This I’m a Berkeleyan was written as a first-person narrative compiled from a UC Berkeley News interview with student Daniela Guadalupe Castellanos, who’s graduating this May.
This is my third year at Berkeley, but I’m graduating already. I am from northeast Sacramento, a really small town, Cameron Park, where there’s nothing really there except McDonald’s.
“What they were really touching was each other,” says French Professor Henry Ravenhall. “The book was just a conduit for whatever kind of social desire was needed to be expressed within that group.”
As a specialist in medieval French literature, Henry Ravenhall has examined hundreds of manuscripts from the Middle Ages. Every time he does, he sits quietly in a special library viewing room and gingerly turns each page with clean, dry hands, careful not to tear or otherwise harm these precious artifacts.
Amber Cheng never expected music to be part of her adult life. Growing up in Taiwan, she had enjoyed childhood violin lessons, but when she applied to universities to study architecture, she assumed her instrument would fall by the wayside.
“I thought, OK, maybe my violin career will end here,” says Cheng. In college, she assumed, she “wouldn’t have much time to practice, or opportunities like that.” Then, as a freshman at Cal, she discovered the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, a roughly 100-year-old performance group that’s open to all students, as well as community musicians.
Amber Cheng never expected music to be part of her adult life. Growing up in Taiwan, she had enjoyed childhood violin lessons, but when she applied to universities to study architecture, she assumed her instrument would fall by the wayside.
Leah Binkovitz (History of Art, ‘10), a senior editorial writer at the Houston Chronicle, has been awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing as part of the Chronicle’s editorial board.
This I’m a Berkeleyan was written as a first-person narrative from a UC Berkeley News interview with student Emily Thompson, who’s graduating this May with a major in film and media and a minor in Scandinavian studies.
“I grew up one of five kids in a very conservative, Mormon family in a small town in Utah. My ancestors were all Mormon pioneers going all the way back to the beginning of the church. It was the culture we lived in.
When UC Berkeley junior history major Chloe Zitsow saw that the Center for Jewish Studies (CJS) offered courses in the Yiddish language, she leapt at the opportunity to learn the language her grandparents spoke at home.
“I found the language to be a great way to connect with both my culture and grandparents,” says Zitsow, a Jewish Studies minor from Los Angeles. “When my Bubbie and Zayde found out I could converse with them in Yiddish, they were so thrilled!”
Héctor Muñoz-Guzmán is a first-year MFA student from South Berkeley. Captivated by art at an early age, he strives to represent his immigrant family and community in the world of fine art. UC Berkeley writer Alexander Rony interviewed Muñoz-Guzmán at an open studio event where he displayed his paintings from the past year.
The division is proud to announce that Professor Hannah Ginsborg in the Department of Philosophy, has been awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for 2025. Ginsborg, who has been a member of the Berkeley faculty since 1988, is recognized for her innovative scholarship on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, particularly his theories on judgment and cognition.
The division is proud to announce that Leslie V. Kurke, professor of ancient Greek and Roman studies and comparative literature, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious honor that recognizes exceptional scholars, artists, and leaders across diverse fields.
We are proud to share that two exceptional graduate students from the Division of Arts & Humanities have been named 2025–26 Rome Prize Fellows by the American Academy in Rome, one of the most esteemed honors in the humanities and arts.
UC Berkeley recently welcomed back acclaimed alumnus and professional language creator David J. Peterson, along with his partner and fellow conlanger Dr. Jessie Peterson, for a day of conversation, creativity, and career insight with students in the Division of Arts & Humanities.
David and Jessie—widely recognized as the leading international team of full-time language creators—spent the day meeting with undergraduates and then joined Dean Sara Guyer’s Humanities 20 class, where they spoke about turning a passion for language into a creative career.
“So what are you going to do with that degree?”
The Division of Arts & Humanities has launched an innovative class to equip students to answer that question.
Academy Award-winning producer Steve Starkey is a longtime collaborator with legendary filmmaker Robert Zemeckis. After producing Death Becomes Her (1992), his first film with Zemeckis, Starkey went on to produce and win the Academy Award for Best Picture on the film Forrest Gump (1994).
Doug Freeman still remembers the unease he felt as he was getting ready to graduate with a B. A. in English in 1984. Other students were crossing campus in suits, clearly on their way to interviews, and he didn’t have anything lined up. He took a job at a then-small company called Patagonia, where he worked his way up from answering phones to serving eight years as Chief Operations Officer.
Ari Kenneth Greenburg is President of WME, currently the largest talent agency in the world with over 500 agents and $1 billion in annual revenues.
The Armenian language and literature program at Berkeley will be supported in perpetuity thanks to an effort led by alum Eric Esrailian (B.A. ‘96 Integrative Biology) and his family.
When Dr. Esrailian first came to Berkeley in the early 1990s, it was a large and often impersonal place. Seeing a flyer about the Armenian Students Association helped him find community and feel at home.
Eleni Berg is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores themes of nature, immigration, consumerism, and indigeneity.
Berg spoke with UC Berkeley writer Alexander Rony at a recent open studio event for MFA (master’s in fine arts) students. At the time, Berg was hosting a workshop where visitors were sculpting clay filled with native seeds.
On a sunny Saturday in March, dozens of onlookers watched Jasmine Nyende charge, pull, twist, and duck under ropes held by six other performers. Nearby, portable speakers blared punk rock. Nyende’s performance — titled “Sankofa Moshpit” — was a joyful memorial to her late friend, Láwû. It was also one of the featured events during UC Berkeley’s MFA Open Studios.
In the early 2000s, UC Berkeley rhetoric professor Winnie Wong visited Dafen village in China, where artists painted replicas of famous pieces like the Mona Lisa and Starry Night. It dramatically changed how she thinks about art and those who make it.
When Winnie Wong first saw Dafen Oil Painting Village in 2006, it was nothing like she’d imagined.
