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Featured Students

Lauren Elscott

As a Santa Clarita native whose family moved to the San Jose area, it was important to Lauren Elscott that she stay near her family in college. When she visited the University of California, Santa Cruz and saw the lush greenery and beautiful surroundings she decided this was the place to be.

Chanel Chavira

After taking a tour of UC Santa Cruz, Chanel Chavira knew that she had found the perfect place to study. She loved the sheer beauty of the campus with its towering redwood trees and lush greenery, and how very different it was from the other UC campuses she had visited.
 
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Summer Rogers

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Summer Rogers sewed, knitted, and crocheted, like her mother and her grandmother. They also made quilts and even did some tatting, a way of making lace with a shuttle and thread, popular during the Victorian era.
 

Celeste Lagrange

Celeste Lagrange first wanted to be onstage in second grade when her twin brother acted in a play, and she got jealous. Then in high school in San Diego, her love of theater started in earnest.

Natalya Gonzalez

Natalya Gonzalez grew up in Los Angeles. As a kid, she loved to sketch and draw with pastels. She came to UC Santa Cruz to study biology since she was interested in research and all the labs on campus.

Jaxon Chester

In the 2022-23 academic year, Jaxon Chester loved being the Media Production Team Leader for the Okinawa Memories Institute (OMI), a public history research project at UC Santa Cruz.

lavender grey higley

Having recently graduated in June, 2023, lavender grey higley, who majored in anthropology and minored in dance, is ready for whatever lies ahead as they start exploring various graduate school programs.

As a history and education major with a minor in theater arts, senior Sara Sotelo is looking forward to taking time to decompress after graduation before taking the next big step of applying to graduate school for an MFA in dramaturgy or possibly an MA in history.

Bene't Benton

Now in their senior year at UC Santa Cruz, Bene’t Benton is looking forward to pursuing a career in theater with the goal of getting leadership experience and also writing and developing a solo theatrical piece that they can use towards ultimately being admitted to graduate school.

Matthew Kim

Originally, Matthew Kim intended on attending UC Santa Cruz to continue his volleyball career while also enjoying the sunny surf that Santa Cruz has to offer.  But injuries changed his best laid plans and his priorities took a steep turn along the way.

Becky Diaz

Becky Diaz is a transfer student from Los Angeles County and moved to UC Santa Cruz to pursue her B.A. in Art.

Jackson T. Collins

Ever since middle school Jackson T. Collins has had a passion for filmmaking that continued through high school when he was especially inspired by the advisor in his video class who encouraged him to always to his best.

Mari Mafnas

After visiting the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery in 2018 on the UC Santa Cruz campus, Marian (Mari) Mafnas knew that UCSC was the place for her.

Aja Bond

Loss and grief have turned out to be uncanny inspirations for artist and student Aja Bond, who is currently in her junior year, working towards earning a B.A. in art at UC Santa Cruz.

Janet Chen

Immigrating from Taiwan to the United States with her family when she was just nine years old, filmmaker Janet Chen learned to speak English by watching American television shows and movies.

Last month, NASA released NeMO-Net, an innovative iPad game where players help NASA classify coral reefs by painting 3D and 2D images of coral.

Congratulations to the following Music Department students for their outstanding accomplishments!

Nelsen Hutchison
Ph.D Ethnomusicology Student

Jon Myers

Jon Myers, a DMA candidate in composition at UC Santa Cruz, creates music for a variety of settings, from fully notated acoustic pieces to live electronic feedback music. He works on soundscapes and sonic maps of places.

Andrew C. Smith

UC Santa Cruz DMA candidate in composition, Andrew C. Smith, composes music that involves intonation tunings, repetition, and language at the threshold of making sense, often connected to computational processes throughout the composition.

Ryan Lambe

Ryan Lambe is a sixth-year PhD candidate and teaching fellow at UC Santa Cruz studying cross-cultural musicology. His dissertation is an ethnographic study of performance and emotional labor in US queer open mics examined through queer and critical race lenses. 

Nicholas Vasallo

The recipients of this year’s UC Santa Cruz Distinguished Graduate Student Alumni awards are out in the world inspiring change and advancing science. 

Francesca Romeo

Francesca Romeo received her BA in English Literature from UC Berkeley, and a dual Master’s degree from Pratt Institute in Photography and Art History.

Melanie Ho

Melanie Ho is a queer Vietnamese American filmmaker and writer who currently works as the Graduate Student Coordinator at UC Santa Cruz’s Women’s Center. She’s in her second year, pursuing an MFA in the Social Documentation program (SocDoc).

dinosaurily

The UC Santa Cruz Arts Division was very proud to present the following, very talented students with this year’s awards. Congratulations to all of our awardees!

Arts Dean’s Award Winners:

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