Tyler Trykowski

In the late 1990s, Sanjay Shah and Rachelle Mendez were assigned to the same group project in a UC Berkeley rhetoric class. That collaboration would become a blueprint for two decades of friendship and creative partnership that led to parallel paths into the television industry, multiple hit shows, and prestigious awards like the Emmys. Shah is a writer, showrunner, and executive producer on Everybody Still Hates Chris, an animated comedy about Chris Rock’s childhood.

The UC Berkeley alum is growing fire resilience across the state through prescribed and cultural burning, policy work and community building. (left) Now: Lenya Quinn-Davidson at a prescribed burn in Humboldt County (right) Then: Lenya Quinn-Davidson in Mexico

Elisabeth “Betty” Sadoulet, a well-known scholar and advisor in international development economics and professor emerita at UC Berkeley, passed away on October 17, 2025. Professor Sadoulet joined the UC Berkeley Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics (ARE) in 1985 after earning a PhD in Economics from the University of Geneva in 1982.