David Haussler

Faculty

In 2000, David Haussler, distinguished professor of biomolecular engineering and scientific director of the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, and Jim Kent (Ph.D. ‘02, molecular, cell, and developmental biology) defied the odds by being the first to sequence and published the human genome—an ambitious project devised publically 15 years prior. This historic achievement makes for a true underdog story with two researchers from UC Santa Cruz successfully sequencing the human genome in a matter of just three days before the private firm Celera Genomics, who had much more funding and advanced tools in their favor, completed their assembly of the genome. Notably, UCSC published the human genome online, creating an open source tool that has fueled research and advances in human health over the decades.

Haussler’s early research in machine learning helped found the field of computational learning theory, and his later work helped revolutionize the field of genomics with the introduction of advanced statistical and algorithmic methods. His genomics contributions has accelerated the understanding of cancer, human development, evolution, neuroscience and many other areas of the life sciences.

Kate Ringland

Faculty

Kate Ringland became an assistant professor of computational media in 2021 after working as a postdoctoral researcher in Professor of Computational Media Sri Kurniawan’s Assistive Sociotechnical Solutions for Individuals with Special Needs using Technology (ASSIST) Lab. Her research centers around the idea of using a critical disability lens to illuminate how marginalized communities leverage social media and games for socialization and support. Ringland recently received the Sung-Mo Steve Kang DEI Award, which supports faculty dedicated to the success of Baskin Engineering students and the development of socially responsible technology.

Liam Asayag

Student

Until he witnessed the war zone in Ukraine, robotics engineering undergraduate student Liam Asayag had never thought of making a drone. Inspired to help, he made a low-cost prototype in Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Steve McGuire’s robotics lab for use by aid groups on the front lines. His design is a reconnaissance drone that takes video footage of newly bombed areas allowing search-and-rescue workers to see in advance if the area is safe to access and what routes should be used in the aftermath.

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Steve Kang

Professor Emeritus

As the first in his family to graduate college and in taking on positions as the second dean of the Baskin School of Engineering and chancellor of UC Merced, Sung-Mo “Steve” Kang has always been someone ready and willing to take on challenges. Over the years, Kang has proved himself to be both an excellent scholar and administrator. He is renowned in the field of electrical engineering for his role in the research and development of modern microprocessors, holds 16 patents, has published more than 500 journal and conference papers, has co-authored ten books, and has mentored more than 60 Ph.D. students in his Nanoelectronic Integrated Systems Laboratory lab. ​

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Karen Miga

Faculty

Karen Miga co-led the international team of scientists, called the Telomere-to-Telomere consortium, to fully sequence a human genome. This landmark scientific feat revealed the unsequenced 10 percent of human genomic material and allows for new understandings in human health, evolution, and diversity. She is currently leading the new Human Pangenome Reference Sequence Project, an effort to produce a comprehensive reference genome that reflects the diversity of the human species. Through her work, she strives to make biomedical research more accessible to scientists worldwide and the people who benefit from that work.

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Roshawnna Novellus

Alumna, Entrepreneur

Roshawnna Novellus—Baskin Engineering computer engineering undergraduate alumna, entrepreneur, and nationally recognized financial inclusion advocate—has built a legacy around uplifting diverse communities and advocating for equal business opportunities for women and people of color. She is the founder and CEO of EnrichHER, a financial technology platform that connects revenue-generating companies founded by women and people of color to funding sources. Novellus also provides mentorship, especially to women founders who have historically faced bias, to help grow and sustain their businesses.

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Daniel Kim

Faculty

A leading researcher in the early detection of cancer, Daniel Kim is an assistant professor of biomolecular engineering, an associate member of the Canary Center at Stanford for Cancer Early Detection, and a research scholar of the American Cancer Society. His lab researches RNA liquid biopsies for the early detection of cancer and other diseases. Recently, his lab discovered a previously unknown RNA biomarker, which provides a promising step in the development of new tests for cancer early detection. Kim’s noncoding RNA research has been recognized through awards from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences.

