Above: Students taking a study break outside the Science & Engineering Library (photo by Carolyn Lagatutta)
Cowell College
’72 Daniel Joshua GOLDSTEIN, an artist known for his large, suspended public sculptures, kinetic art, woodblock prints, and nonprofit work, passed away January 7, 2025, after a long illness at the age of 74 in Portugal. At UC Santa Cruz, he studied art with Michael Mazer and art history with Nan Rosenthal, who was married at the time to sculptor Otto Piene; all three were influential on his artistic growth. After graduate studies at San Francisco State University and St. Martin’s School of Art in London, he continued creating sculptures that moved—a focus on motion and slowly changing forms became the hallmark of his three-dimensional work for the rest of his life.
In the 1980s, Goldstein established a successful printmaking career in San Francisco. During this time, he became HIV positive, losing his long-term partner and countless friends to AIDS. His experiences during this era are chronicled in the 2010 award-winning documentary We Were Here. He later founded organizations that raised millions of dollars for medical and other services.
’83 Bonnie Rose HOUGH received two awards in September:
- 2024 Bernard S. Jefferson Award from the California Judges Association for Distinguished Service in Judicial Education
- Self-Represented Litigation Network award as “A Distinguished Hero in the Access to Justice Movement because her work so well integrates the visionary with the practical, thus making a concrete difference for so many lives.”
’91 Dyane Leshin HARWOOD is a winner of the Metabolic Mind Fresh Start Award. Metabolic Mind, a nonprofit initiative of Baszucki Group, honored 10 recipients with the 2024 Fresh Start Award. Each of the winners demonstrated extraordinary resilience in their journey toward mental health recovery through ketogenic therapy and received $10,000 to support future goals in advocacy, education, and personal or professional development. Ketogenic therapy is a sustained dietary strategy to prevent, reduce, or eliminate symptoms of psychiatric illness. The Metabolic Mind Fresh Start Awards were created to honor individuals who, after experiencing serious setbacks as a result of mental illness, are now in a position to pursue new personal and professional goals.
’99 Jacqueline (ABRAMS) Faber is an author and freelance writer living in Los Angeles with her family. After teaching at NYU and Emory, finishing her dissertation in Berlin, and completing her Ph.D., Faber left academia to become a full-time writer. Her work explores questions about memory, loss, language, and desire. Steeped in philosophical, psychological, and literary themes, her writing is grounded in studies of character. Faber’s just-published debut thriller, The Department, is about a reckless college girl who goes missing, a jaded philosophy professor who goes looking for her, and the terrifying secrets that emerge along the way.
’00 Jordan Alexander STEIN’s book Fantasies of Nina Simone was published by Duke University Press in September. Since her death in 2003, Nina Simone has been the subject of an astonishing number of rereleased, remastered, and remixed albums and compilations as well as biographies, films, viral memes, samples, and soundtracks. In Fantasies of Nina Simone, Stein uses an archive of Simone’s performances, images, and writings to examine the space between our collective and individual fantasies about Simone the performer, civil rights activist, and icon, and her own fantasies about herself. Stein is professor of English and comparative literature at Fordham University and author of When Novels Were Books and Avidly Reads Theory.
Stevenson College
’81 Carol Jameson published Adam and Leonora, a novel telling the story of a surrealist artist and his muses told through multiple voices in multiple time periods—Leonora, an artist and scientist obsessed with the work of surrealist painter Adam Sinclair, in 1990s Santa Cruz; Pauline, Adam’s wife, in 1940s New York City; and Mimi Saucier, Adam’s lover, in 1930s Paris. Adam and Leonora is a transporting work about the power of dreams, the creative process, and the surreal.
’89 David NOTOWITZ’s favorite project from college is Deadheads, a 15-minute documentary about the fans of the Grateful Dead that has gotten 438,000 views on YouTube. Immediately after graduation he moved to Los Angeles, and two weeks later, he was hired by Financial News Network to shoot, edit, and assistant produce a daily news segment. After that he helped to edit the feature film, A Weekend With Barbara Und Ingrid, directed by fellow Banana Slug Greg Neri, and then he edited and mixed sound for the feature documentary The Last Klezmer. Last year he was profiled by Mishpacha magazine.
