University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in the Southside and Northside neighborhoods of Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley, it is the state's first land-grant university and the founding campus of the University of California system.

Berkeley has more than 45,000 students and offers studies through fifteen schools on the same campus, including the College of Chemistry, the College of Engineering, College of Letters and Science, and the Haas School of Business. It is known for its high level of research activity and is linked to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Berkeley’s students take part in thirty varsity sports, and the university’s teams, the California Golden Bears, have won many national championships and Olympic medals. Many famous people, including 63 Nobel laureates, have been students, teachers, or researchers at Berkeley.

History

Main article: History of the University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley was founded in 1868. It was the first public university in California and started with just ten teachers and forty students in Oakland. Soon after, it moved to its current location in Berkeley. Over time, the university grew and added many new programs and buildings.

In the 1900s, Berkeley started several important programs, including training pilots and helping to build tools for science. In the 1960s, students there became known for standing up for their beliefs. Today, Berkeley is a big university with many students and continues to grow and change.

Organization and administration

Berkeley is often called just "Berkeley" or, for its sports teams, "California" or "Cal". The whole University of California is led by a group of 26 leaders called the Board of Regents. Most of them are chosen by the Governor of California. Each part of the university, including Berkeley, has its own leader called a chancellor. The chancellor works with many vice-chancellors and deans.

Berkeley gets some money from public support, but also receives many gifts and support from private people and organizations. Famous supporters include Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and many others. Big campaigns have helped raise billions of dollars for the university.

Academics

Berkeley is a large university where most students live on campus. It offers many programs for students who want to earn a bachelor’s degree, as well as programs for students who want to study after earning that degree. The university has been approved to give degrees since 1949.

The university has many teachers and classes organized into fifteen groups, called colleges and schools. These groups include the College of Chemistry, College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, College of Engineering, and others. Students can choose from over 350 different ways to earn a degree.

Students who want to earn a bachelor’s degree can choose from 107 different subjects to study. Some of the most popular subjects are electrical engineering, political science, and environmental science.

Berkeley also offers many programs for students who want to study after earning a bachelor’s degree, including master’s degrees and doctorates. The university works with other schools to offer these programs.

The university has a big library system with many books and special collections. One part of the library holds over 400,000 printed books and many old papers and maps.

Berkeley is known for being a very good school. It has been ranked highly in lists of the best schools in the United States and around the world.

For Fall 2022, Berkeley had over 45,000 students, with most being undergraduates. The university received many applications and accepted a smaller number of students. Many students receive help paying for their education through financial aid.

Discoveries and innovation

Berkeley has been a place where many important discoveries and inventions were made. In the natural sciences, researchers there discovered new elements, developed ways to edit genes, and even helped understand the universe’s expansion. They also made big steps in medicine, like creating vaccines and cancer treatments.

In computer science and technology, Berkeley played a key role in creating operating systems, programming languages, and tools that changed how we use computers today. From developing early computer systems to creating software that helps solve big problems, the university’s work continues to shape modern technology.

Campus

Main article: Campus of the University of California, Berkeley

The UC Berkeley campus is mostly in the city of Berkeley, with some parts in Oakland. It covers about 1,232 acres, but the main part of the campus is just 178 acres on the west side. There are special places like the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Lawrence Hall of Science, and the Space Sciences Laboratory around the campus. Some parts of the east side are actually in Oakland, near places like the Claremont Resort and Tilden Park.

Near the campus, you can find the downtown area of Berkeley to the west, the Gourmet Ghetto with famous restaurants to the northwest, and quiet neighborhoods with many graduate students to the north. South of the campus, there is student housing and Telegraph Avenue, a busy shopping street for students and visitors. The campus also has land in other areas like Albany and Richmond.

The campus has many interesting places, such as museums including the University of California Museum of Paleontology, which has dinosaur fossils, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. There is also a beautiful botanical garden with thousands of different plants.

360-degree-view of the UC Berkeley campus

Architecture

The historic part of the campus was designed in 1898 by Émile Bénard, but John Galen Howard was the one who actually built it. He created over twenty buildings that shaped the look of the campus until it grew in the 1950s and 1960s.

Many important buildings are built in a classical style, like the Hearst Greek Theatre, Doe Memorial Library, and Sather Tower, also known as the Campanile, which is the tallest university clock tower in the United States. Some buildings have different styles, like North Gate Hall and Dwinelle Annex. Many of these buildings are historic landmarks.

