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 UC Berkeley faculty.

Astronauts

Astronomers and space explorers William F. Ballhaus, Jr., B.S. 1967, M.S. 1968, Ph.D. 1971 — former director of NASA's Ames Research Center, president and CEO of Aerospace Corporation (also listed in "Business and entrepreneurship" section) Michael C. Malin, B.A. (physics) 1967 — astronomer, principal investigator for the camera on Mars Global Surveyor, MacArthur Fellow, founder and CEO of Malin Space Science Systems, recipient of a NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 2002, recipient of the 2005 Carl Sagan Memorial Award Gerry Nelson, Ph.D. 1972 — inventor of the segmented mirror telescope, for which he was awarded the Kavli Prize, leading to the building of the Keck telescopes Roger J. Phillips, Ph.D. 1968 — team leader of Apollo 17 Lunar Sounder Experiment, former director of Lunar and Planetary Institute and recipient of the G K Gilbert Award and the Whipple Award. David J. Schlegel, Ph.D. 1995 — pioneered the largest dust maps of the Universe, used to map the expansion rate of the Universe to more than 10 billion light years, recipient of the Lawrence Award H. Paul Shuch, Ph.D. 1990 — SETI scientist Peter Smith, B.S. 1969 — principal investigator and project leader for the $420 million NASA robotic explorer Phoenix, which physically confirmed the presence of water on the planet Mars for the first time Martha Stahr Carpenter, Ph.D. 1945 — Astronomer, three term president of AAVSO, and first women faculty member in the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences. Joel Stebbins, Ph.D. Physics 1903 — pioneered photoelectric photometry in astronomy, Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal (1950), Henry Draper Medal (1915), Rumford Prize (1913), namesake of asteroid 2300 Stebbins and the Moon crater Stebbins Charles Bruce Stephenson, Ph.D. 1958 — astronomer Jean L. Turner, Ph.D. — professor of Astronomy and Physics at UCLA Theodore Van Zelst, B.S. 1944 — co-founder of Soiltest (testing company for soil, rock, concrete, and asphalt), recipient of the 1988 ASCE's "Chicago Engineer of the Year" award, developed the swing-wing design that allows supersonic aircraft to exceed the sound barrier, developed the first mobile baggage inspection unit, and developed lunar construction and soil testing for humankind's first steps on the moon

Biologists David E. Garfin, Ph.D. — biophysicist who has made significant contributions to electrophoresis in both the engineering and biology communities and to the AES Electrophoresis Society Kathy Hudson, Ph.D. — Microbiologist specializing in science policy Edmund C. Jaeger — graduate student in 1918, became a renowned naturalist University of California, Riverside, Science Library Lidia Mannuzzu, Ph.D. 1990 — biologist and physiologist, inventor of the biomolecular optical sensorsbiomolecular optical sensors with Ehud Y. Isacoff and Mario Moronne Constance Tom Noguchi — biophysicist, Chief of the Molecular Cell Biology Section at National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Viviana Risca — geneticist and Rockefeller University assistant professor Donald W. Roberts, Ph.D. 1964 — Research Professor Emeritus at Utah State University, early contributor to the idea of biological pest control Howard Schachman — professor of biochem and molecular biology Gopalan Shyamala — conducted cancer and zoology research;CREA mother of California U.S. Senator and American Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris

