Redwood High School Alumni
All Classes 1959 to present
AOG Inductee Bios
"The AVENUE OF GIANTS recognition honors graduates of Redwood High School who have made a significant contribution to society or achieved substantial professional success. The candidate must be of such exemplary character and achievement as to be worthy of emulation by current Redwood students. The candidate must have graduated at least fifteen years prior to being nominated." Questions? AOG@redwoodalumni.org
AOG Nomination Form or downloadable form
NOMINATIONS ARE DUE OCTOBER 1 FOR EACH YEAR CYCLE!
OUR NEXT AOG BANQUET WILL BE IN 2026 HONORING 2025 AND 2026 INDUCTEES!
CONGRATULATIONS!
2025 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
AVIVA ROSENTHAL (1990) entered public service and politics after graduating from UC Davis. An advance person for the Clinton/Gore campaign, she worked in the White House for President Clinton from 1997 to 2000 as a Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Scheduling. She traveled with Clinton to over 30 countries including China, Israel and Russia. In 2000 she moved to Los Angeles to work for Norman Lear and Declare Yourself which registered over 2 million to vote in the 2004 and 2008 elections. Returning to Washington, she became Chief of Staff to the Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs overseeing $1 billion and 4,000 staff to promote democratic values around the world. Currently Director of the Office of Global Affairs at the Smithsonian Institution, she works globally on such issues as climate change and biodiversity loss and protecting cultural heritage at risk from war and terrorism. She frequently mentors young women interested in the field of international relations.
Defying reasonable limits, 1973 grad PAIGE WILEY PETERSON'S resume is packed. A writer, artist and leader, Peterson is author of “Growing Up in Belvedere-Tiburon” and illustrated “Blackie, The Horse Who Stood Still.” She is a board member of the National Council on U.S-Arab Relations to improve knowledge and understanding of the Arab region. As a journalist, she has contributed to Marin Magazine and New York Social Diary. To help improve Arab-U.S. relations, she has written extensively about the Middle East. In 2015 she was the Artist and Author in Resident at a Dahahran Ahiliyya Schools in Saudi Arabia.
She is on the board of Climate Change Resources, Catmosphere and the Safari West Wildlife Foundation working to preserve the environment and its wildlife including big cats. Her paintings are displayed by Gerald Peters Gallery in New York City. Peterson studied at College of Marin and UC Berkeley and now lives in New York City and Belvedere.
Dan Schlager (1977) and Bill Baringer (1977) met in a Redwood math class in 1975 parlaying their lasting friendship into a collaboration resulting in 1997 in the development of GPS wireless technology enabling people to be located when they dialed 911. Together they licensed the technology to cell phone companies before selling their patents to a consortium of Apple, Google and Blackberry. Baringer worked at many start-ups such including Fitbit, and Square. He specializes in portable wireless solutions, digital cellular handset and base station architectures, antenna design, and RF propagation analysis and design. Schlager holds over 25 patents and is now working on lightning protection garments utilizing metallic fibers and nanotechnology. He attended Brandeis University and earned his MD from George Washington University. Baringer graduated from UC Berkeley and received his PhD there in computer and electrical science. Schlager has been a clinical professor of emergency medicine since 2016 at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Tucson, where he completed his residency training and served as chief resident. He previously spent 25 years working as an emergency physician in the North Bay including Kaiser Emergency in Terra Linda. Baringer is among the 500 climbers worldwide to summit the highest mountains on each continent including Everest and Denali. Schlager was a volunteer physician for National Geographic and traveled to over 100 countries.
2024 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
Cultural anthropologist KATHLEEN ADAMS (1975), known for her scholarship on tourism and heritage, conducted research on cultural transformations in
When a student at Redwood, Tony Award winner MATT DOYLE (2005)sometimes took Friday off to catch a new musical in New York City. His passion for musical theater came to fruition when, at the age of 20, he made his Broadway debut in Spring Awakening. He went on to roles in Broadway’s Bye Bye Birdie, War Horse, and The Book of Mormon. His work was recognized with a Tony for best actor in a Broadway musical for Company in 2021. He starred in Sinatra the Musical that premiered in England the summer of 2023. The Human Rights Campaign gave him, an openly gay man, their visibility award for his work to include LBGTQ people in theater. He is also open about his mental health challenges and encourages others to seek support for their own depression and anxiety. After Redwood Doyle trained for a year at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
CHRISTINE CAVANAGH PAQUETTE (1984) has dedicated herself to improving the lives of struggling people in our society. She began her professional life working with special needs children outside Boston, working in development and fundraising. In 2005, she became director of development at St. Vincent de Paul Society in Marin and became its director in 2013. Under her leadership, St. Vincents has implemented evidence-based practices to prevent and end homelessness for thousands of Marin residents each year. Key accomplishments include quadrupling the agency’s budget during her tenure; launching the County’s Homeless Outreach Team which helped to reduce chronic homelessness in Marin County by 28 percent in two years; and expanding critical services and fund development for low income and homeless residents during the Covid-19 crisis. For her work to end homelessness, she was awarded a Heart of Marin Excellence in Leadership Award. Christine earned a B.A. in English from UC Berkeley.
2023 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
WENDY NG (1975), has made impressive contributions during her career, first as a professor of sociology, department chair and associate dean at San Jose State and now as dean at Cal State East Bay. She graduated from Mills College, worked for Americorps in an anti-poverty program in New York then earned her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. At San Jose she worked to enact policies enabling student retention and graduation. As dean at East Bay she leads 17 departments with 21 majors and two research centers. Her awards include a 4-year Minority Fellowship and Dissertation award from the American Sociological Association, the Millennium Scholars Program of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), and the Magoichi Graduate Scholarship from the Japanese American Citizens League. She has published a number of articles and books including several on the Japanese American internment during World War II.
Astonishing social media innovator RONNIE SINGH (2000) quit his job as a lawyer to work in sports administration, then established himself as a social media influencer through his work for Novato’s NBA 2K video games. Known as Ronnie2K, he started as a top player of NBA 2K5, ran the message boards and then was hired as the digital marketing director at 2K. Leveraging his passion for gaming, he has facilitated athletes, musicians and influencers to collaborate, along the way promoting NBA players to boost their ratings. During the pandemic, he produced the NBA 2K Player’s Tournament on ESPN with record participation. Honored for his work with Make-A-Wish, he devotes significant time to community service. With the 2k Foundation, he opened basketball courts in disadvantaged communities in the U.S. and abroad. He also works with students in the mentoring program at Redwood. He graduated from UC San Diego.
DILYS WALKER (1978), a global expert in maternal newborn quality of care, is a professor in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences. She directs a research group focused on maternal mortality, family planning and reproductive health. In 2013 she co-founded PRONTO International, an NGO working to make birth safer for mothers, infants, and their caregivers in limited resource settings. PRONTO achieves this by delivering highly realistic simulation and team training programs around the world. While living and working in Mexico for over a decade, Walker led efforts to build the evidence to support the re-introduction of midwifery in Mexico. She led an initiative to reduce preterm birth in Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. In Madagascar and Malawi she works with partners to improve postpartum hemorrhage care. She is a strategic advisor to the World Health organization. She graduated from UC Berkeley, earned her M.D. at UC San Diego and residency at the University of Pennsylvania.