South Hall, built in 1873, is the oldest university building in California and has a Victorian style. Other famous architects have also added to the campus, creating a mix of different designs.

Natural features

Two branches of Strawberry Creek flow through the campus. One branch runs under California Memorial Stadium and through the center of the campus. The campus has many green spaces with trees and wooded areas, including the Eucalyptus Grove, which has some of the tallest trees in the world. The campus is located on the Hayward Fault, which runs through California Memorial Stadium.

Student life and traditions

The official mascot of the university is Oski the Bear, who first appeared in 1941. Before that, live bear cubs were used as mascots. Oski is named after the "Oski-wow-wow" cheer and is cared for by a special group of students.

The University of California Marching Band has been part of the university since 1891. The band plays at every home football game and some away games. A smaller group called the Straw Hat Band plays at basketball and volleyball games, as well as other events on and off campus.

Students created the tradition of using cards to make pictures at football games. This started in 1910 and is still done today. The Rally Committee looks after many school traditions, including the large "C" on the hill and flags around campus.

Berkeley students can choose from many places to live, including university housing, apartments, and houses where students share the cost together. There are also groups for students who want to live together based on shared interests or backgrounds.

The university has many student groups and clubs. One important group is the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC), which helps plan events and gives money to student groups. There are also groups for media, such as CalTV, The Daily Californian, and KALX radio.

Students can join groups about politics, culture, and many other interests. There are also teams that design and build things, like rockets and race cars. The school's sports teams are called the California Golden Bears, and they compete in many sports. Their biggest rival is Stanford, and they play an important football game called the Big Game every year.

Notable alumni, faculty, and staff

Faculty and staff

For a more comprehensive list, see List of University of California, Berkeley faculty.

• Shiing-Shen Chern, a leading geometer of the 20th century, co-founded the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and served as its founding director until 1984.
• Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was scientific director of the Manhattan Project and was the founder of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics.
• Faculty member Edward Teller was (together with Stanislaw Ulam) the "father of the hydrogen bomb", who laid important foundations for the establishment of Space Sciences Laboratory at Berkeley.
• Ernest Lawrence, a Nobel laureate in physics who invented the cyclotron at Berkeley, founded the Radiation Laboratory on campus, which later became the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
• Gilbert N. Lewis, former dean of the College of Chemistry, was nominated 41 times for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He mentored and influenced numerous Berkeley Nobel laureates, including Harold Urey (1934 Nobel Prize), William F. Giauque (1949 Nobel Prize), Glenn T. Seaborg (1951 Nobel Prize), Willard Libby (1960 Nobel Prize), and Melvin Calvin (1961 Nobel Prize).
• Glenn T. Seaborg, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, discovered or co-discovered ten chemical elements at Berkeley and served as chancellor from 1958 to 1961.
• Hans Albert Einstein, the first son of Albert Einstein and a world's leading scholar in hydraulic engineering, was a long-time faculty member at Berkeley.
• Steven Chu (PhD 1976), the 12th United States Secretary of Energy and Nobel laureate in physics, was director of Berkeley Lab from 2004 to 2009.
• Janet Yellen, 78th United States Secretary of Treasury and the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve, is a professor emeritus at Berkeley Haas School of Business and the Department of Economics.

Alumni

For a more comprehensive list, see List of University of California, Berkeley alumni.

Alumni have included 260 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, 34 Pulitzer Prize winners, 25 living billionaire alumni, 22 cabinet members, 68 recipients of the National Medal of Science, 190 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, 144 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 139 Guggenheim Fellows, and 125 Sloan Fellows, and 75 members of the National Academy of Engineering.

Government

Berkeley alumni have served in a range of prominent government offices, both domestic and foreign, including Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (Earl Warren, BA, JD); United States Attorney General (Edwin Meese III, JD); United States Secretary of State (Dean Rusk, LLB); United States Secretary of the Treasury (W. Michael Blumenthal, BA, and G. William Miller, JD); United States Secretary of Defense (Robert McNamara, BS); United States Secretary of the Interior (Franklin Knight Lane, 1887); United States Secretary of Transportation and United States Secretary of Commerce (Norman Mineta, BS); United States Secretary of Agriculture (Ann Veneman, MPP); National Security Advisor (Robert C. O'Brien, JD); scores of federal judges and members of the United States Congress (10 currently serving) and United States Foreign Service; governors of California (George C. Pardee; Hiram W. Johnson; Earl Warren, BA and LLB; Jerry Brown, BA; and Pete Wilson, JD), Michigan (Jennifer Granholm, BA), and the United States Virgin Islands (Walter A. Gordon, BA); Lieutenant General of the United States Army (Jimmy Doolittle, BA); Major General of the United States Marine Corps (Oliver Prince Smith); Brigadier General of the United States Marine Corps (Bertram A. Bone, BS); Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (John A. McCone, BS); chair and members of the Council of Economic Advisers (Michael Boskin, BA, PhD.; Sandra Black, BA; Jesse Rothstein, PhD; Robert Seamans, PhD; Jay Shambaugh, PhD; James Stock, MA, PhD); Governor of the Federal Reserve System (H. Robert Heller, PhD) and President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (William C. Dudley, PhD); Commissioners of the SEC (Troy A. Paredes, BA) and the FCC (Rachelle Chong, BA); and United States Surgeon General (Kenneth P. Moritsugu, MPH).

