The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is situated in Westwood near Los Angeles, California. It is the main university of the University of California System. It has five undergraduate colleges and five professional health science schools. UCLA offers more than 300 undergraduate and degree programs in many different disciplines. About 27,000 undergraduate students and about 12,000 graduate students are enrolled at this university. ‘UCLA Alumni’ refers to the combined male and female former graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles, and  they include 14 Nobel Laureates, 1 Fields Medalist, and 1 Turning Award winner. UCLA student athletes have won 214 Olympic medals of which 106 are gold medals. UCLA is the biggest university in California. Considering the number of applicants for enrollment, it is also the most popular university in California. Although the UCLA Alumni have gained prominence in almost all walks of life, yet they have particularly excelled in the fields of Chemistry, Economics, Political Science, and games. In some parts of the world, the term ‘alumnus’ has some other equivalents like: Old Boy, Old Girl, Former Student, or Ex-student. Conventionally, the academic institutions organize alumni reunions at some regular, pre-defined intervals, or at some special occasions relating to social events and fund raising.

1. Ralph Bunche

Ralph Bunche was born to Fred and Olive Agnes Bunche in Detroit, Michigan on August 7, 1903 and died on December 9, 1971. He attended Jefferson High School and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles. A bust of Dr. Bunche is displayed at the entrance to Bunche Hall at UCLA. He was the first black person to earn a Ph.D. in political science from an American University. He taught political science from 1928 to 1950. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in Palestine in 1940. Bunche was a vocal activist of the Civil Rights Movement and attended the 1963 march on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his speech ‘I have a dream’¦’ His birthplace was listed as a Michigan Historic Site on February 11, 1972. The U.S. Postal Service issued a set of commemorative postage stamps in his honor on January 12, 1982.

2. Richard Fred Heck 

Richard Fred Heck was born on August 15, 1931 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He received his bachelors and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Heck is the recipient of the Wallace H. Carothers Award, C. Brown Award, Glenn T. Seaborg Medal, and he shared the 2010 Nobel Prize with Negishi and Akira Suzuki ‘for palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling in organic synthesis.’ Many of the chemical reactions developed by him have been used for commercial and creative applications. The Heck reaction from the palladium has impacted society greatly on account of its use to couple fluorescent dyes to DNA bases, facilitating DNA sequencing and examination of the human genome.

3. Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Claire Ostrom was born to Leah and Adrian Awan in Los Angeles, California on August 7, 1933 and died on June 12, 2012. She attended Beverly Hills High School and received her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from UCLA. In 2009 she received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences  in memory of Alfred Nobel for ‘her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.’ She shared the prize with Oliver E.Williamson and is the only woman to have won the Nobel Prize in this category. The study of human interaction with the environment for sustainable development was her special field of interest, and she conducted her research in Nepal and Africa. She observed how the natives managed their pastures and irrigation systems. She arrived at the conclusion that the human-ecosystem interaction is a multidimensional phenomenon, and no single solution is applicable to all situations and should be seen in their specific perspectives.

4. Vinton Gray Cerf

Vinton Gray Cerf was born to Muriel and Vinton Thurston Cerf in New Haven, Connecticut on June 23, 1943. He graduated from UCLA earning his M.S. in 1970 and received his Ph.D. degree in 1972. Cerf won the Edward A. Dickson Alumnus of the Year Award from UCLA. Cerf and Kahn were awarded the Turing Award. President George W. Bush awarded them the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November, 2005 for their contribution in the development of the Internet. He has been honored with numerous honorary degrees and medals and is considered the Father of Internet.

5. Ronnie Walter Cunningham

Ronnie Walter Cunningham, better known as Ronnie Cunningham, was born in Creston, Iowa on March 16, 1932. Cunningham earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a retired fighter pilot and astronaut. Following Neil Armstrong and Elliot, he was NASA’s third civilian astronaut. He had spent 10 days, 20 hours, and 8 minutes in space. He was the Lunar Module pilot during the Apollo 7 mission. He published The American Boys in 1977, and in 2007 wrote the foreword for the history book of space In the Shadow of the Moon. In 2008, he was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for the Apollo 7 mission

6. Anna Lee Tingle Fisher 

Anna Lee Tingle Fisher was born in New York City, New York on August 24, 1949. She was brought up in San Pedro, California and attended San Pedro High School. She graduated (B.Sc. Chemistry) from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1971. She received her Doctor of Medicine degree from UCLA Medical School in 1976. She was the mission specialist on STS-61 launched on November 8, 1984. She is the first woman to give birth to a child in space. Fisher spent 192 hours in space. She is the recipient of the UCLA Professional Achievement Award, UCLA Medical Profession Achievement Award, and the UCLA Alumni of the Year Award, 2012. She has also received a NASA Space Flight Medal and a NASA Exceptional Service Medal.

7. David Da-i Ho

David Da-i Ho was born in Taichung, Taiwan, Republic of China on November 3, 1952. He attended Taichung Municipal Guang-Fu Elementary School. He studied internal medicine and infectious diseases at UCLA’s School of Medicine from 1978 to 1982. It was during this period that he observed the first few cases of AIDS. He is one of the foremost researchers on AIDS and has published more than 400 papers on the topic which have enabled the scientific community to have an in-depth idea of the mechanism of HIV replication. He devised HAART, highly active anti-retroviral therapy, which reduced the AIDS mortality in developed countries since 1996.  He is working on implementing the same treatment in developing countries. Time magazine named Ho the 1996 Man of the Year.

8. Horace L. Hahn 

Horace L. Hahn was born in Colorado, U.S on July 23, 1915 and died in San Diego, California, U.S. on January 31, 2003 at the age of 87. He received his early education at John Burroughs Middle School and Los Angeles High School. He graduated with a degree in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. He was a national forensic debate champion at UCLA. He played an important role as interrogation assistant to Justice Robert H. Jackson during the prosecution of the Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg Trials.

9. Marcia Rachel Clark 

Marcia Rachel Clark was born in Berkeley, California, U.S. on August 31, 1953. She attended the Susan E. Wagner High School and graduated majoring in political science from UCLA in 1976. She entered the State Bar of California in 1979. She was the prosecutor for the State of California and is best remembered for her participation in the O. J. Simpson murder case. It was a criminal trial against the former American football star O. J. Simpson. It was known as the trial of the century and continued for nine months. It was officially known as People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, and is considered the most-publicized case in American history. Simpson was acquitted on account of the doubt against the reliability of then newly developed DNA testing. After the trial ended, she co-authored with Teresa Carpenter a book about the case titled Without a Doubt, said to be a deal worth over $4.2 million.

10. Michael Anthony Powell 

Michael Anthony Powell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 10, 1963. Powell attended Edgewood High School, West Covina, California. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles and is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He broke Bob Beamon’s 23-year-old long jump record at the 1991 World Championship in Athletics, Tokyo. Leaping 8.95 m., he was 5 cm. ahead of the former world record holder. Powell is the fourth person to hold the record for more than 20 years.

Conclusion:

They say ‘Old is gold’ and this applies to quite a few things like wine, rice, and antiques including; coins, armor, postage stamps, manuscripts, ancestral memorabilia, and last but not  least the alumni. Old Knowledge paves the way to new advancements, and the alumni set examples for new entrants. It is usually the parent academy which identifies the alumni, but occasionally an alumnus becomes the identity of an academy.