2022 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
With an extensive list of credits and awards, PETER HORTON (1971) has been a leader in the entertainment industry promoting diversity, social justice,
and the environment. He acted in 85 episodes of thirtysomething, the Emmy Award-winning ABC series and was awarded a Golden Globe for directing the pilot of Grey’s Anatomy and producing the first three years. He is currently director and executive producer for NBC’s New Amsterdam winning an Environmental Media Association award, two Hollywood Critics Association awards and the Norman Leer Sentinel award for “Imaging a Culture of Health.” Horton was also nominated for an Emmy for directing a pilot of Grey’s Anatomy. He mentored dozens of directors and was on NBC’s Female Forward Board mentoring future female directors. He runs his own production company and co-founded Jobs For A Future, helping young men get out of gangs. Ever versatile, Horton wrote an investigation for the LA Times on the death of GM’s first electric car. He earned an AB in music from Principia College.
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During her career as an oncologist, DR. KRISTA MUIRHEAD (1977), has been recognized for her compassionate care of cancer patients and their families. With great empathy, she supported patients to help them extend their lives with dignity and spirited purpose. Her patients and their families received expert medical support but also an ally during times of enormous stress and uncertainty. She was Chief of Oncology for Kaiser in San Rafael for five years and in 2011 she received the Healing Professional Award from Zero Breast Cancer. After retiring in 2019, she volunteered for The MAVEN Project, consulting with doctors and nurses treating indigenous and low-income patients. She also provides free second opinions to adults in California with cancers through the online site The Second Opinion. Dr. Muirhead went to UC San Diego, studied in Poitiers, France, then graduated from UC Berkeley. She got her MD at McGill University in 1992 then completed her residency at UCSF.
DAVID WARNER (1972) Graduated in 1976 from the College of Natural Resources, UC Berkeley. David worked in construction during high school and college. In 1981 David founded Redhorse Constructors with wife and high school sweetheart, Suzanne; becoming a leader in green technologies and restorative/resilient building systems through the integrated use of; energy, water, sanitation, and repurposed materials. David holds several patents for his related inventions. Named US Builder of the Year by the NAHB and KQED’s Green Means Environmental Hero. David served as technical advisor to Sir David Adjaye’s submittal for the Obama Presidential Center, Chicago and Sir Richard Branson’s Green Island Initiative. In 2010 with actor Connie Nelson, David began The Human Needs Project in Kibera, Kenya; using market-based solutions to establish sanitation and safe water supply to create community opportunities. David has built sound studios, collaborating with Metallica, Green Day, Huey Lewis, The Grateful Dead, and Sammy Hagar.
2021 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
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ELLEN DAVIS ‘67 is a biblical scholar who asks an unusual question: How caN ancient texts guide faith communities, Jewish and Christian, in responding to urgent contemporary issues, including interfaith relations, climate change, and land degradation? In Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian
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GORDON NESS ’72 graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a B.A. degree in business and had a successful high-tech career, becoming president of a circuit board company in Silicon Valley. Then, an addiction to alcohol led to a mid-life career change to the field of addiction treatment and recovery. While managing his recovery through Oxford House, a sober living group home in Virginia, he shifted to supporting others in recovery. He became an expert in treatment, the challenge of sober living, group recovery homes, and prison inmate reentry. As PR director of the Virginia State Association of Oxford Houses, he promoted the benefits of group homes in the community, prisons, recovery meetings, and social service agencies. From 2005 until his death in 2014 he assumed positions in Williamsburg, Virginia, in a number of organizations providing treatment, sober group homes, and transitional support.
The entrepreneurial spirit of JOSH REEVES ‘01 shines as he supports small businesses with creative software. His startup Gusto has recently morphed from a payroll company to one offering a range of financial services including tools to help employees eliminate credit card debt and obtain health care. Reeves co-founded Gusto in 2011, now a 500-employee company with a valuation of over $3.8 billion serving over 100,000 small businesses. His goal, however, was never to amass wealth. His service ethos sparked at Stanford where he realized that tech could be used to solve big problems and that he could help family and friends, small business owners, solve their problems. Today as Gusto CEO Reeves is using public forums to advise the country in helping small businesses survive during the pandemic. At Stanford Reeves won a Lewis Terman Award as one of the top 5% engineering graduates and completed a masters degree before co-founding his first successful venture Unwrap that he sold in 2010.
2020 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
When breastfeeding her second child in 2001, LAURA HOLMES HADDAD (1993), was diagnosed with Stage IV inflammatory breast cancer. The tumor grew during two cycles of chemotherapy, but she was admitted to a trial of a targeted therapy in Los Angeles. From Marin, she went to L.A. every week for six months until the cancer had shrunk enough to be removed in a 13-hour surgery. After more chemotherapy, she was finally cancer free. A successful food blogger, cookbook editor, and author, Holmes Haddad was determined to write a cancer survivor book different from the earnest memoirs at hand. Her book, This Is Cancer: Everything You Need to Know from the Waiting Room to the Bedroom is blunt, humorous and comforting, with vital information for cancer patients. She has become an activist in helping patients obtain critical services, appearing in ads and speaking at fund-raising events. Holmes Haddad graduated from Smith College and the California Culinary Academy.
GARY KUHN (1975), enjoyed a successful career in marketing and administration for IBM, Adobe Systems and Autodesk. After working as a consultant for international tech companies on establishing markets in the U.S., in 1997 he and his wife Heidi started Roots of Peace, in the spirit of Princess Diana, to remove landmines worldwide. They removed mines but also developed agriculture, tourism, education and government. Kuhn traveled to war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Congo, Angola, Croatia and Yemen often wearing a bulletproof vest and was successful in enabling farmers to find markets and achieve economic stability for their regions. With his children and colleagues, in 2016 he started Noble House Spice now importing saffron and cumin from Afghanistan and black pepper from Viet Nam. Kuhn has long coached youth soccer and with Heidi started On Equal Footing to provide funding for youths on select soccer teams. Kuhn graduated from UC Berkeley in economics.
Inspired by his Harvard Law School experience, while still in school, JOHN J. OSBORN, JR (1963), wrote The Paper Chase (1972), a wildly successful novel featuring a brilliant, exacting and intimidating professor. The novel generated an equally successful movie and two television shows. The novel has been required reading for law students. Osborn took a job as a law professor in Miami after Harvard, but with emergence of The Paper Chase, he moved to California to write novels and screen plays. His third novel The Associates was also made into a television show. In1987 he returned to academia as a lecturer at Boalt Hall and then in 2001 became a law professor at the University of San Francisco Law School. He retired in 2017 to write fiction once again and published his fifth novel Listen to the Marriage in 2018. Osborn earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard. John passed away in October of 2022. Tribute
2019 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
GRANT DAVIS (1980) As General Manager of the Sonoma county Water
Agency (Sonoma Water) Grant Davis '80 has been working to protect and
restore the Russian River watershed to provide safe and reliable drinking
water to Marin and Sonoma Counties. Davis worked for Sonoma Water from
2007-2017 and after a brief stint as Director of the California Department of
Water Resources, he returned to help with recovery from the fires. Under his
leadership, Sonoma Water has attracted national attention for sustainable
water initiatives including Carbon Free Water, a program that established entirely renewable supplies of the organization's electricity. He has also let the ambitious Dry Creek Habitat Restoration project. Prior to joining the agency, Davis was Executive Director of the Bay Institute, a science-based nonprofit, dedicated to protecting the San Francisco Bay-Delta Watershed and improving water management in California. Davis received his BA in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.