Foreign alumni include the president of Colombia 1922–1926 (Pedro Nel Ospina Vázquez, BA); the president of Mexico (Francisco I. Madero, attended 1892–93); the president and prime minister of Pakistan (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto); the premier of the Republic of China (Sun Fo, BA); the president of Costa Rica (Miguel Angel Rodriguez, MA, PhD); and members of parliament of the United Kingdom (House of Lords, Lydia Dunn, Baroness Dunn, BS), India (Rajya Sabha, the upper house, Prithviraj Chavan, MS); Iran (Mohammad Javad Larijani, PhD); Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology and first executive governor of Abia State (Ogbonnaya Onu, PhD); Barbados' ambassador to Brazil (Tonika Sealy-Thompson, PhD). Alumni have also served in many supranational posts, notable among which are president of the World Bank (Robert McNamara, BS); Deputy Prime Minister of Spain and managing director of the International Monetary Fund (Rodrigo Rato, MBA); executive director of UNICEF (Ann Veneman, MPP); member of the European Parliament (Bruno Megret, MS); and judge of the World Court (Joan Donoghue, JD).

Science

Nobel laureate William F. Giauque (BS 1920, PhD 1922) investigated chemical thermodynamics, Nobel laureate Willard Libby (BS 1931, PhD 1933) pioneered radiocarbon dating, Nobel laureate Willis Lamb (BS 1934, PhD 1938) examined the hydrogen spectrum, Nobel laureate Hamilton O. Smith (BA 1952) applied restriction enzymes to molecular genetics, Nobel laureate Robert Laughlin (BA 1972) explored the fractional quantum Hall effect, and Nobel laureate Andrew Fire (BA 1978) helped to discover RNA interference-gene silencing by double-stranded RNA. Nobel laureate Glenn T. Seaborg (PhD 1937) collaborated with Albert Ghiorso (BS 1913) to discover twelve chemical elements, such as americium, berkelium, and californium. David Bohm (PhD 1943) discovered Bohm diffusion. Nobel laureate Yuan T. Lee (PhD 1965) developed the crossed molecular beam technique for studying chemical reactions. Carol Greider (PhD 1987) was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells. Harvey Itano (BS 1942) conducted breakthrough work on sickle cell anemia that marked the first time a disease was linked to a molecular origin.

Narendra Karmarkar (PhD 1983) is known for the interior point method, a polynomial algorithm for linear programming known as Karmarkar's algorithm. National Medal of Science laureate Chien-Shiung Wu (PhD 1940), often known as the "Chinese Madame Curie", disproved the Law of Conservation of Parity for which she was awarded the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics. Kary Mullis (PhD 1973) was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in developing the polymerase chain reaction, a method for amplifying DNA sequences. Christine Essenberg was one of the first women to earn a PhD in zoology (MA1914, PhD 1917) known for her expertise in polychaetes and plankton studies. Olga Hartman (MA 1933, PhD 1936) was a zoologist who described hundreds of species of polychaete worms. Edward P. Tryon (PhD 1967) is the physicist who first said our universe originated from a quantum fluctuation of the vacuum. John N. Bahcall (BS 1956) worked on the Standard Solar Model and the Hubble Space Telescope, resulting in a National Medal of Science. Peter Smith (BS 1969) was the principal investigator and project leader for the NASA robotic explorer Phoenix, which physically confirmed the presence of water on the planet Mars for the first time. Astronauts James van Hoften (BS 1966), Margaret Rhea Seddon (BA 1970), Leroy Chiao (BS 1983), and Rex Walheim (BS 1984) have orbited the Earth in NASA's fleet of Space Shuttles.