Computer scientists and engineers

Allan Alcorn, 1971 — employee #3 at video game company Atari, electronics designer behind Atari's seminal Pong video arcade unit, and erstwhile boss of Steve Jobs at Atari Eric Allman, B.S. EECS 1977, M.S. C.S. 1980 — creator of Sendmail (mail transfer agent which delivers 70% of the email in the world); inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame Ken Arnold, B.A. CS 1985 — creator of the Curses software library, co-creator of Rogue Donna Auguste, B.S. — a senior engineering manager who helped coordinate the development of the Newton PDA. As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. Suchir Balaji, B.A. 2021 — a computer scientist turned whistleblower who worked for OpenAI from 2020 till 2024. He gathered and organized the Internet data that the company used to build its online chatbot, ChatGPT. Paul Benioff, B.S. — In a 1980 paper, Benioff described a microscopic quantum mechanical Hamiltonian model of a Turing machine. This groundbreaking work provided a theoretical foundation for the field, demonstrating that quantum computers were physically possible. Richard O. Buckius, Bachelor's '72 in Mechanical Engineering, Masters '73, Ph.D. '75 — Chief Operating Officer of the National Science Foundation David Chaum, Ph.D. CS 1982 — creator of the company DigiCash and the first digital currency, eCash Giovanni De Micheli, M.S. EECS 1980, Ph.D. EECS 1983 — pioneer of Network on a chip; Fellow of ACM and IEEE and a member of the Academia Europaea Wen-Tsuen Chen, Ph.D. 1976 — helped establish the Taiwan Academic Network (TANet), the first Internet in Taiwan; winner of the 2011 Taylor L. Booth Education Award (also listed in Chancellors and Presidents) Wesley A. Clark, B.S. Physics 1947 — designed the first modern personal computer (LINC), created the interface message processor for the original arpanet, lead engineer of the TX-0 Computer. The project lead for the construction of the TX-2 computer. The TX-Series of computers heavily influenced the PdP-1 computer. George Crow, B.S. EE 1966 — one of the original computer hardware designers of the Apple Macintosh computer. Cofounder of Next Computer. Donald D Eckdahl, B.S. — lead engineer of Maddida Computer. As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. Alyosha Efros, Ph.D. 2003 — computer vision researcher and winner of the 2017 ACM Prize in Computing Katherine Faber, Ph.D. 1982 — professor of materials science at the California Institute of Technology, originator of the Faber-Evans model for ceramics Lee Felsenstein, B.S. — lead engineer of the Video Display Module Computer. As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. Sally Floyd. B.S. 1971, Ph.D. 1989 — invented Random Early Detection, or RED, an algorithm widely used in the internet. Stanley Frankel, B.S. — Leader of the LGP-30 computer development . As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. Andrea Frome, Ph.D. 2007 — known in the fields of computer vision, deep learning, and machine learning. John Gage, B.S. 1975 — fifth employee of Sun Microsystems, former chief researcher and vice-president of the Science Office for Sun Microsystems, current partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins with Al Gore; credited with creating the phrase "the network is the computer" Gary Grossman, B.A. CS — software engineer, the "inventor of ActionScript""There will be hundreds of Macromedia employees at MAX 2005, with all major development teams represented. Where else can you talk about what's next with Gary Grossman, the inventor of ActionScript…""Gary was the primary developer on the ActionScript programming language in Flash 4, Flash 5, and Flash MX." (the programming language utilized by Web content authors using the Adobe Flash Player platform) John Haanstra, B.S. EE — chairman of the Systems Programming, Research, Engineering, And Development (SPREAD) task force produced a pivotal 26-page report in December 1961 that became the foundation for the System/360 (as seen in computer history museum timeline of computers).Also, As an engineer and project leader at IBM's San Jose laboratory, Haanstra was instrumental in the development of the IBM 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control), which was released in 1956. This system was the first commercial computer to use a hard disk drive for random-access storage(as seen in computer history museum timeline of computers memory). Glenn Henry — attended UC Berkeley as an undergrad for 3 years. Lead engineer of the IBM PC-RT . As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. Dick Hustvedt, B.S. — lead engineer of the "Starlet" software project that created the VAX/VMS operating system for the Digital Equipment Corporation Vax computer. As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. Gilbert Hyatt, B.S. EE — filed the first patent for the microprocessor Jean Paul Jacob, M.S. and Ph.D. in Mathematics and Engineering (1966) — long research manager at the Almaden IBM Research Center, California; recipient of the University of California Research Leadership Award in 2003 for his 40 years of work and research development in its departments; electronic engineering degree (1960) from the Brazilian ITA Eugene Jarvis, B.S. EECS 1976 — creator of the classic Defender video arcade game; recipient of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Pioneer Award Lynne Greer Jolitz, B.A. 1989 — co-author, with husband William Jolitz, of 386BSD, which is the ancestor of FreeBSD, which in turn is an ancestor of Apple's Darwin operating system William Jolitz, B.A. 1997 — co-author, with wife Lynne Greer Jolitz, of 386BSD Bill Joy B.S. EECS and M.S. EECS 1979 — BSD UNIX, vi (text editor), Chroot, C shell Spencer Kimball, B.A. CS 1996 — creator of the GIMP software Phil Lapsley, B.S. EECS 1988, M.S. EECS 1991 — co-creator of the NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol used by Usenet newsgroups) Bill Latin, B.S. — significant role in the development of the Motorola 6800 microprocessor in which he developed the MTIME simulator (used to design and verify the 6800’s MOS logic and single-supply NMOS circuits). As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. Derrick Lehmer, B.S. — used the SWAC computer to prove fermat's last theorem for all prime exponents under 4002. Using the SWAC in 1952 mathematician Raphael M. Robinson, supervised by the Lehmers, discovered five new Mersenne primes. One of the first to use a computer to test whether the non-trivial roots of the zeta function lie on the critical line. using the SWAC to solve complex sieve problems related to prime numbers. As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. IEEE computer science pioneer Anthony Levandowski, B.S. Industrial Engineering 2002, M.S. IEOR 2003 — product manager of the Google driverless car; inventor of robotic motorcycle "Ghostrider" featured at the Smithsonian Institution, software developer at Google serving on the inaugural StreetView team Ed Logg, B.A. C.S. — engineering creator of the classic video games Asteroids, Centipede, and Gauntlet at Atari; recipient of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Pioneer Award Gordon Eugene Martin, B.S. EE 1947 — pioneering piezoelectric materials researcher for underwater sound transducers John M. Martinis, B.S., Ph.D. — first to achieve quantum supremacy. Received nobel prize in physics 2025. Peter Mattis, B.S. CS 1997 — creator of GTK software Steven T. Mayer, B.S. — lead engineer of the Atari 400/800 computer.As found on Computer History Museum Timeline of computers. Jack McCauley, B.S. EE and C.S. 1986 — engineer, inventor and video game developer"Maker Hero: Alumnus Jack McCauley on Guitar Hero, Oculus and the Future of Making," Berkeley Innovators, retrieved March 22, 2014. Peter Merholz, B.A. 1993 — coined the term "blog" Ralph Merkle, B.A. 1974, M.S. 1977 — pioneer in public-key cryptography computer algorithms, created Merkel trees. Greatly influenced diffie-hellman key exchange. Sam Mihara, B.A. 1956 — rocket scientist at Boeing and history educator focused on the incarceration of Japanese Americans Jay Miner, 1959 — inventor of the Amiga personal computer