MICHAEL JACOBS (1972) established himself as one of the leading
intellectual property attorneys in the world, recently representing Apple in
their suit against Samsung and Uber in a suit brought by Waymo.. After
graduating from Stanford (1977), he served in the U.S Foreign Service in
Jamaica and Washington, D. C. With his degree from Yale Law School
1983) he joined Morrison & Foerster Law Firm in San Francisco
and launched his career in intellectual property litigation. He co-founded
his firm's intellectual property group, and his work on behalf of clients such as Fujitsu, Intel and Autodesk has helped shape laws governing emerging technologies. He has also obtained important successes in pro bono cases, notably in the landmark Williams v. State of California class action that addressed conditions in California's lowest performing schools. Jacobs has gained wide acclaim, including thrice winning the California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year (CLAY) award.
A leader in biomedical research, CIGALL KADOCH (2001) got her
start in Skip Lovelady's Honors BioMed Class. She is now a
professor at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute. She runs a 25-person laboratory that studies how a specific
class of mutations leads to the development of cancer. Kadoch also
founded a private company, Foghorn Therapeutics, to discover new
cancer drugs. For her pioneering work in developing new treatments
for various types of cancer, she has received numerous prestigious awards. Kadoch received her B. A from UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. in cancer biology from the Stanford University School of Medicine. Even with her dual academic and biotech existence and frequent commitments to share her work all over the world, she still manages to return every year to room 228 to spend time with the next generation of scientists, BioMed students.
MATTHEW LEUTWYLER (1984) studied film at the San Francisco Art
Institute before becoming a successful film and television writer, director and
producer. He produced a number of films, including an award-wining
comedy-horror-musical Dead & Breakfast in 2004 and the 2005 critically
acclaimed drama, The Squid and the Whale. In 2012 he took time off to
travel to Rwanda to volunteer at the Noel Orphanage. Seeing the winning
spirit of the children in less than ideal circumstances inspired him to found
We Are Limitless (WAL) to provide orphans with boarding school educations. In 2014 Leutwyler founded Accelerated Matter that produces socially relevant but commercial films as one way to raise money for WAL. He recently produced and filmed a comedy TV pilot set in Rwanda skewering the idea that whites and their industrial knowhow can save Africa. He is currently building a restaurant to provide WAL grads with jobs, spending money and a resumé entry.
2018 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
ALICIA SCHWARTZ GARZA (1998) Alicia believes that Black communities deserve what all communities deserve -- to be powerful in every aspect of their lives. An author, political strategist, organizer, and cheeseburger enthusiast, Alicia founded the Black Futures Lab to make Black communities powerful in politics. She is the co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, serves as Advisor to the President for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and is a co-founder of Supermajority, a new home for women’s activism. Alicia has become a powerful voice in the media and frequently contributes thoughtful opinion pieces and expert commentary on politics, race and more to outlets such as MSNBC and The New York Times. She has received numerous accolades and recognitions, including being on the cover of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World issue and being named to Bloomberg's 50 and Politico's 50 lists. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart (One World Penguin Random House), and she warns you: hashtags don’t start movements, people do.
CYNTHIA BOECK HARDY (1977) After graduating from UC Berkeley in 1982 Cynthia Boeck Hardy ’77 traveled the world landing in Bali, Indonesia where she met her husband with whom she created a jewelry business, John Hardy, an international success. At its height the business employed 1500 workers. She and her husband also owned the Bambu Indah, the premier eco-boutique hotel in Bali. After leaving the jewelry business in 2007, Hardy co-founded the international K-12 Green School that opened with 92 students, 19 Balinese children on scholarship. Now with 400 students, programs include green studies, environmental science, entrepreneurship, and creative arts. The school models sustainability and green principles by using renewable resources including bamboo in construction, renewable energy sources when possible and school buses that run on retread cooking oil. The school “prepares students to be stewards of the environment, teaching them to be critical and creative thinkers, who champion the sustainability of the world and the environment.”
SARAH KELLY OEHLER (1991) At the top of her profession as a curator and art historian, Sarah Kelly Oehler '91 was recently promoted by the Chicago Art Institute to chief curator of American art. The appointment was recognition of her “thoughtful leadership” in bringing outstanding exhibitions and publications to the public: in 2013, Chicago and the Art of Migration, 1910-1950 showing how migrants to Chicago established identities, found inspiration and addressed social injustices; in 2016 Shatter Rupture Break on modern art; also in 2016 America After the Fall; Painting in the 1930’s also exhibited in Paris and London showing artists struggling with expression during the Great Depression. She currently is presenting Whistler’s Mother: An American Icon Returns to Chicago and in spring 2018 Charles White: A Retrospective exhibiting the works of an African American artist portraying the beauty, dignity and strength of Blacks in America. The show will also appear in New York City and Los Angeles. Oehler graduated from Yale and earned a Ph.d in art history from Columbia.
ROBERT K WATSON ( 1979) founded the LEED Green Building Rating System in 1993 to encourage sustainable design to mitigate the damage commercial buildings can do to the environment. While still chairing LEED, to promote green building worldwide, Watson started EcoTech International, a consulting firm. And 1985 to 2006 Watson worked for the National Resources Defense Council on sustainable buildings, utilities and transportation around the world. He helped China develop green building standards and energy codes for both commercial and residential buildings and helped Russia improve residential building codes. He worked in Belarus, Bolivia Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Ukraine on sustainable energy and green development. A Dartmouth grad, Watson earned an MBA from Columbia and an MS degree from UC Berkeley. He is an Invited Lecturer at Yale and has received numerous awards for his conservation work notably in 2002 a lifetime leadership award for his work as “Father of LEED.”
2017 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
REBECCA BURGESS (1996) is a leader and innovator in sustainable farming systems and supply chains that benefit the climate and local economies. She is the founder and executive director of Fibershed, and chair of the Board for Carbon Cycle Institute. She has over a decade of experience writing and implementing a hands-on curriculum that focuses on the intersection of restoration ecology and fiber systems. One of her goals is to promote the use of non-polluting materials to make textiles and clothing now imported from Asia and manufactured with oil-based fiber, toxic chemicals and questionable labor practices. She has built an extensive network of farmers and artisans in Northern California to pilot the regenerative fibers systems model at the community scale. Her project has become internationally recognized with over 53 Fibershed communities now in existence. Burgess completed her AB at UC Davis in 2001 and a master’s in education from Dominican in 2009 studying art, nature and culture and education. She has taught at Westminster College, Harvard University, and has created workshops for a range of NGOs and corporations. She is the author of the best-selling book Harvesting Color, a bioregional look into the natural dye traditions of North America and Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy released in 2019.
