# List of University of California, Riverside people

This is a list of notable alumni and faculty of the University of California, Riverside.

## Notable alumni
### Nobel laureates

* Richard R. Schrock – Chemistry, 2005, professor at University of California, Riverside

### Academia, science, and technology

* Peter Adriaens – professor of engineering and entrepreneurship at the selling Biology textbook
* Mason Gaffney – professor of economics and prominent Georgist
* Harmohinder Singh Gill – plant pathologist who pioneered fungus classification by disc electrophoresis
* Lynn G. Gref – technologist and systems engineer
* Matthew Haughey – blogger and founder of MetaFilter
* Anthea M. Hartig – director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (2019–present)
* Marigold Linton – director of American Indian outreach at the University of Kansas
* Todd D. Little – professor of Educational Psychology, Texas Tech University
* Gary North – economist and author
* Arthur Riggs – director of the Beckman Research Institute and former geneticist with Genentech and father of modern biotechnology
* Pedram Salimpour – physician-scientist, author, and professor
* Bettie Steinberg – microbiologist, Chief Scientific Officer for The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research
* Peter Steinberger – Dean of the Faculty at Reed College, Robert H. and Blanche Day Ellis Professor of Political Science and Humanities
* Tim White – professor of integrative biology and research, paleoanthropologist
* Jennifer Wilby – director of the Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull
* Charles E. Young – first UCR student body president and former chancellor at the University of California, Los Angeles

### Arts, film, and literature

* Mark Andrus – Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, As Good as it Gets
* Earl W. Bascom – inventor, actor, rodeo cowboy, Hall of Fame inductee, international artist and sculptor
* Frank Bidart – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
* Amine Bouhafa – Tunisian composer and engineer, winner of the 2015 César Award for Best Music for the movie Timbuktu
* Steve Breen – 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist
* Joanna Cameron – actress and model The Secrets of Isis
* Jamie Chung – actress, TV series The Real World: San Diego and films, such as I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Sorority Row, Grown Ups, The Hangover II
* Billy Collins – eleventh US Poet Laureate
* Katherine Fugate – screenwriter Valentine's Day and creator of Army Wives TV series
* Elizabeth George – mystery writer
* Barbara Hambly – novelist and screenwriter
* Howard Hendrix – novelist
* Ryan Holiday – author of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator; director of marketing for American Apparel
* Lisa Kekaula – lead singer for The Bellrays
* Patricia Ja Lee – actress known for role as Cassie Chan as the Pink Ranger in the television series Power Rangers: Turbo and Power Rangers in Space
* Nakul Dev Mahajan – choreographer
* Daryl F. Mallett – author, editor, publisher
* Fatima Farheen Mirza – novelist, A Place for Us
* Steve Nguyen – film director, producer
* Ruben Quesada – poet
* Lindsay Ridgeway – actress, Boy Meets World
* Philip Michael Thomas – actor, Miami Vice
* Charlyne Yi – actress, comedian, and performance artist (Knocked Up)

### Athletics

* Matt Andriese – Major League pitcher for the Seattle Mariners
* Michael Basinger – former professional football player for the Green Bay Packers
* Jennifer Bermingham – golfer
* Pat Hill – head football coach of Fresno State
* Butch Johnson – former professional football player for the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos
* Joe Kelly – Major League pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers
* Aaron Long – professional MLS soccer player for Los Angeles Football Club
* John Lowenstein – former Major League Baseball player
* Steve Lubratich – former Major League Baseball player and current Cleveland Indians Special Assistant to the GM
* AnnMaria De Mars – 1984 Judo World Champion, mother of Ronda Rousey
* Brenda Martinez – track and field athlete
* Gary McCord – professional golfer, CBS announcer and analyst and won the DII individual golf championship in 1970
* Troy Percival – all-time saves leader for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
* Dan Runzler – Major League pitcher for the Boston Red Sox
* Marc Rzepczynski – Major League pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks
* Michael Salazar – professional MLS soccer player
* Eric Show – former professional baseball player for the San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics
* Chris Smith – Major League pitcher for the Oakland Athletics
* Erasmo Solorzano – professional MLS soccer player for the Chivas USA acquired in the 2007 draft
* Brendan Steele – professional golfer on the PGA Tour

### Business

* Gary North – economist
* Shelli Taylor – CEO of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (2020–present)

### Politics and law

* Ruben Barrales – deputy assistant to President Bush and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in the White House, former San Mateo County supervisor
* Sabrina Cervantes – current California State Assemblywoman for the 60th District
* Paul Cook – former U.S. Member of Congress for the CA-08 district, current Supervisor for San Bernardino County
* David S. Cunningham, Jr. – Los Angeles City Council member, 1973–87
* Patricia Lock Dawson – mayor of Riverside, 2020–present
* Julie Furuta-Toy – current U.S. Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea
* Eduardo Garcia – current California State Assemblyman for the 56th District
* Sherilyn Peace Garnett – United States district judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California (2022–present)
* Michael Huerta – former Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration
* Jerold Krieger – Judge for the Los Angeles Superior Court (1988–2002)
* Lloyd Levine – former California State Assemblyman for the 40th District
* Jose Medina – current California State Assemblyman for the 61st District
* Holly J. Mitchell – current California State Senator for the 30th and 26th (2013–2014) District, former California State Assemblymember to the 54th and 47th (2010–2012) Districts
* Ronald Neumann – former U.S. Ambassador to Algeria
* Rod Pacheco – former Riverside County District Attorney, California Assembly member
* Virginia A. Phillips – senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California
* Anthony Rendon – Speaker of the California State Assembly (2016–2023)
* Gloria Romero – former State Senate Majority Whip, former California Assembly member, 49th District
* Stefanie Schaeffer – defense attorney, 2006 winner of The Apprentice
* Marc Steinorth – current California State Assemblyman for the 40th District
* Mark Takano – current U.S. House of Representative for the 41st District

### Other

* Jeff Cooper – creator of the modern technique of shooting; firearms expert who defined the modern scout rifle
* John Mack Faragher – historian
* James Holmes – gunman in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting; currently serving a life sentence for murder
* Shruti Kapoor – economist, women's right's activist, and social entrepreneur
* Anil Raj – humanitarian activist killed in 2019 in a terrorist attack in Kabul while working for U.N.