Alexandra Holloway

Alumna

Coming from a family of engineers, thrice computer science alumna Alexandra Holloway’s knack for problem solving and interest in technology started at a young age. During her graduate program at Baskin Engineering, she joined the Mars Rover team as a software engineer. Soon after, she landed her dream job leading the Flight Software team with the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission.

David Deamer and Mark Akeson

Faculty

Biomolecular Engineering Emeriti Professors David Deamer and Mark Akeson revolutionized DNA sequencing with their nanopore sequencing technology, first developed over 25 years ago and licensed to Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Thanks to their pioneering work to develop this fast, portable, and affordable sequencing tool, researchers around the world have been able to make some of the most significant genomics advances of our time, including the completion of a gapless human genome.

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Mike Hilton

Alumnus, Entrepreneur

Mike Hilton, Dean’s Council member and computer science and math undergraduate alumnus, knows that finding your path in industry doesn’t come easy. After graduating from UCSC and going through a stint of four different jobs in two years, he decided to chase after one of his biggest dreams: founding his own company. In 1993, he achieved that dream by co-founding Concur Technologies, a pioneering business in the travel and expense management services sector, with two of his close friends. Concur was eventually acquired by SAP for $8 billion. Hilton now serves on the Board of Directors for Accolade, a personalized health and benefit solutions company.

Angela Ramirez

Alumna

Angela Ramirez, now an alumna of the inaugural class of Baskin Engineering’s new M.S. in natural language processing (NLP), played an important part on UC Santa Cruz’s Team Athena in the 2021 Amazon Alexa Prize Socialbot Grand Challenge, a university competition designed to advance the field of conversational artificial intelligence (AI). Through the use of coreference resolution algorithms—the task of finding all expressions that refer to the same entity in a text—Ramirez and her team members developed a conversational model capable of capturing pronoun context. This approach aims to solve a language comprehension problem with socialbots, which may seem trivial to humans, but has been proven to be a major stumbling block for conversational AI.

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Sage Weil

Alumnus, Entrepreneur

Sage Weil, Ph.D. computer science alumnus, developed a data storage prototype known as Ceph for his dissertation. Little did he know at the time that that open source prototype would soon develop into a widely used program now employed by many companies. After graduating from Baskin, Weil founded the company InkTank, later bought by RedHat, where he now serves as the principal architect for Ceph. In addition to being an entrepreneur and Baskin graduate, he is also a generous UCSC donor. With his gifts of around $3 million, Baskin Engineering established the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS) and founded a $1 million endowed chair known as the Sage Weil Presidential Chair for Open Source Software.

Marcella Gomez

Faculty

Over her five years as a faculty member at the Baskin School of Engineering, Marcella Gomez has made it a priority to listen to the needs of her students. Now, she cites this as what drew her to accept a new position as the inaugural Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. As associate dean, Gomez is committed to recruiting and retaining faculty from underrepresented groups, advancing student success by promoting engagement between students and faculty outside the classroom, and facilitating vertical communication among students, staff, faculty and administration.

Michael Lopp

Alumnus

Computer science alumnus Michael Lopp’s success story began with failure. Instead of letting the defeat from failing his first computer science class at UCSC get to him, he took it as a learning lesson, soon acing several classes in his computer science degree program which paved the way to him becoming a tech titan. Now, Lopp has nearly three decades of experience as a Silicon Valley-based engineering leader and has written three books on effective leadership practices. He currently works at Apple as senior director of engineering.

Mansi Saini

Student

Second-year computer game design student Mansi Saini was named one of 50 Top hackers of 2022 by Major League Hacking (MLH)—the official student hackathon league and the largest, global early-career developer community—for her contributions to the hacking community, including helping create an inclusive, collaborative space for hackers in finding their footing and developing the coding skills needed to succeed as technologists.

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Russ Corbett-Detig

Faculty

Baskin Engineering Biomolecular Engineering Associate Professor Russell Corbett-Detig’s research is at the interface of genomics, evolutionary biology, statistics, and computer science. The past few years, his research efforts have focused on developing new tools to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. His software tool UShER is now the primary method used by health officials across the globe to track the spread of COVD-19 variants.