CATHY CONNOR (1970) entered the then male-dominated field of Earth Science, earning her B.S. and M.S. in Geology at Stanford by 1975. She joined the Peace Corps that year to teach geology at a Malaysian university. Her work for the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park and Anchorage led to a PhD at the University of Montana, 1984. In Juneau after her marriage and the birth of her children, she became a professor at the University of Alaska Southeast (now Professor Emerita) where she helped to establish an Environmental Science degree. During summers she is on the faculty of the Juneau Icefield Research Program. When she's not inspecting rocks, sediments, and ice, she's surveying her beloved Alaskan landscape on skis or from boats, depending on the season. Among numerous other publications, book chapters, journal articles and technical reports, she published Roadside Geology in 2014 to help laymen understand active tectonic processes and climate change in Alaska. An Outstanding Faculty Award winner in 2008, Connor has trained forest service naturalists, Alaska’s science teachers and promoted experiential science education in Juneau.
Writer and Producer DREW Z GREENBERG (1988) has spent nearly three decades telling stories on television. While his goal is to entertain his audience, Greenberg enjoys finding ways to champion diversity and LGBT visibility. In 2001 he joined the writing staff of “Buffy and the Vampire Slayer,” a show inspiring rabid fans and hundreds of academic papers. Greenberg is particularly proud of its cultural impact. “…[the] show…explored the concept of what it means to be an ‘other’ – one of those people considered outside the norm even when you know you have something valuable to contribute to society. It’s an idea that is close to my gay heart,” he wrote. Other credits include Firefly, Dexter, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Smallville, Warehouse 13 and his current show Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. He has been nominated for GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Drama Series. Greenberg earned a B.A. from UCLA in 1993 and a J.D. from Santa Clara University in 1997. During law school, he started to explore TV writing and soon found his way to Los Angeles.
Actor and comedian MAZ JOBRANI (1989) has toured the world using humor to break stereotypes and explain what it’s like growing up as a Middle Easterner in America. He has had many comedy specials, including his Netflix special, “Immigrant,” filmed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. He was one of the featured performers of the “Axis of Evil Comedy Tour,” started in 2005 to address racism in the post 9/11 world. He has been on many TV shows including The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Grey’s Anatomy, and more. He is a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and has given 2 TED talks on his work to break stereotypes. In 2015 he published a best-selling book “I’m Not a Terrorist But I’ve Played One on TV,” that garnered a rave review from the New York Times. His latest special, “The Birds & The Bees,” was filmed at the famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles and released on Youtube. Jobrani earned a B.A. from UC Berkeley in 1993, and began working on a PhD at UCLA before breaking into the entertainment business. He gave the Commencement speech at his alma mater in 2017 and performed at the White House, introducing Michelle Obama, in 2016. He is married with two children.
2016 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants!
DAVID DUKES (1963) began acting at Redwood with drama teacher, Joe Wadling-ton. Later, he studied with ACT in San Francisco and then enjoyed an outstanding 30-year career until his sudden death in 2000. He appeared in 35 films including Me and the Kid, Only When I Laugh, The First Deadly Sin (with Frank Sinatra) and the Oscar-winning Gods and Monsters in 1998. He was cast in many TV movies including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Band Played On and the Josephine Baker Story for which he earned an Emmy nomination for best supporting actor. He had 18 plays in his credits and after his Broadway debut in 1971 in School for Wives, he appeared in many more Broadway productions notably M. Butterfly, Broken Glass and with Richard Gere in the Nazi war camp play Bent for which he received a Tony nomination. His wife, Carol Muske Dukes, and Jon Lithgow established the David Dukes Memorial Scholarship at the USC School of Theater.
DEVRA JARVIS (1977) is President and Founding Director of The Raffaella Foundation, Coordinator of the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research (PAR), Adjunct Faculty at Washington State University, Adjunct Professor at IAV Hassan II, Morocco, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. She holds a PhD in Botany/Palynology, an MSc in Forest Research Management, and a BA Honors in Anthropology. From 1991 to 1995 Jarvis worked for the UN World Food Program, in China as M&E officer, and in Uganda as Head, Emergency and Relief. From 1996 to 2021, Jarvis worked at Bioversity, collaborating with national partners in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia Morocco, Vietnam, China, Nepal, Hungary, Jordan, Iran, Syria, Sri Lanka, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Ethiopia, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, USA, and EU developing scientific evidence to support the use of local crop biodiversity to improve the production and resilience of small-holder farmers. She currently hosts the Diversity Assessment Tool for Agrobiodiversity and Resilience (DATAR), which links the assessment of crop, livestock and aquaculture biodiversity to development actions.
TOM TIERNEY (1972) Tom Tierney’s professional experience spans a wide range: CEO, social entrepreneur, author, teacher, philanthropic advisor and consultant. In 1976, Tom earned a BA in Economics from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1980. He joined Bain & Company in 1980, and in June 1992 was appointed CEO. In 2000, Tom left his position to co-found The Bridgespan Group, an independent nonprofit focused on helping philanthropists and nonprofits, while simultaneously generating practical knowledge to be shared freely across the social sector. As a full-time volunteer, he focuses his energy on initiatives that enhance the flow and effectiveness of philanthropic capital, while personally supporting a select number of exceptional donors. He has co-written two books, Aligning the Stars (2002) and Give Smart: Philanthropy That Gets Results (2011) and has lectured at many venues, including Duke, Harvard Business School and Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He currently serves on several boards including the Gates Foundation and Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Initiative. Tom remains a creative, curious and avid learner.
GERRY WARBURG (1972) is a Professor of Public Policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Warburg is the author of the newly published Saving Point Reyes: How an Epic Conservation Victory Became a Tipping Point for Environmental Policy Action where he explores the complex personalities and politics involved in preserving a newly designated national seashore in California in 1962 . Prior to joining Batten, Gerry made substantial contributions to shaping national policy as a longtime U.S. Senate leadership aide where he was the key congressional staffer guiding such arms control and human rights measures as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, the Anti-Apartheid Sanctions Act, and the nuclear policy reform efforts culminating in the abolition of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. He was the lead faculty member on the Batten School’s first massive open online course “The Public Policy Challenges of the 21 st Century” which drew more than 300,000 students on Coursera, and served as Assistant Dean at UVa’s new Batten School of Leadership. He is the former managing partner of a leading Washington public affairs firm, a political commentator, and the author of several books on policy making, as well as a novel about international espionage.M.A. Political Science, Stanford University. B.A. Political Science, Hampshire College
2015 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants
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SCOTT EVANS (1986), premier rocket scientist, manages a Jet Propulsion Laboratory team that builds navigation software for space explorations, recently for the successful Mars rover, Perseverance, that landed in February of 2021. Landing a rover at a moving target after a flight of some 350 million miles in a prearranged spot requires exacting math and thousands of operations programmed flawlessly. His navigation system (Monte), replacing one in use since Apollo, first few the Phoenix mission to Mars, landing in 2008. More recently Monte was used to fly the Kepler mission to find extrasolar planets, the Parker Solar Probe to understand the solar corona, and is set to return humans to the Moon on the Artemis 2 mission. The system has been used to assist India, Japan, and the European Union in navigating their space missions. Monte was JPL’s Software of the Year and runner up for NASA’s award. Scott helped found the Redwood cycling team and coxed the rowing team, national champions in 1984. He placed 17th in the Olympic cycling trials in 2000. He earned a B.S. at Stanford and a Ph.D at UCLA, both in astro physics.