Computers

Berkeley alumni have developed a number of key technologies associated with the personal computer and the Internet. Unix was created by alumnus Ken Thompson (BS 1965, MS 1966) along with colleague Dennis Ritchie. Alumni such as L. Peter Deutsch (PhD 1973), Butler Lampson (PhD 1967), and Charles P. Thacker (BS 1967) worked with Ken Thompson on Project Genie and then formed the ill-fated US Department of Defense-funded Berkeley Computer Corporation (BCC), which was scattered throughout the Berkeley campus in non-descript offices to avoid anti-war protestors. After BCC failed, Deutsch, Lampson, and Thacker joined Xerox PARC, where they developed a number of pioneering computer technologies, culminating in the Xerox Alto that inspired the Apple Macintosh. In particular, the Alto used a computer mouse, which had been invented by Doug Engelbart (BEng 1952, PhD 1955). Thompson, Lampson, Engelbart, and Thacker all later received a Turing Award. Also at Xerox PARC was Ronald Schmidt (BS 1966, MS 1968, PhD 1971), who became known as "the man who brought Ethernet to the masses."

Another Xerox PARC researcher, Charles Simonyi (BS 1972), pioneered the first WYSIWIG word processor program and was recruited personally by Bill Gates to join the fledgling company known as Microsoft to create Microsoft Word. Simonyi later became the first repeat space tourist, blasting off on Russian Soyuz rockets to work at the International Space Station orbiting the Earth. In 1977, a graduate student in the computer science department named Bill Joy (MS 1982) assembled the original Berkeley Software Distribution, commonly known as BSD Unix. Joy, who went on to co-found Sun Microsystems, also developed the original version of the terminal console editor vi, while Ken Arnold (BA 1985) created Curses, a terminal control library for Unix-like systems that enables the construction of text user interface (TUI) applications. Working alongside Joy at Berkeley were undergraduates William Jolitz (BS 1997) and his future wife Lynne Jolitz (BA 1989), who together created 386BSD, a version of BSD Unix that runs on Intel CPUs and evolved into the BSD family of free operating systems and the Darwin operating system underlying Apple Mac OS X. Eric Allman (BS 1977, MS 1980) created SendMail, a Unix mail transfer agent that delivers about twelve percent of the email in the world.

The XCF, an undergraduate research group located in Soda Hall, has been responsible for a number of notable software projects, including GTK+ (Peter Mattis, BS 1997), The GIMP (Spencer Kimball, BS 1996), and the initial diagnosis of the Morris worm. In 1992, Pei-Yuan Wei (BS 1990) an undergraduate at the XCF, created ViolaWWW, one of the first graphical web browsers. ViolaWWW was the first browser to have embedded scriptable objects, stylesheets, and tables. He donated the code to Sun Microsystems, inspiring Java applets. ViolaWWW also inspired researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications to create the Mosaic web browser, a pioneering web browser that became Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Billionaires

Billionaire alumni include Gordon Moore (Intel founder), James Harris Simons (Renaissance Technologies), Masayoshi Son (SoftBank), Jon Stryker (Stryker Medical Equipment), Eric Schmidt (former Google Chairman) and Wendy Schmidt, Michael Milken, Bassam Alghanim, Kutayba Alghanim, Charles Simonyi (Microsoft), Cher Wang (HTC), Robert Haas (Levi Strauss & Co.), Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor (Interbank, Peru), Fayez Sarofim, Daniel S. Loeb, Paul Merage, David Hindawi, Orion Hindawi, Bill Joy (Sun Microsystems founder), Victor Koo, Tony Xu (DoorDash), Lowell Milken, Nathaniel Simons and Laura Baxter-Simons, Liong Tek Kwee and Liong Seen Kwee, Elizabeth Simons and Mark Heising, Oleg Tinkov, and Alice Schwartz.

