John Christopher Stevens ’82
After studying history at Berkeley, Stevens, like so many graduates, joined the Peace Corps and taught English in Morocco. This experience sparked an enduring affection for the Middle East that led to...
View ArticleMargo Alexander ’68
After pursuing a business degree amid turbulent campus protests in the 1960s, Alexander went on to blaze new paths for women on Wall Street. Throughout her career, she climbed from stock analyst to...
View ArticlePaul Rice M.B.A. ’96
Life is very hard — and not very safe — for most agricultural workers around the world, but Rice is trying to change that. Founder of Fair Trade USA, the leading third-party certifier of fair trade...
View ArticleMaurice Lim Miller ’68, M.A. ’77
After running social service programs for 20 years — and painfully realizing that most of them don’t work — Lim Miller founded the Family Independence Initiative (FII) in Oakland in 2001 to help...
View ArticleJennifer Granholm ’84
Michigan’s first woman governor from 2003–11, Granholm worked tirelessly to salvage the state’s auto and manufacturing industries and add emerging sectors such as clean energy. In a review of her book...
View ArticleMario Savio
In October 1964 — after a student had been arrested for setting up an an unauthorized table on campus — Savio grabbed the public’s attention when he climbed atop a police car to defend free speech at...
View ArticleCarol Liu ’82
From the classroom to the senate chambers, Liu has remained steadfast in her commitment to education. After two decades as a history teacher and school administrator in Richmond, Cali., Liu...
View ArticleKenneth Taylor M.B.A. ’59
In 1979, Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran and took 52 hostages. But six Americans escaped — a story made famous today by Ben Affleck’s award-winning film Argo. Taylor,...
View ArticleEd Roberts ’64, M.A. ’66
Hailed as the father of the independent living movement, Roberts arrived on campus in 1962 with his wheelchair and an 800-pound iron lung he needed for sleeping. A quadriplegic since contracting polio...
View ArticleMimi Silbert M.A. ’65, D.Crim. ’68
Can inmates who’ve spent years behind bars adapt to life outside of them? Silbert’s organization, Delancey Street, has proven the answer is “yes.” Founded in 1971 in San Francisco with $1,000 and a...
View ArticleGregory Peck ’39
Lured into acting while a pre-med student at Berkeley, Peck was so poor as a young actor in New York that he often slept in Central Park. Little did he anticipate that he would become one of the...
View ArticleCarmen Moran Broz
Despite hardships growing up in El Salvador, Broz showed an insatiable hunger for learning that has defined her entire life. She immigrated to San Francisco in 1943, eventually graduated from Berkeley,...
View ArticleMinh Dang ’06
Every April, Dang celebrates what she calls her “Freedom Day” — the anniversary of breaking away from a life of child abuse and sex trafficking. Recognized by the White House as a Champion of Change,...
View ArticleGeorge Takei
Best known for playing Sulu on the original “Star Trek” TV series and the six movies that followed, Takei is unlikely social media royalty. Unofficially dubbed the King of Facebook, he counts 4 million...
View ArticleRitankar Das ’13
Little did Das know as a pre-teen that his makeshift experiments using kitchen gadgets would lead to becoming Berkeley’s University Medalist — the top graduating senior — a few years later. Now 18, Das...
View ArticleKevin Johnson ’97
A natural leader, Johnson moved from calling the shots on the basketball court to being a political playmaker — and found great success in both arenas. K.J. earned two All-Pac-10 Conference player...
View ArticleBarbara Lee M.S.W. ’75
Growing up in Texas, Lee encountered “whites-only” drinking fountains, segregated schools, and denied entry to public places — discriminations that fueled her lifelong dedication to public service....
View ArticleTom Bates ’61
The starting right end for the last Bears team to play in the Rose Bowl (1959), Bates has pursued a lifelong career of visionary, socially responsive public service. A former captain in the U.S. Army,...
View ArticleJohn Pérez
Pérez made history in 2010 when he became Speaker of the California State Assembly, the first openly gay person to hold such a position in the nation. Raised in working-class communities, he learned...
View ArticleAnanya Roy M.C.P ’94, Ph.D. ’99
An unapologetic fan of Bono, Roy is a bit of a rock star herself. A professor of city and regional planning at Berkeley, she is a mighty voice behind connecting students’ passion for service to the...
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