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JOAN LUBAMERSKY (1968) has set a high standard for community service at the local, state and federal level. After University of San Francisco, she chose a career in public service including stints as staff at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and in the Office of the Secretary of the Interior where she managed federal grants to programs like the California Conservations Corps. She became advisor to the City Administrator of San Francisco, writing contracts and managing special projects including developing a neighborhood beautification fund; performing executive recruitment, and helping to create an online donations portal for the City. She served for five years on the Marin County Planning Commission, was elected to the Larkspur City Council and was mayor for four terms, working to ensure orderly development and financial stability for the town. Joan also served as district representative for the State Assembly, helping residents solve problems with state agencies and performing outreach to the community. She was named Woman of the Year for Marin and Sonoma by the State Legislature in 2022.
EMILY PILLOTON-LAM (1999) is already a force in public interest design. After graduating from UC Berkeley and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with degrees in architecture, she founded the nonprofit Project H Design in 2008 to use design and architecture to create social change. Project H works to use design and project-based education to nurture leadership and problem-solving skills. With students in her Studio H high school program and Girls Garage after-school and summer programs, she has built a farmers market pavilion, tiny homes for the unhoused, a school library, a public bus stop, urban farm structures, and more. Project H has educated over 500 students ages 9-17 in year-long academic classes and summer camps. Emily was a 2009 PopTech social innovation fellow, has presented at TEDGlobal and gave the commencement address at Cal in 2012. She has published two books, Tell Them I Built This about her experience in 2009 empowering the youth in a rural North Carolina town, and Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People. Her most recent awards include: AIA SF Community Alliance Award, 2022; AIGA SF Fellow Award, 2022 and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ YBCA100 (Girls Garage), 2019.
TIFFANY SHLAIN (1988) Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is an artist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, founder of the Webby Awards and author of the national bestselling book 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week winner of the Marshall McLuhan Outstanding Book Award. Tiffany’s work has received over 80 awards and distinctions including being selected for the Albert Einstein Foundation’s Genius 100 for people that continue his legacy. Her films, which have a focus on neuroscience, creativity, women’s rights, and the relationship between technology and humanity, have premiered at top festivals including Sundance. The Museum of Modern Art in New York premiered her Spoken Cinema performance, Dear Human. Tiffany's work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Elle, and Jeopardy. At Redwood, she was a features editor of the Redwood Bark and was one of the first girls to be on the boy's water polo team (more as a feminist statement than due to swimming acumen). She graduated from UC Berkeley in 1992 and was later invited to give the commencement address in 2010 which NPR listed on its “Best Commencement Speeches, Ever.” tiffanyshlain.com and follow on IG, FB, and TW @tiffanyshlain.
ROBIN WILLIAMS (1969) burst onto the national scene as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork & Mindy. He established an outstanding career in stand-up comedy and film acting. He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Good Will Hunting, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and five Grammy Awards. His film credits include the acclaimed films, Good Morning, Vietnam; Dead Poets Society; Awakenings; The Fisher King; and Mrs. Doubtfire. He was known for his personal humanitarian gestures and philanthropy. He raised millions for the homeless, entertained overseas troops, contributed significantly to disaster relief funds and a range of charities supporting health initiatives in the U.S. and abroad. He enrolled at Claremont Men’s College then transferred to the College of Marin to study acting and then studied on a full acting scholarship at the Julliard School in New York City (1973-76). He passed away in 2014.
2014 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants
VINCANNE ADAMS (1977) After years of researching women’s health issues and traditional medicine in Nepal, Tibet and China, Vincanne Adams focused her research on displacement and politics of redevelopment in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She currently is a professor and vice-chair of Medical Anthropology, in the Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Adams has previously published six books on the social dynamics of health, scientific knowledge and politics, including most recently, Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina (2013), and Metrics: What Counts in Global Health (2016). She is currently editor for Medical Anthropology Quarterly, the flagship journal for the Society for Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association. She taught at UCSF School of Medicine since 2000 and was an asst./assoc. professor in Anthropology at Princeton from 1992-2000. B.A. Biology, Brown University; Ph.D. Medical Anthropology, UC Berkeley/San Francisco.
SUZI ESZTERHAS (1994), wildlife photographer, has been slapped by an alpha male chimpanzee and chased by a green mamba as she pursued her childhood dream of photographing wild animals in the field. She achieved prominence in documenting the family life of endangered species and published her photos in books, magazines and newspapers worldwide; her photo of an Adelie penguin appeared on the cover of Time in 2007. Her photographs have been published in over 100 magazine cover and feature stories in publications such as TIME, Smithsonian, BBC Wildlife, GEO, Popular Photography, Ranger Rick, and National Geographic Kids. She now has 25 books in print. She has won several awards including Wildlife Photographer of the Year and in 2021 Outstanding Photographer of the Year by the North American Nature Photography Association.At UC Santa Cruz, Eszterhas majored in environmental studies to better understand the subjects of her photos and has since contributed significantly to environmental causes. She is a fellow in the International League of Conservation Photographers and won the Environmental Photographer of the Year Competition. She spends up to nine months in the field, mostly in Africa, and also conducts photo safaris to Central and South America and Asia.
MICHELE MARKOFF (1970) is currently an Instructor at the National War College after serving as the Department of State Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Cyberspace Security in the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. She is also the recipient of the prestigious National Defense University College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC) 2023 Admiral Grace Hopper Award for distinguished service in the fields of information and cyberspace in national security, with a track record in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. She was concurrently made CIC’s inaugural Distinguished Scholar for her years of support to NDU’s cyber curriculum. Michele Markoff has been a leader since 1998 in developing diplomatic strategies to get allies and other countries to protect their cyber networks from terrorism thereby protecting linked U.S. national networks. Her initiative in developing diplomatic strategies led to the first-ever bilateral agreement on cyber space with the Russian Federation in 2013. Michele also has been the United States Government Expert on five Groups of UN Government Experts devoted to international security cyber issues. The last three GGEs led to landmark consensus reports regarding norms for state activity in cyberspace. Ms. Markoff is also the architect of two agreements on cyber confidence-building measures in the Organization of Security Cooperation in Europe, and a similar initiative in the ASEAN Regional Forum. B.A. International Relations, Reed College; an M.A. International Relations and M.Phil. Political Science, Yale University; M.S. National Security Strategy National War College.