## Notable faculty

* Chris Abani – 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 – Professor of Creative Writing, writer, producer, critic, religion scholar, television celebrity James Joyce Award
* John Baez – professor of mathematics, mathematical physicist
* Alexander A. Balandin – professor of electrical engineering
* Lindon W. Barrett – professor and cultural theorist
* Bir Bhanu – Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering, director of the Center for Research in Intelligent Systems
* Alfred M. Boyce – first dean of the College of Agriculture
* Patricia Cardoso – Award-winning filmmaker, Professor of Film
* Christopher Chase-Dunn – sociologist, contributor to world-systems theory
* Sean Cutler – plant scientist noted for discovery of pyrabactin
* Mike Davis – Emeritus Professor, urban theorist and author MacArthur Fellow in 1998; won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
* James H. Dieterich – Distinguished Professor of Geophysics, member of the National Academy of Sciences
* Kim Yi Dionne – political scientist
* Josh Emmons – novelist
* Steve Erickson – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, author, essayist, critic Lannan Literary Award Guggenheim
* John Martin Fischer – professor of philosophy, vice-president of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, primary proponent of semi-compatibilism
* Katie Ford – poet
* Theodore Garland, Jr. – a founder of the field of evolutionary physiology
* Gail Hanson – Distinguished Professor of Physics
* Allison Adelle Hedge Coke – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, poet, writer, editor, China's First Jade Nurtured SiHui Female International Poetry Award, a Witter Bynner Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholar, American Book Award,
* Juan Felipe Herrera – 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 – former chancellor
* Nalo Hopkinson – Professor of Creative Writing, science fiction and fantasy writer Andre Norton Award and British Fantasy Award
* Theodore L. Hullar – former chancellor
* Laila Lalami – professor, Pulitzer Prize finalist
* Perry Link – Chancellorial Chair, professor of China Studies
* Ronald O. Loveridge – mayor of Riverside, California
* Tom Lutz – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, author, literary critic, founder and editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books
* Robert Nisbet – conservative sociologist and early Dean of Letters and Science at UCR
* John W. Olmsted – first chairman of the Humanities division
* Raymond L. Orbach – former chancellor and first Under Secretary of Energy for Science
* Robert Rosenthal – professor of psychology, former chair of Harvard's psychology department
* Irwin Sherman – professor of biology, specializing in malariology
* George Edgar Slusser – professor of comparative literature, science fiction expert
* Andrea Smith – Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Nobel Peace Prize nominee
* Jane Smiley – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, writer, Pulitzer Prize winning author
* Harry Scott Smith – entomologist
* Susan Straight – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, writer, National Book Award finalist Lannan Literary Award
* Karl Taube – professor of anthropology, specializing in research into pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures
* Bob Toledo – former UCR football coach, 13th head coach of UCLA
* John V. Tunney – professor of business law, former United States Senator and member of Congress
* Jonathan H. Turner – 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 – former dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences
* Georgia Warnke – Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the director of the Center for Ideas and Society

## Administrators
### List of Provosts (1949–1958)

| No. | Portrait | Provost | Term | Notes |
| 1 | | Gordon S. Watkins | 1949–1956 | First provost. |
| 2 | | Herman Spieth | 1956–1958 | Spieth was appointed provost in 1956 as a replacement to Watkins. When Riverside was upgrade to a general campus in 1958, Spieth was named to the new post of chancellor. |

### List of Chancellors (1958–present)

| No. | Chancellor | Term | Notes |
| 1 | Herman Spieth | 1958–1964 | |
| 2 | Ivan Hinderaker | 1964–1979 | |
| 3 | Tomás Rivera | 1979–March 16, 1984 | First minority UC Chancellor. Died in office. |
| – | Daniel G. Aldrich | May 1984–June 30, 1985 | (acting) |
| 4 | Theodore L. Hullar | July 1, 1985–1987 | |
| 5 | Rosemary S.J. Schraer | 1987–April 10, 1992 | First woman UC Chancellor. Died in office. |
| 6 | Raymond L. Orbach | April 20, 1992–March 1, 2002 | Although Orbach was supposed to take over from Schraer on July 1, 1992, Schraer unexpected death on April 10 changed everyone's plans. As a result, the UCR Academic Senate invited Orbach to start his new job on April 20. |
| – | David H. Warren | March 2, 2002–June 30, 2002 | |
| 7 | France A. Córdova | July 1, 2002 – June 30, 2007 | |
| – | Robert D. Grey | July 1, 2007–August 31, 2008 | Acting chancellor |
| 8 | Timothy P. White | September 1, 2008–December 30, 2012 | |
| – | Jane Close Conoley | December 31, 2012–August 18, 2013 | Acting chancellor |
| 9 | Kim A. Wilcox | August 19, 2013–present | |