This is a list of notable alumni and faculty of the University of California, Riverside.
Notable alumni
Nobel laureates
Academia, science, and technology
Arts, film, and literature
- Mark Andrus â Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, As Good as It Gets
- Earl W. Bascom â inventor, actor, rodeo cowboy, Hall of Fame inductee, international artist and sculptor
- Frank Bidart â Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
- â Tunisian composer and engineer, winner of the 2015 César Award for Best Music for the movie Timbuktu
- Steve Breen â 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist
- Joanna Cameron â actress and model The Secrets of Isis
- Jamie Chung â actress, TV series ' and films, such as I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Sorority Row, Grown Ups, The Hangover II
- Billy Collins â eleventh United States Poet Laureate
- Katherine Fugate â screenwriter Valentine's Day and creator of Army Wives TV series
- Elizabeth George â mystery writer
- Barbara Hambly â novelist and screenwriter
- Howard V. Hendrix â science fiction novelist of Better Angels and The Labyrinth Key
- Ryan Holiday â author of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator; director of marketing for American Apparel
- Jordan Howlett â social media personality, known online as "Jordan the Stallion"
- Lisa Kekaula â lead singer for The Bellrays
- Patricia Ja Lee â actress known for role as Cassie Chan as the Pink Ranger in the television series ' and Power Rangers in Space
- Nakul Dev Mahajan â choreographer
- Daryl F. Mallett â author, editor, publisher
- Fatima Farheen Mirza â novelist, A Place for Us
- Steve Nguyen â film director, producer
- Ruben Quesada â poet
- Lindsay Ridgeway â actress, Boy Meets World
- Philip Michael Thomas â actor, Miami Vice
- Charlyne Yi â actress, comedian, and performance artist (Knocked Up)
Athletics
Business
Politics and law
- Ruben Barrales â deputy assistant to President Bush and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in the White House, former San Mateo County supervisor
- Sabrina Cervantes â current California state assemblywoman for the 60th District
- Paul Cook â former U.S. member of Congress for the CA-08 district, current supervisor for San Bernardino County
- David S. Cunningham, Jr. â Los Angeles City Council member, 1973âÂÂ87
- Patricia Lock Dawson â mayor of Riverside, 2020âÂÂpresent
- Julie Furuta-Toy â current U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea
- Eduardo Garcia â current California state assemblyman for the 56th District
- Sherilyn Peace Garnett â United States district judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California (2022âÂÂpresent)
- Michael Huerta â former administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration
- Jerold Krieger â judge for the Los Angeles Superior Court (1988âÂÂ2002)
- Lloyd Levine â former California state assemblyman for the 40th District
- Jose Medina â current California state assemblyman for the 61st District
- Holly J. Mitchell â current California state senator for the 30th and 26th (2013âÂÂ2014) districts, former California state assemblymember to the 54th and 47th (2010âÂÂ2012) districts
- Ronald Neumann â former U.S. ambassador to Algeria
- Rod Pacheco â former Riverside County district attorney, California Assembly member
- Virginia A. Phillips â senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California
- Anthony Rendon â speaker of the California State Assembly (2016âÂÂ2023)
- Gloria Romero â former State Senate majority whip, former California Assembly member, 49th District
- Stefanie Schaeffer â defense attorney, 2006 winner of The Apprentice
- Marc Steinorth â current California state assemblyman for the 40th District
- Mark Takano â current U.S. representative for the 41st District
Other
Notable faculty
- Chris Abani â professor of creative writing and recipient of the Pen Center Freedom to Write Award, Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- Reza Aslan â Professor of Creative Writing, writer, producer, critic, religion scholar, television celebrity James Joyce Award
- John Baez â professor of mathematics, mathematical physicist
- Alexander A. Balandin â professor of electrical engineering
- Lindon W. Barrett â professor and cultural theorist
- Bir Bhanu â Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering, director of the Center for Research in Intelligent Systems
- Alfred M. Boyce â first dean of the College of Agriculture
- Patricia Cardoso â filmmaker, professor of Film
- Christopher Chase-Dunn â sociologist, contributor to world-systems theory
- Sean Cutler â plant scientist noted for discovery of pyrabactin
- Mike Davis â emeritus professor, urban theorist and author MacArthur Fellow in 1998; won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
- James H. Dieterich â Distinguished Professor of Geophysics, member of the National Academy of Sciences
- Kim Yi Dionne â political scientist
- Josh Emmons â novelist
- Steve Erickson â Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, author, essayist, critic Lannan Literary Award Guggenheim
- John Martin Fischer â professor of philosophy, vice president of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, primary proponent of semi-compatibilism
- Katie Ford â poet
- Theodore Garland, Jr. â a founder of the field of evolutionary physiology
- Gail Hanson â Distinguished Professor of Physics
- Allison Adelle Hedge Coke â Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, poet, writer, editor, China's First Jade Nurtured SiHui Female International Poetry Award, Witter Bynner Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholar, American Book Award
- Juan Felipe Herrera â emeritus professor, poet, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair, National Book Critics Circle Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, PEN USA Poetry Award, American Book Award, California State Poet Laureate, United States Poet Laureate
- Ivan Hinderaker â former chancellor
- Nalo Hopkinson â professor of Creative Writing, science fiction and fantasy writer Andre Norton Award and British Fantasy Award
- Theodore L. Hullar â former chancellor
- Laila Lalami â professor, Pulitzer Prize finalist
- Perry Link â Chancellorial Chair, professor of China Studies
- Ronald O. Loveridge â mayor of Riverside, California
- Tom Lutz â Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, author, literary critic, founder and editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books
- Robert Nisbet â conservative sociologist and early Dean of Letters and Science at UCR
- John W. Olmsted â first chairman of the Humanities division
- Raymond L. Orbach â former chancellor and first Under Secretary of Energy for Science
- Robert Rosenthal â professor of psychology, former chair of Harvard's psychology department
- Irwin Sherman â professor of biology, specializing in malariology
- George Edgar Slusser â professor of comparative literature, science fiction expert
- Jane Smiley â Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, writer, Pulitzer Prize winning author
- Andrea Smith â associate professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Nobel Peace Prize nominee
- Harry Scott Smith â entomologist
- Susan Straight â Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, writer, National Book Award finalist Lannan Literary Award
- Karl Taube â professor of anthropology, specializing in research into pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures
- Bob Toledo â former UCR football coach, 13th head coach of UCLA
- John V. Tunney â professor of business law, former United States Senator and member of Congress
- Jonathan H. Turner â sociologist, one of the last remaining grand theorists in the discipline, author of Structure of Sociological Theory and Emergence of Sociological Theory
- Seymour Van Gundy â former dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences
- Georgia Warnke â Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the director of the Center for Ideas and Society
Administrators
The following persons served as chancellor or provost of the University of California, Riverside:
List of provosts (1949âÂÂ1958)
Table notes:
List of chancellors (1958âÂÂpresent)
Table notes:
References