THOMAS D. SEIDENBERG (1968) was excited when he was awarded the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching in 1987 partly because he knew that two Redwood teachers had won the award before him. He began his teaching career in Washington state where he taught math and coached basketball and tennis for 15 years before moving to Exeter, NH to teach math and coach for the next 30 years, retiring in 2019. He was a Woodrow Wilson National Fellow in the summer of 1985 and afterwards was chosen as one of a four-person team to conduct workshops for math teachers around the country and overseas for the next twelve years. He was director of the Anja S. Greer Conference on Teaching Mathematics for 25 years and won the Tandy Technology Award (1997) and, at Exeter, the Brown Teaching Award (1996) for superior teaching, the Rupert Radford Faculty Fellowship Award (2005) for distinguished service. Moreover, he was appointed the Bates-Russell Distinguished Faculty Professor for 2010 to 2015, an endowed position allowing him to pursue projects and independent research for the five-year term of the professorship. B.S. (Geology) Whitworth University, M.A.T (Mathematics) Central Washington State University
2013 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants
GINA DENT (1983) Gina Dent has demonstrated outstanding leadership in devoting her academic career to the difficult and compelling issues of race, gender and diversity. Gina is Humanities Associate Dean of DEI and Professor of Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness and Legal Studies at UC Santa Cruz where she has won multiple awards for her teaching, advocacy and research. She is the editor of Black Popular Culture and author of articles on race, feminism, popular culture, and visual art. Currently, she serves as Co-Director for Visualizing Abolition, a project designed to redirect social resources away from prisons by accessing the power of the arts. Her recent projects also grow out of her decades-long work as an advocate for prison abolition including Abolition. Feminism. Now. (co-authored with Angela Davis, Erica Meiners, and Beth Richie), and the in-progress works Visualizing Abolition (co-edited with Rachel Nelson) and Prison as a Border, on popular culture and the conditions of knowledge.Ph.D English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University
MARILEE ELLIS ROGERS (1961) Marilee Rogers’ exemplary service to the community began as a Redwood student and after graduation from UC Berkeley continued during her 32 years teaching social studies, Environmental Education and art at Redwood. She was a popular teacher and wrote the curriculum for Social Issues, Art History, and initiated several innovative programs including Service Learning. After retirement she established the Redwood Alumni Association in 2006 and co-chaired Redwood’s 50th Anniversary Celebration in 2009. As co-chair, and now Co-President of the Redwood Alumni Association, she helped to establish the Avenue of the Giants and the Redwood Athletic Hall of Fame to recognize distinguished alums. In 1996 and 1997 The Marin Independent Journal named her one of the “People Who Make a Difference” in recognition for her work as Wellness Coordinator for Redwood. She is also Co-President of the Kentfield Greenbrae Historical Society, having been chair of the Kentfield Centennial Celebration in 2014. Since her retirement in 2001, she has become an accomplished watercolor artist participating in many local exhibitions and winning several awards.
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JOAN HILTY (1985) Joan Hilty is one of very few women to achieve prominence in the comic book industry. She graduated from Brown University in 1989 with concurrent study at the Rhode Island School of Design; her illustrations and comics have appeared in the Village Voice, Ms. and many independent comics titles. From 1995-2010 she was an editor at DC Comics, editing many titles including Batman and The Flash, as well as developing award-winning original graphic novels such as Cairo. From 2001-2012 she drew the nationally syndicated gay comic strip Bitter Girl. In 2000 she was featured in the Picturing the Modern Amazon exhibition at New York City’s New Museum. She is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the boutique book production company Pageturner, with clients across publishing, entertainment and transmedia, and teaches on the faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.She currently works at Nickelodeon Animation / Paramount. www.joanhilty.net/
DOUGLAS WOODRING (1984) has tackled the formidable challenge of plastic pollution in the ocean. He is the Founder and Director of the Ocean Recovery Alliance, a non-profit organization which is focused on bringing together innovative solutions, technology, collaborations and policy to create positive improvements for the health of the ocean. Two of its global programs were launched at the Clinton Global Initiative, and he was awarded the 2018 Prince’s Prize for Innovative Philanthropy by Prince Albert of Monaco. He is a UN Climate Hero, and Google Earth Hero, and Ocean Recovery Alliance is one of the few NGOs to have worked with both UNEP and the World Bank on plastic pollution issues, and is the founder of the Plasticity Forum which focuses on plastic innovation and solutions for circularity. Captain of the Redwood Swimming and Water Polo teams, in 2019 he was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame for his innovative contributions to the sport, and was also named as one of the top 50 “watermen” in the world. He has a dual masters degree from The Wharton School and Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies and a BA in Economics and Political Science from UC Berkeley.
2012 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants
ANTHONY JAMES BARKOVICH (1970 is a Professor Emeritus and served as the Chief of Pediatric Neuroradiology in the Department of Radiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Barkovich received his medical degree from George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and completed his residency in Radiology from Letterman AMC, San Francisco in 1984, followed by a fellowship in Neuroradiology from Walter Reed AMC in 1986. Dr. Barkovich was also President of the American Society of Neuroradiology 1998-1999 and Secretary General of the World Federation of Neuroradiological Societies from 2002-2006. He specialized in the diagnosis of neurological disorders in infants and children. His main research interests include neonatal brain injury and the use of magnetic resonance (MR) to better understand both normal brain development and to recognize and classify genetic disorders that underlie abnormal brain development.
GILLIAN BENET SELLA (1983), one of America’s preeminent harpists, graduated cum laude from Harvard University and earned her Master of Music and doctoral degrees from the Juilliard School. At Juilliard she was selected for the prestigious Sony E.S. Musical Excellence Award in 1993. That year she also won the Artists International Competition, with it a solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall. She twice won first prize in the American Harp Society National Competition. Gillian has made numerous solo appearances in the U.S. and abroad. She has been Principal Harpist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since 1995, Gillian was formerly Principal Harpist of the Israel Philharmonic and the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra. She is Adjunct Assistant Professor at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and has been on the jury of national and international competitions. Gillian can be heard on many solo, chamber and orchestral recordings on the Telarc and Koch labels. She lives with her husband and three children in Cincinnati.
DRUMMOND PIKE (1966) According to one of his Redwood classmates, activist Drummond Pike was always a leader. At UC Santa Cruz he was elected Campus Representative (student body president) and earned an A.B. in political science. After an M.A. from Rutgers, just 10 years after graduation from Redwood, he founded the nonprofit Tides Foundation, a pioneer donor advised fund, which in 2010 made over $143 million in grants in the U.S. and the world to organizations working for economic and social justice, democracy, and a sustainable and healthy environment. He was CEO of the Tides Network, including the Foundation, until October of 2010. Under his innovative leadership in the 1990s the Tides Foundation became a provider of a range of services for nonprofits. In 2006 he was awarded the National Philanthropy Day’s Outstanding Foundation Professional Award. A licensed commercial river guide in the Grand Canyon, in 2006, he received the Mark Dubois Award from Friends of the River.
MARK FAINARU-WADA (1983) With his San Francisco Chronicle colleague Lance Williams, investigative reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada broke one of the foremost sports stories of our times, the BALCO Steroids Case, which centered on star athletes who used drugs to enhance their performances. Their reporting helped reform professional baseball and other sports, and the two reporters wrote a best-selling book, “Game of Shadows -- Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports.” While covering the BALCO story, Fainaru-Wada and Williams refused to name a source and were threatened with an 18-month prison term; the case was dropped when the source came forth voluntarily. Also, with his brother and fellow Avenue of Giants member Steve Fainaru (1980), Fainaru-Wada wrote the best-selling book, “League of Denial – The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth.” The two also collaborated with PBS Frontline on a documentary based on their reporting. Fainaru-Wada has won a string of national journalism honors, including two George Polk Awards, a Peabody and two Emmys. He currently works for ESPN’s investigative unit.
