Moon Bay in January. Zimmern, 27, was with his partner, Emma Willmer-Shiles, also 27 and living in San Francisco, when their single-engine, four-seater Cozy MK IV plane crashed into the ocean.