Alumni

Chris Pine (English '02)

Chris Pine is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as James T. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot film series (2009–2016) and Steve Trevor in the DC Extended Universe films Wonder Woman (2017) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).

Pine rose to prominence for his roles in the romantic comedies The Princess Diaries 2 (2004) and Just My Luck (2006). His roles include Cinderella's Prince in Into the Woods (2014); Jack Ryan in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014); Bernie Webber in The Finest Hours (2016); and Robert the Bruce in Outlaw King (2018). He starred in...

Jerry Brown (Classics '61)

Jerry Brown is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of State of California in 1970; Brown later served as mayor of Oakland from 1999 to 2007 and attorney general of California from 2007 to 2011. He was both the oldest and sixth-youngest governor of California due to the 28-year gap between his second and third terms. Upon completing his fourth term in office, Brown became the fourth-longest-serving governor in U.S. history...

James Schamus (English '82)

James Schamus is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director. He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee, the co-founder of the production company Good Machine, and the co-founder and former CEO of motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company Focus Features, a subsidiary of NBC Universal. He is currently president of the New York–based production company Symbolic Exchange, and is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University, where he has taught film history and theory since 1989.

Nicole Yorkin (English '80)

Nicole Yorkin is a television producer and writer known most recently for The Killing, a crime drama television series for which she served as co-producer with her writing partner Dawn Prestwich. Before that, she was an executive producer on the FX series The Riches with Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, a consulting producer on the ABC science fiction drama Flashforward, and a writer and co-executive producer on Showtime's Brotherhood (a 2007 Peabody Award winner) and two seasons of HBO's Carnivale. In 1997, Nicole shared an Emmy Award nomination...

Irene Yoon (English '17)

Irene Yoon is the Executive Director of LARB, where she oversees the day-to-day operations and broader strategic vision and planning for the organization. For the last four years, Irene has also served as Director of the LARB Publishing Workshop. Irene is a writer and teacher who splits her time between Oakland and Los Angeles. She earned her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, where she currently teaches courses on contemporary fiction and visual culture and manages Art of Writing, an interdisciplinary writing program. Her writing has appeared in ...

Vanessa Morrison (Rhetoric '90)

Vanessa Morrison was named President or Streaming at Walt Disney Studios in March 2020. She previously served as President of Fox Family since 2017, after a decade as President of Twentieth Century Fox Animation. Her prior roles include Executive Vice President at Twentieth Century Fox (live action), Senior Vice President of Production, and Vice President of Production.

In her current role, Morrison oversees Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture projects for Disney+, with the ability to leverage stories and characters from across the rich histories of both Disney and 20th Century, as...

Bettina Duval (Rhetoric '82)

Bettina Duval serves as the president of BRDBND, a telecommunications hardware manufacturer. She co-founded Friends of the University of California, a political action committee advocating for the University of California. Additionally, she founded CALIFORNIA WOMEN’S LIST, a political action committee dedicated to electing women in California, contributing to the success of over 62 women in elected offices. Formerly, she presided as the president of the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Monica Board of Governors and continues her service on the board, along with roles...

Chris Silbermann (English '89)

Chris Silbermann is president and founding partner of ICM Partners, one of the largest Hollywood talent and entertainment agencies, representing such stars as Beyonce, Ellen DeGeneres, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, and Spike Lee. Chris Silbermann is president and founding partner of ICM Partners, one of the largest Hollywood talent and entertainment agencies, representing such stars as Beyonce, Ellen DeGeneres, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, and Spike Lee. Silbermann has been at ICM since 2006 when the agency acquired his...

Eric Berridge (English '90)

Eric Berridge is a two-time author, TED speaker, and co-founder and former CEO of Bluewolf, an IBM Company (acquired in 2016), a firm that he built over two decades as the original and preeminent consultancy for Salesforce.

Today, Eric is CEO of Coastal, a top Salesforce consultancy. With 25 years in the Salesforce ecosystem (and building one of the first cloud consultancies in the business), he knows what it takes to succeed and build a thriving business and culture that is always looking toward the future.

Eric’s latest book, Customer Obsessed, redefines...

Matt Richtel (Rhetoric '89)

Matt Richtel is an American writer and journalist for The New York Times. He was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series on distracted driving.

Richtel also writes fiction and has authored several mystery/thrillers, including Dead on Arrival (William Morrow, 2017), called by the New York Times Book Review "An intellectual thrill ride that tucks searing social critique into the Trojan horse of a save-the-world page-turner." He also wrote Doomsday Equation (2015), The Cloud, and Devil's Plaything.

Richtel obtained a bachelor's degree from the...