2011 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants
MICHELE DE NEVERS (1972) is the executive director of sustainability programs at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and has been tasked with making Haas the best business school for sustainability. She also teaches Climate Change science at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis International. She was Senior Manager for the Environment Department of the World Bank for three decades, closely involved in the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and led development of 2011 World Bank Group corporate Environment Strategy. She was responsible for the Bank’s activities on climate change, biodiversity, natural resource management, corporate environmental and social responsibility, pollution management, and environmental economics and policy. With the World Bank Institute from 2000 to 2008, she was a director of Capacity Development Programs in human development, poverty reduction, sustainable development and finance and private sector development and helped launch the Bank’s greening and corporate social and environmental reporting initiatives. She earned a B.A in bacteriology at UC Berkeley and M.S. in management and finance from M.I.T. She has served on a number of boards including currently as advisor for the Wolfensohn Center of the Brookings Institution.
PETER H. FISHER (1978) Peter Fisher has been a full professor of physics at M.I.T. since 2001 and currently head of the Division of Experimental Particle and Nuclear Physics responsible for recruiting and educating graduate students. He earned his B.S. in engineering physics at UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. from Cal Tech. His main work recently includes developing a new dark matter detector and experiments to search for dark matter and antimatter. He was also on a team that designed and constructed the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer that flew on the space shuttle Discovery to search for antimatter in cosmic rays. Fisher has 26 peer-reviewed articles and over 300 other publications to his credit and has served on several review panels and editorial boards. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society, received a Ferry Fund Research Award and the Buechner Teaching Prize for excellence in physics teaching. His early work on dark matter had significant impact demonstrating that dark matter was not a heavy neutrino and the need for a new theory. As a leader of a group from Johns Hopkins where he was a professor from 1989 to 1994, Fisher made important measurements on the Large Electron-Positron collider at CERN that will hold sway for some time. He was named a fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020. In September 2022, Prof. Fisher became the Director of the MIT Office of Research Computing and Data (ORCD).
KEVIN LESKO (1974) Kevin Lesko is a senior physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received a B.S. from Stanford, a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and completed a post docs at the Argonne National Laboratory and Berkeley Lab. In 1987 shortly after joining the Berkeley Lab, Lesko led a team from the Lab in an international collaboration involving 70 scientists to engineering, build, and install the major detector component of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in a cavern two kilometers underground in Canada for the study of neutrinos. As the head of the Neutrino Astrophysics Group at the Lab, Lesko has been involved in analyzing data from SNO which led to some important revelations about how neutrinos change as they emit from the sun’s core and that they account for a small percentage of all dark matter, but are equal in mass to the all the stars and galaxies. The SNO experiment was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2015; Art McDonald, Queen’s University received the prize along with Takaaki Kajita, University of Tokyo. In 2004 Lesko led a team of scientists in the Homestake Collaboration to develop a proposal for an underground research facility in a former gold mine in South Dakota for the study of neutrinos, dark matter, proton decay, and nuclear astrophysics. The facility is now hosting multiple underground physics experiments studying dark matter and neutrinos. He was elected a fellow in the American Physical Society, received the Japan Society for Promotion of Science Fellowship, and a visiting fellowship to Brasenose College in Oxford. Lesko’s research now focuses on the direct detection of dark matter with the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment hosted at the Sanford Lab. In collaboration with other scientists, he has written nearly 200 peer-reviewed articles.
DAVID STRATHAIRN (1966) When HBO’s Temple Grandin won a number of Emmys in 2010, David Strathairn won an Emmy for supporting actor. In 2005, for his leading role as news commentator Edward R. Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck, Strathairn received Best Actor Golden Globe, Independent Spirit Award, and Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award nominations. After college he worked as a clown touring the country for several months. He began his acting career in 1980 in a film directed by John Sayles, a friend from Williams College, and has acted in number of Sayles’ films including Matewan, Passion Fish, Limbo, The Brother From Another Planet, and City of Hope for which Strathairn won the Independent Spirit Award. He has also appeared with Meryl Streep in The River Wild and Silkwood, Robert Redford in Sneakers, Tom Cruise in The Firm, Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum and Kim Bisinger in L.A. Confidential, a film that won a Screen Actors Guild nomination for cast performance. Strathairn has appeared on television most notably in a recurring role in The Sopranos, the acclaimed series The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd and as J. Robert Oppenheimer in the Emmy-award-winning TV drama, Day One. An accomplished stage actor, he has appeared in over thirty plays including several by Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter both on and off Broadway including Strindberg’s Dance of Death, Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Oscar Wilde’s Salome. Most recently he has appeared in Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour 2017, Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland in 2020, Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley in 2021 and Olivia Newman’s Where the Crawdads Sing.
2010 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants
GUNNAR CARLSON (1969) is one of the most renowned mathematicians in the world. Over the past 35 years, Gunnar has taught at the University of Chicago, University of California, Princeton University, and since 1991, Gunnar has been a professor of mathematics at Stanford University and Chair of the Department from 1995-1998, where he has been a thought leader in a branch of mathematics called topology, the study of shape. Gunnar pioneered the applied use of topology to solve complex real-world problems starting in the late 1990s. In the early 2000s, this work led to $10M in research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and DARPA to study the application of Topological Data Analysis (TDA) to problems of interest within the U.S. government. In 2008, based on the success of these efforts, Gunnar, along with two other Stanford mathematicians, co-founded Ayasdi, a predictive technology company based on big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence.He also co-founded Unbox AI in 2019 and is now Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. B.A., Mathematics, Harvard University. PhD, Mathematics, Stanford
STEVEN J. MCCORMICK (1969), lifelong environmentalist, is a Venture Partner at the Draper, Richards, Kaplan (DRK) Foundation which supports promising early-stage social impact organizations. In that role he serves, or has served, on the boards of six organizations. Prior to DRK he was President of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a private entity committed to environmental conservation and scientific research. McCormick was president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy from 2001-2007, after serving as Director of The California Nature Conservancy for almost 20 years. McCormick has also served on the U.C. Berkeley College of Natural Resources Advisory Board, the Advisory Board of the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise initiative, and the Sustainable Conservation Board. B.S., Agricultural Economics, University of California, Berkeley J.D., University of California Hastings College of Law.