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Zia Isola

Staff

Zia Isola first came to UC Santa Cruz over 13 years ago. In addition to her primary role as Director of the Genomics Institute’s Office of Diversity Programs, she is a winter quarter lecturer in the Biomolecular Engineering Department at the Baskin School of Engineering. As a first-generation student, Isola knows the power of mentorship and the importance of ensuring all students have equal access to academic and professional development opportunities.

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Tyler Sorensen

Faculty

Tyler Sorensen, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, recently received an NSF CAREER grant to support his research on improving the collaborative power between different types of specialized processors, with the goal of enhancing the overall safety and efficiency of the systems those processors run. While many researchers focus on advancing the specific capabilities of individual processors, Sorensen’s project focuses on developing the logical frameworks and mathematical models required to enable diverse processors to work together.

The educational component of his project surrounds equitable educational materials for the teaching of graphical processing unit (GPU) programming. Programming GPUs, which form the backbone of many of the advancements in today’s technology, require expensive computers that are often not accessible to many students. Sorensen wants to rethink the educational framework to make it possible to learn how to program GPUs on cheaper devices.

Aleatha Parker Wood

Alumna

Aleatha Parker Wood, a thrice computer science alumna, was one of very few women in her engineering classes. Despite the gender disparities, she felt welcome at Baskin Engineering and excelled in her graduate research. She often helped research teams across UCSC understand and analyze large datasets. Parker Wood now works at Amazon as a principal privacy engineer, where she leads the privacy efforts inside Amazon’s devices organization.

Tara Hernandez

Alum

Baskin Engineering alum Tara Hernandez, who uses they/them pronouns, is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion in tech. Hernandez, vice president of developer productivity at MongoDM, believes that bringing together a collection of team members from diverse backgrounds and with diverse skill sets allows for creative ideas to evolve into more impactful work. In their free time, Hernandez volunteers with various organizations that advocate for an increase in representation of underrepresented groups in the tech industry, including Women Who Code, ChickTech, and Code2040.

Rolando Perez

Alumnus

After coming close to death, Rolando Perez knew he needed to make a change. Leaving his rebellious life behind, Perez enrolled in Hartnell College, eventually transferring to UCSC and becoming fascinated with synthetic biology. At UCSC, Perez worked closely with Biomolecular Engineering Professor Nader Pourmand, who helped give him the confidence he needed to continue his education in biomolecular engineering. Perez went on to receive a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and is now an advisor in the field and cofounder of Sincarne.

Gunjan Sinha

Alumnus, Entrepreneur

Gunjan Sinha, a graduate from the Baskin Engineering computer engineering master’s program, is an advocate for using technology and entrepreneurship to drive social change. Sinha has spent over 25 years in various entrepreneurial and executive positions for software service companies. He currently serves as the founder and executive director chairman of MetricStream, the world’s largest independent provider of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) products and solutions, and is a founding board member of the U.S. India Endowment Board, which supports the innovation and commercialization of science and technology for social good.

Lindsey Kuper

Faculty

Lindsey Kuper, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, recently won an NSF CAREER award, which supports her lab’s research on distributed systems. The grant enables Kuper to meld her interests and background across computer science areas such as programming languages and software verification to improve and build confidence in distributed systems. Kuper and lab are improving on tools based on refinement types, powerful and relatively easy-to-use approaches to ensure a program works correctly before the program is run.

Pavle Jeremic

Alumnus

What if we could completely eliminate scarcity from the world? For Baskin Engineering alumnus Pavle Jeremic, this question is not just a hypothetical. His startup, Aether Biomachines, is working to revolutionize how molecules are made, with hope that higher-throughput manufacturing can reduce and eventually eliminate competition for basic resources.

Maryam Siddiqui

Undergraduate Student

With a major in computer science and minor in electronic music, undergraduate student Maryam Siddiqui is blending her twin passions of coding and making music. Siddiqui has enjoyed her two internships in web application development, where she was able to enhance her web coding skills. After graduation, she’ll start a full-time role at Microsoft in Seattle.

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