Crown College
’08 Colin M. FOWLER was promoted to partner at Perkins Coie effective January 1, 2025. Fowler is a member of the Patent Prosecution & Portfolio Counseling practice in Palo Alto. He advises his clients, including entertainment and gaming companies, software development firms, financial services companies, green-tech developers, and early-stage innovative technology companies, on matters concerning artificial intelligence and machine learning; software development tools; digital gaming features; cybersecurity; and blockchain and cryptography, among other areas.
Oakes College
’10 Víctor G. SÁNCHEZ was selected in 2023 to serve as executive director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE). As only the third person—and first person of color—to lead the organization in its 31-year history, Sanchez brings a steadfast commitment to social justice and sophisticated understanding of power building, shaped from his time as a student organizer at UCSC. Through its research and organizing campaigns, LAANE works at the intersections of economic, racial, and environmental justice to build an economy that works for everyone.
Rachel Carson College
’95 William MARX has been acting in movies and films for many years, focusing more on that for the last seven or so. He just finished a short film he wrote, produced, directed, and had a role in that premiered and won an award at the A Place Called Sacramento Film Festival. In 2024 he auditioned for the film Wolfs, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. He did not get the part, but he asks, “How many humanoids can say they auditoned for these two greats in film? I am one lucky man!”
’20 Michael MILLER was chosen by the Knowles Teacher Initiative as a member of its 2024 Cohort of Teaching Fellows, joining 31 promising high school mathematics and science teachers who are just beginning their careers. Miller started his third year teaching at Jefferson High School in Daly City in the 2024–2025 academic year. During his undergraduate program, Miller researched black hole mechanics and modeling. He earned his M.A. in education from Stanford University in 2022. The five-year Knowles Teaching Fellows Program is uniquely designed to meet the needs of early-career biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics teachers dedicated to improving math and science education in the United States.
Graduate Studies
’84 K. M. WATSON (Science Communication Program) had her award-winning short story “Desert Fish” featured in an international anthology of new short stories on the human impacts of climate change. “Best Climate Change Stories” features themes of social realism, dystopia, social justice, post-apocalypticism, humor, and horror.
’11 Jon Michael VARESE (master’s, Ph.D., literature) is a novelist and literary historian whose first novel, The Spirit Photographer (2018), was published to critical acclaim. His new novel, The Company, a gothic thriller set in London in 1870, weaves together a gripping tale filled with devious twists and turns. Varese has also written widely on Victorian literature and culture, and has served in various capacities, most recently as director of outreach for the Dickens Project at UC Santa Cruz for over two decades.
In Memoriam
’79 Mark JOHNSON (Cowell) passed away on December 11, 2024, after a hard-fought battle with T-cell lymphoma. He was a dedicated scientist working until his final days and discovered his passion for chemistry in John McMurry’s lab at UCSC. He then continued his career as an expert in NMR spectroscopy at IBM Instruments, Bruker, and Sequoia Sciences. He lived in Santa Cruz for over 30 years, where he spent his weekends biking to Sand Point in Nisene Marks State Park and coaching his daughter’s softball and basketball teams. He remained an avid recreational athlete into his 70s, regularly biking, skiing, and hiking. He passed in St. Louis, Mo., which he called home for 20 years, surrounded by loved ones including his long-term partner, Sigrid.
’98 Evan Stewart MCCAULEY (Kresge), 49, died November 27, 2024, in Provo, Utah, after a courageous battle with colon cancer. In college and beyond, he was passionate about drums, music, and artistic expressions, from carefully crafted collages to skillful writing and musical arrangements he created as a DJ. While in college, he was the music desk editor for City on a Hill Press. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and utilized his creative spirit for several publications as a graphic designer and writer. He later relocated to Provo to continue his career. Friends said his unwavering love, friendship, and kindness left an indelible mark on anyone who knew him, and his unique sense of humor, original style, creative passion, sharp wit, and zest for life were a positive influence.