NICHOLAS B. SUNTZEFF (1970) is a Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Regents Professor of the Texas A&M University System. He is an internationally recognized observational cosmologist and led groups that discovered Dark Energy and measured the most precise expansion of the Universe. Dark Energy was predicted by Einstein in 1917 and comprises 72% of the mass/energy of the entire Universe. Previously he was Associate Director of Science for the US National Optical Observatories and lived in La Serena, Chile, for over 20 years. In 2007, he was awarded the Gruber Cosmology Prize, and in 2016 the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He was also the Jefferson Senior Science Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences at the Department of State in the Office of Human Rights, where he was a Humanitarian Affairs Officer. In addition, the ISI named him as one of the world's 250 most cited space scientists.BS with distinction in Mathematics, Stanford University. PhD Astronomy and Astrophysics University of California, Santa Cruz and Lick Observatory
Redwood High School's 2009 Inaugural Class of Distinguished Alumni
STEVE FAINARU (1980), is a Pulitzer and Emmy-winning senior writer in ESPN’s investigative unit. He is the author of three books, including the New York Times bestseller League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth, which won the PEN/ESPN award for literary sports writing. League of Denial, written with his brother, ESPN reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada, was adapted into a documentary film for PBS Frontline and won both the George Polk Award and a Peabody Award. He won an Emmy for outstanding sports journalism in 2018 for “The Dictator’s Team,” an E60 piece on Syria’s national soccer team. Prior to joining ESPN in 2012, Steve spent ten years as a Washington Post Correspondent, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for International reporting in 2008 for his stories on how private security contractors in Iraq operate outside the law. He worked at The Boston Globe for 11 years where he covered the Red Sox, Wall Street and Latin America and worked as an investigative reporter on the national desk. B.A., University of Missouri, M.A., Columbia University.
DON FRANCIS, M.D., D.Sc (1960) has provided leadership in the discovery and control of HIV, the eradication of smallpox, and the control of Ebola hemorrhagic fever. He initially directed the AIDS laboratory at the Center for Disease Control, and his early warnings about AIDS were chronicled in Randy Shilts And the Band Played On about the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic. He joined Genetech, Inc in 1993 working on a vaccine for HIV. In 2004, he co-founded Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases (GSID) and served as Executive Director and principal investigator for their dengue fever program until his retirement in 2017. He attended College of Marin and the University of California, Berkeley, received his M. D. at Northwestern University and his Doctor of Science in Virology at Harvard University.
THE HONORABLE GAVIN NEWSOM (1985) was the youngest San Francisco mayor in more than 100 years. While still mayor of San Francisco, he was elected the 49th lieutenant governor of California in 2010, and re-elected in 2014. On November 6, 2018, Newsom was elected the 40th governor of California. He first gained national recognition as an early advocate for marriage equality, gun control, and marijuana decriminalization. Gavin is a champion for California values–from civil rights to immigration to environmental protection, education and expanding opportunity, and justice for all Californians. He initiated the plan to bring universal health care to all of the city’s uninsured residents. He has established other programs ranging from harnessing local solutions to global climate change to easing the problems of the homeless. He is a founder of PlumpJack, an enterprise of wineries, restaurants and hotels. B.A.Santa Clara University.
MARTHA OLNEY (1974) is Teaching Professor of Economics Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught from 1992 until her retirement in 2022. During her career, she also taught at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Siena College, and Stanford University. She is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003 at Cal along with numerous other teaching and mentoring awards, and was elected to the Society of Distinguished Fellows of the Economic History Association. Her research focuses on consumer spending, saving, and indebtedness in the early 20th century. She is the author or co-author of several economics textbooks, and is a frequent speaker for both high school and college instructors on issues related to pedagogy, diversifying the economics major, and the interplay between those two topics. Professor Olney currently serves as a board member of the American Economic Association (AEA) Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals (CSQIEP). B.S. University of Redlands (magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, 1978); Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (1985).
AMBASSADOR DENNIS ROSS (1966) is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He also teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, dealing directly with the parties as the U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He served two and half years as special assistant to President Obama and as National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, spending the first six months of the administration as the special advisor on Iran to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.He was awarded a Presidential Medal by President Clinton and has received the State Department’s highest award twice. Ross is the author of five books on the peace process, the Middle East, and international relations, most recently Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel's Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny (PublicAffairs, 2019), written with his colleague David Makovsky. BA: University of California, Los Angeles; PhD, University of California, Los Angeles.
ERIC SCHMITT (1978) currently is a national security correspondent reporting on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues for the New York Times. He has shared four Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure. In 1999 he was part of a Pulitzer Prize team of reporters who investigated how China was able to obtain sensitive U. S. military technology. In 2009, he was a part of a team of New York Times reporters awarded the Pulitzer for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in 2017, he was part of a Pulitzer team that examined how Russian President Vladimir Putin projects power openly and covertly. Since joining the Times staff in 1983, Mr. Schmitt has reported from Congress, the Pentagon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Haiti and Somalia and covered the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He was one of the main reporters assigned to the impeachment proceeding against President Bill Clinton. He served as assistant to senior columnist James Reston when he first came to the Times. He attended Harvard University's program on National and International Security in 1991, and was awarded a Knight Journalism Fellowship to Stanford University in 2006-07. B.A., Williams College.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON (1982) is the host and executive producer of the CLICK HERE podcast as well as a senior correspondent at Recorded Future News. She was previously correspondent for National Public Radio, where she focused on counter-terrorism and national security. She hosted and created the award-winning Audible podcast “What Were You Thinking?” She was City Hall Bureau Chief for the New York Sun and formerly worked for Bloomberg News in Asia, where she was responsible for opening Bloomberg's Shanghai and Hong Kong offices.She was White House correspondent for Bloomberg News for both terms of the Clinton administration and is the author of four books. Her first, A Death in Texas, was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2002. She is a frequent contributor to the PBS Newshour, a regular reviewer of national security books for the Washington Post Book World, and also contributes to the New Yorker, WNYC’s Radiolab, the TLS, New York Magazine and The Atlantic, among others. She speaks Chinese, Arabic, and French. B.A., Northwestern University; Liaoning University, Shenyang, China; M.A., Columbia University.
JAY WEAVER (1973) is an award-winning journalist who has covered the courts, government and politics for more than 35 years while producing major investigative projects. Weaver led a team of Miami Herald reporters in an investigative series about a multibillion-dollar gold-smuggling racket operating between South America and South Florida. The series was honored as a 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Explanatory Reporting. Weaver is also a published author. He co-authored two books with his Herald colleagues: Dirty Gold, spotlighting an international gold-smuggling trial, and The Grifter's Club, pulling back the curtain on President Trump's private club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach. In 2001, Weaver was part of the Miami Herald team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for the paper's coverage of the federal government's seizure of Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez. Weaver also won first place in the AP Sports Editors contest for national breaking news in 2014 for his exclusive scoop on New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez's secret confession of steroid use to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Weaver won first place in the 2009 National Headliner Awards for Health, Science and Medical Reporting. Before joining the Miami Herald in 1999, Weaver was a staff writer at the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the Quincy Patriot Ledger, the Cambridge Chronicle and the Daily American in Rome, Italy. He received his bachelor's degree in history from the University of California at Berkeley in 1977.
DONALD KREPS (Redwood High’s Principal 1957-1979) is recognized in this one-time-only non-alumni award for his inspirational leadership which created the foundation for the quality of education at Redwood High School. He was the founding Principal of Redwood, creating the spirit and high expectations for students and staff alike. His qualities of mentorship, high ethical standards and kindness permeated Redwood during his tenure. He allowed staff and students to challenge themselves in creating a positive educational atmosphere. After resigning as Principal in 1979, Mr. Kreps stayed on at Redwood as a Math and Physics teacher before retiring in 1983. Following his retirement, he taught Math and Physics at The Branson School for an additional nine years. B.S., Stanford , M.A., Stanford. Don Kreps passed away in 2013.