Pulitzer Prize winners

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Marguerite Higgins (BA 1941) was a pioneering female war correspondent who covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Novelist Robert Penn Warren (MA 1927) won three Pulitzer Prizes, including one for his novel All the King's Men, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning movie. Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg (BS 1904) invented the comically complex—yet ultimately trivial—contraptions known as Rube Goldberg machines. Journalist Alexandra Berzon (MA 2006) won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009, and journalist Matt Richtel (BA 1989), who also coauthors the comic strip Rudy Park under the pen name Theron Heir, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Leon Litwack (BA 1951, PhD 1958) taught as a professor at UC Berkeley for 43 years; three other UC Berkeley professors have also received the Pulitzer Prize. Alumna and professor Susan Rasky (BA 1974) won the Polk Award for journalism in 1991. USC Professor and Berkeley alumnus Viet Thanh Nguyen's (PhD 1997) first novel The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Fiction and screenwriters

Irving Stone (BA 1923) wrote the novel Lust for Life, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name starring Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh. Stone also wrote The Agony and the Ecstasy, which was later made into a film of the same name starring Oscar winner Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. Mona Simpson (BA 1979) wrote the novel Anywhere But Here, which was later made into a film of the same name starring Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon. Terry McMillan (BA 1986) wrote How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which was later made into a film of the same name starring Oscar-nominated actress Angela Bassett. Randi Mayem Singer (BA 1979) wrote the screenplay for Mrs. Doubtfire, which starred Oscar-winning actor Robin Williams and Oscar-winning actress Sally Field. Audrey Wells (BA 1981) wrote the screenplay The Truth About Cats & Dogs, which starred Oscar-nominated actress Uma Thurman. James Schamus (BA 1982, MA 1987, PhD 2003) collaborated on screenplays with Oscar-winning director Ang Lee on the Academy Award-winning movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain.

Academy and Emmy Award winners

Berkeley alumni have won 22 Academy Awards and 25 Emmy Awards. Gregory Peck (BA 1939), nominated for four Oscars during his career, won an Oscar for acting in To Kill a Mockingbird. Marc Norman (BA 1962, MA 1964) won two Oscars in 1999 for co-producing and co-writing the best picture winner Shakespeare in Love. Chris Innis (BA 1991) won the 2010 Oscar for film editing for her work on best picture winner, The Hurt Locker. Walter Plunkett (BA 1923) won an Oscar for costume design (for An American in Paris). Freida Lee Mock (BA 1961) and Charles H. Ferguson (BA 1978) have each won an Oscar for documentary filmmaking. Mark Berger (BA 1964) has won four Oscars for sound mixing and is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley. Edith Head (BA 1918), who was nominated for 34 Oscars during her career, won eight Oscars for costume design. Joe Letteri (BA 1981) has won four Oscars for Best Visual Effects in the James Cameron film Avatar and the Peter Jackson films King Kong, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Emmy Award winners include Jon Else (BA 1968) for cinematography; Andrew Schneider (BA 1973) for screenwriting; Linda Schacht (BA 1966, MA 1981), two for broadcast journalism; Christine Chen (dual-BA's 1990), two for broadcast journalism; Kathy Baker (BA 1977), three for acting; Ken Milnes (BS 1977), four for broadcasting technology; and Leroy Sievers (BA 1977), twelve for production. Elisabeth Leamy (BA 1989) is the recipient of thirteen Emmy awards.

Music and entertainment

Former undergraduates have participated in the contemporary music industry, such as Grateful Dead bass guitarist Phil Lesh, the Police drummer Stewart Copeland, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, the Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs (BA 1980), Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz, electronic music producer Giraffage, MTV correspondent Suchin Pak (BA 1997), AFI musicians Davey Havok and Jade Puget (BA 1996), and solo artist Marié Digby ("Say It Again"). Flautist and musicologist Jane M. Bowers was a masters graduate (1962). People Magazine included Third Eye Blind lead singer and songwriter Stephan Jenkins (BA 1987) in the magazine's list of 50 Most Beautiful People. Alumni have also acted in classic television series such as Karen Grassle (BA 1965) who played Caroline Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, Jerry Mathers (BA 1974) who starred in Leave it to Beaver, and Roxann Dawson (BA 1980) who portrayed B'Elanna Torres on Star Trek: Voyager.

Sports

Sport alumni include tennis athlete Helen Wills Moody (BA 1925) who won 31 Grand Slam titles, including eight singles titles at Wimbledon. Tarik Glenn (BA 1999) is a Super Bowl XLI champion. Michele Tafoya (BA 1988) is a sports television reporter for ABC Sports and ESPN. Sports agent Leigh Steinberg (BA 1970, JD 1973) has represented professional athletes such as Steve Young, Troy Aikman, and Oscar De La Hoya; Steinberg has been called the real-life inspiration for the title character in the Oscar-winning film Jerry Maguire (portrayed by Tom Cruise). Matt Biondi (BA 1988) won eight Olympic gold medals during his swimming career, in which he participated in three different Olympics. At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Natalie Coughlin (BA 2005) became the first American female athlete in modern Olympic history to win six medals in one Olympics.