2018 Honorees

The Division of Graduate Studies and the five academic divisions—Arts, Engineering, Humanities, Physical and Biological Sciences, and Social Sciences—honored the recipients of the 2018 Distinguished Graduate Student Alumni Award on Friday, April 27, of Alumni Weekend 2018 at the Stevenson Event Center at an award luncheon, the 2nd annual. Read UCSC News about the honorees here. Watch a video of the award luncheon here.

Naomi J. Andrews experienced an in-depth preparation for her position as associate professor of history at Santa Clara University while studying for her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in history at UCSC. Her Ph.D. adviser and co-researcher on French history, Professor Jonathan Beecher, remembers her brilliant paper as an undergraduate freshman in his course on Russian history. In his introduction of Andrews at the award ceremony, Beecher read his written evaluation (in the UCSC era before letter grades!) of Andrews for her work in that class. While taking that class, Andrews related, she became certain the study and teaching of history would become her career.

Diane Bridgeman has maintained a clinical psychology practice in Santa Cruz for over 25 years. She is a volunteer manager and instructor with the American Red Cross, for which she has received the Professional Hero Award and the Sisters in Service Award. Bridgeman has also held committee chairs with both the California Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association. She has published articles and gives talks on work-life balance and cultivating resilience, among other topics; is a past president of the Monterey Bay Psychological Association, currently chairing several of its committees; and co-chairs the California Disaster Mental Health Coalition. Behind her professional and volunteer work lies a lifelong commitment to social equity.

Randal Burns studied for his Ph.D. under Professor Darrell Long. His research focused on delta compression and storage system performance. After receiving his terminal degree, he has worked in academia, private industry, and government labs on data systems in the fields of physics, fluids, and neuroscience. His current research focuses on management, performance, and security for large data sets for science applications. At the time of the award luncheon, Burns is concentrating on building scalable systems that support neuroscience imaging analysis and annotation to reverse engineer the neurophysiology of mammalian brains.

Rachel Nelson was among the first cohort of doctoral students in visual studies and its first class of graduates. Besides her position in the IAS, she also teaches classes in the History of Art and Visual Culture at UCSC. Recent exhibits she has managed at the IAS include the Crochet Coral Reef Project. She is currently at work creating an exhibition on the prison industrial complex to tour nationally in 2019. The exhibition will draw upon work by UCSC humanities professor emerita Angela Davis to abolish prisons and research by UCSC psychology professor Craig Haney on the psychological effects of incarceration and solitary confinement.

Thomas R. Webb leads a laboratory focused on small-molecule drug discovery for cancer and influenza in the Center for Chemical Biology at SRI Biosciences. An anti-tumor drug developed in his lab enters clinical trials in 2019. Prior to joining SRI Biosciences, Webb worked on cancer therapeutics in the Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. At St. Jude’s, he held a senior faculty position and directed the high-throughput chemistry center. In addition to his position at SRI Biosciences, Dr. Webb is an adjunct faculty member in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department in the Physical and Biological Sciences Division at UCSC.

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