This page lists notable alumni and students of the University of California, Berkeley. Alumni who also served as faculty are listed in bold font, with degree and year.
Notable faculty members are in the article List of University of California, Berkeley faculty.
Nobel Prize and Turing Award laureates
Name Degree(s) Prize year Prize field Reason (prize citation) Additional notabilityFrances H. Arnold Ph.D. 1985 2018 Chemistry "for the directed evolution of enzymes" also listed in §National Medal of Technology; Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biochemistry at CaltechBarry Barish B.S. 1957, Ph.D. 1962 2017 Physics "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves" Carolyn R. Bertozzi Ph.D. 1993 2022 Chemistry "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry" Thomas Cech Ph.D. 1975 1989 Chemistry "for the discovery of catalytic properties of RNA" Owen Chamberlain Attended(1941-42) 1959 Physics "for the discovery of the antiproton" Steven Chu Ph.D. 1976 1997 Physics "for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light" Secretary of Energy in the Obama administrationRobert Curl Ph.D. 1957 1996 Chemistry "for the discovery of fullerenes" Joseph Erlanger B.S. 1895 1944 Medicine "for discoveries relating to the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibres"Andrew Fire B.A. 1978 2006 Medicine "for the discovery of RNA interference – gene silencing by double–stranded RNA" William F. Giauque B.S. 1920, Ph.D. 1922 1949 Chemistry "for his contributions in the field of chemical thermodynamics, particularly concerning the behaviour of substances at extremely low temperatures" Carol W. Greider Ph.D. 1987 2009 Medicine "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase" Daniel Nathans Professor; director of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins UniversityDavid Gross Ph.D. 1966 2004 Physics"for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" Alan Heeger Ph.D. 1961 2000 Chemistry "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers" David Julius Ph.D. 1984 2021 Medicine "for the discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch"Daniel Kahneman Ph.D. 1961 2002 Economics "for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision–making under uncertainty" Lawrence Klein B.A. 1942 1980 Economics "for the creation of econometric models and the application to the analysis of economic fluctuations and economic policies" Willis Lamb B.S. 1934, Ph.D. 1938 1955 Physics "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum" Robert Laughlin B.A. 1972 1998 Physics "for the discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations" Yuan T. Lee Ph.D. 1962 1986 Chemistry "for contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes" professor of Chemistry; principal investigator, Materials and Molecular Research Division, Lawrence Berkeley LaboratoryWillard Libby B.S. 1931, Ph.D. 1933 1960 Chemistry "for his method to use carbon–14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science" professor of Chemistry Robert Lucas Jr. Attended(1959-60) 1995 Economics "for having developed and applied the hypothesis of rational expectations, and thereby having transformed macroeconomic analysis and deepened our understanding of economic policy" John C. Mather Ph.D. 1974 2006 Physics "for the discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation" Mario Molina Ph.D. 1972 1995 Chemistry "for work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone" Kary Mullis Ph.D. 1973 1993 Chemistry "for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method"Douglass North B.A. 1942, Ph.D. 1952 1993 Economics "for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change" Saul Perlmutter Ph.D. 1986 2011 Physics "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae" professor of Physics at UC Berkeley; co–discoverer of dark energy as head of the Supernova Cosmology ProjectGary RuvkunB.A. 19732024Medicine"for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation"Thomas J. Sargent B.A. 1964 2011 Economics "for empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy" William R. Berkley Professor of Economics and Business at New York UniversityThomas Schelling B.A. 1944 2005Economics "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game–theory analysis" Glenn T. Seaborg Ph.D. 1937 1951 Chemistry "for discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements" University Professor of Chemistry; associate director, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory; chancellor, Berkeley campus (1958–1961) William F. Sharpe Attended(1951-52) 1990 Economics "for pioneering work in the theory of financial economics" Christopher A. Sims Attended(1963-64) 2011 Economics for "empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy" Hamilton O. Smith B.A. 1952 1978 Medicine "for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics" Otto Stern L.L.D 1930 1943 Physics "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton" Henry Taube Ph.D. 1940 1983 Chemistry "for his work on the mechanisms of electron transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes" Harold Urey Ph.D. 1923 1934 Chemistry "for his discovery of heavy hydrogen" Selman Waksman Ph.D. 1918 1952 Medicine"for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis" David J. Wineland BA Physics 1965 2012 Physics "for ground–breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems"
Turing Award laureates The Turing Award is considered to be the "Nobel Prize" of computer science. Name Degree(s) Prize year Reason (prize citation) Additional notabilityLeonard Adleman B.A. 1968, Ph.D. 1976, 2002 for the "ingenious contribution for making public–key cryptography useful in practice" co-author of the RSA encryption algorithm for computer securityDouglas C. Engelbart B.Eng. 1952, Ph.D. 1955 1997 "for an inspiring vision of the future of interactive computing and the invention of key technologies to help realize this vision" inventor of the computer mouse; recipient of the National Medal of Technology in 2000, pioneer in hypertext and networked computersShafi Goldwasser M.S. 1981, Ph.D. 1983 2012 "for transformative work that laid the complexity–theoretic foundations for the science of cryptography and in the process pioneered new methods for efficient verification of mathematical proofs in complexity theory" professor of computer science and the mathematical sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science;, recipient of two Gödel Prizes (1993, "for the development of interactive proof systems" and 2001 "for the PCP theorem and its applications to hardness of approximation"); RSA Professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT Jim Gray B.S. 1966, Ph.D. 1969 2001 "for seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation" Butler Lampson Ph.D. 1967 1992 "for contributions to the development of distributed, personal computing environments and the technology for their implementation: workstations, networks, operating systems, programming systems, displays, security and document publishing" founding member of Xerox PARC, major contributor to the development of the personal computerBarbara Liskov B.A. 1961 2008 "for contributions to practical and theoretical foundations of programming language and system design, especially related to data abstraction, fault tolerance, and distributed computing" first woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Computer Science (in 1968 at Stanford), creator of CLU, professor at MITSilvio Micali Ph.D. 1982 2012 "for transformative work that laid the complexity–theoretic foundations for the science of cryptography and in the process pioneered new methods for efficient verification of mathematical proofs in complexity theory"; recipient of the Gödel Prize in 1993 "for the development of interactive proof systems" Ford Professor of Engineering at MITDana Scott B.S. 1954 1976 for "the joint paper (with Rabin) "Finite Automata and Their Decision Problem", which introduced the idea of nondeterministic machines, which has proved to be an enormously valuable concept. Their (Scott & Rabin) classic paper has been a continuous source of inspiration for subsequent work in this field" former associate professor of Math at UC Berkeley, professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon UniversityCharles P. Thacker B.A. 1967 2009 "for the pioneering design and realization of the first modern personal computer—the Alto at Xerox PARC—and seminal inventions and contributions to local area networks (including the Ethernet), multiprocessor workstations, snooping cache coherence protocols, and tablet personal computers" Microsoft Technical Fellow, chief designer of the Alto computer at Xerox PARC, co–inventor of Ethernet, recipient of the IEEE John von Neumann Medal in 2007, recipient of the Draper Prize in 2004Ken Thompson B.S. 1965, M.S. 1966 1983 for the "development of generic operating systems theory and specifically for the implementation of the UNIX operating system" co–creator of the Unix operating system Niklaus Wirth Ph.D. 1967 1984 "for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages, EULER, ALGOL–W, MODULA and Pascal" creator of the Pascal programming language
Academy Award Recipients