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Two recent gifts in memory of beloved faculty members have ensured that their legacy will live on, supporting graduate students in the fields to which they dedicated their life’s work.

Ron Stroud, a leading expert in the study of Greek epigraphy, taught in the Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies from 1965 until 2007. He helped found the Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology (AHMA) in 1968 and was instrumental in building AHMA into the premier program of its kind in the nation.

The protagonist of Susanna Hoffs' debut novel, Jane Start, probably listens to Dionne Warwick to hype herself up in the morning. Start is 33 and living with her parents – her days of pop stardom, for one song, are 10 years behind her. But in This Bird Has Flown, a romantic spark reignites a second chance for her creative endeavors, too. Hoffs tells NPR's Andrew Limbong how her own experiences as a rockstar influenced the story, which she's adapting into a feature film.

A few years ago, when Heesoo Kwon was visiting South Korea during a summer break from her MFA program at Berkeley, she found old home videos of her family. Watching the decades-old interactions among her family members and the Catholic rituals they practiced fascinated her. But in one video, her mother stood by the table while others ate, waiting to serve them. It made Kwon angry. 

Ed Roberts (B.A. '64, M.A. '66) is known as the father of the disability rights movement. “But if he’s the father, Zona is the grandmother. She’s the wheel behind his wheelchair,” says Donna Mitroff, founder of the Kidvocate Group media consultancy, who is filming a documentary about Zona’s life.

Read more about Zona Roberts (B.A. English '69) and her tireless advocacy for Ed Roberts and his legacy.

Pulitzer-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen '92, Ph.D. '97 found at UC Berkeley the intellectual home, identity, and political passion that ultimately led to his creative success.

Before she was a chef and an internationally-known cookbook author, Samin Nosrat (B.A. '01) was an English major at Berkeley. She talks about the writing process—and why a day of writing is so hard—in this Freakonomics Radio interview. 

Meg Parker graduated from UC Berkeley in 2010 with a double major in French and Rhetoric, then went on to earn her JD from Georgetown University Law Center.

"It's hard to look at Egyptian art and not want to know more, and as I got older, I had this curiosity about how did we get to where we are today?" says Renée Dreyfus. "I always wanted to know that history of ideas."

Dreyfus, who completed a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies in 2001, is Curator of Antiquities at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the de Young and the Legion of Honor.

Liza Wachter (English '81) is president, partner, and director of film and television for Spiegel and Grau, an independent publishing house launched in 2020. Previously, Ms. Wachter co-founded RWSG, a premier book-to-film agency that specialized in the representation of dramatic rights. Ms. Wachter currently serves on the Advisory Board for the College of Letters and Science as well as the boards of The Paris Review and the Human Rights Watch California Committee.

"What if the centre of history were occupied by what women thought about?"

Selby Wynn Schwartz, author of After Sappho, talks about the influence of Virginia Woolf, writing in the first-person plural and reading ravenously. Schwartz received her Ph.D. in comparative literature at UC Berkeley in 2003.

William Rogers (Rhetoric '91), CEO of Goodwill San Francisco Bay, was honored with the 2022 Peter E. Haas Public Service Award for his extraordinary seventeen-year career serving the public good. His work for the City of Berkeley’s  departments of public health and parks and recreation has deepened and enhanced resources for Berkeley’s elders, for at-risk youth, for those struggling with HIV and economic hardship, and for those who simply want to enjoy the city’s public spaces. Learn more about Rogers’s story by watching the video below, prepared by Berkeley’s Light the Way.