46 of UC’s youngest stars shine on the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list

January 30, 2025
UC Newsroom

Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

UC Santa Cruz alum Marizza Delgado attends the God's Love We Deliver Golden Heart Awards at Cathedral of St. John the Divine on October 21, 2024 in New York City. Delgado, a data scientist who was also crowned Miss New York USA 2024, was included on the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list for her rise in modeling and her work in STEM.

What do film directors, health care innovators, startup founders, game designers and even a race car driver have in common? A spot on the 2025 Forbes “30 Under 30” list, which features 46 UC alums, students and faculty from eight campuses and two national labs.

The awards span 20 categories of 30 honorees each across the arts, technology and social impact (full list here). To make one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 lists, candidates must evaluated by Forbes staff and a panel of independent, expert judges on a variety of factors, including (but not limited to) funding, revenue, social impact, scale, inventiveness and potential — along with being 29 or younger as of December 31, 2024 (read the full methodology).

Peruse the list of rising UC stars and their already impressive achievements below (descriptions lightly edited from Forbes).

Forbes 30 Under 30 by campus

2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 by campus/location (*Some honorees are included in multiple categories)
Location	Number of honorees
UC Berkeley	20
UC Davis	1
UC Irvine	4
UCLA	13
UC Riverside	2
UC San Diego	3
UC Santa Barbara/th>	1
UC Santa Cruz	3
Berkeley Lab	1
Los Alamos Lab	1

Artificial intelligence

Matan Grinberg of Factory (UC Berkeley)

When Matan Grinberg was a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley in 2023, he cold emailed venture capitalist and Sequoia partner Shaun Maquire to chat about string theory. A little over a week later, Grinberg dropped out of school to develop Factory, a platform to automate software engineering that uses AI to automate tasks like testing, refactoring, migrations, code review, documentation and debugging. The company has raised $20 million.

Alex Yu (UC Berkeley)

UC Berkeley alum Alex Yu cofounded video generation AI startup Luma AI in 2021 and recently launched Dream Machine, an AI model that creates high-definition, hyper-realistic videos from text and images. His company now has 10 million users and has raised about $70 million.

Art and style

Sterling Hampton IV (UC Riverside)

UC Riverside alum and California native Sterling Hampton IV is a film director, producer and photographer who founded his production company, Clash of the Artistic Minds, in 2021. His films, "Kylie" and "Merman" were screened and awarded at Sundance, Tribeca, AFI and Urbanworld.

Katie Qian (UCLA)

UCLA grad and fashion stylist Katie Qian gained traction after dressing singer Tyla at the 2024 Met Gala. A first-generation descendant of Chinese immigrants, she has been published in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Rolling Stone. Some of her other clients include Camila Cabello, Conan Gray, Katy Perry and Paris Hilton.

Education

Finance

Clare Kim (UC Berkeley)

UC Berkeley Class of 2017 grad Clare Kim serves as a director with BC Partners Credit, investing in various industries including health care, technology and business services.

Sunny Aggarwal and Dev Ojha (UC Berkeley)

UC Berkeley alums Sunny Aggarwal and Dev Ojha built Osmosis, a decentralized exchange that lets users trade across 100+ blockchains while keeping full control of their assets. Since its 2021 launch, Osmosis has processed $35 billion and raised $36 million from top investors. Aggarwal also co-founded Blockchain at UC Berkeley, a leading university blockchain group, and helped launch one of the first blockchain courses, still taught today.

Green tech

Mohammad Alkhadra (UC San Diego)

UC San Diego alum Mohammad Alkhadra founded Lithios, a startup developing disruptive technology for low-cost lithium extraction. With nearly $15 million raised from venture capital, Lithios aims to produce sustainable, low-cost lithium from vast untapped resources — without using chemical reagents and while consuming significantly less fresh water and energy.

Adam Uliana (UC Berkeley)

The metal mining industry, reliant on energy-intensive refining processes, accounts for up to 7 percent of global GHG emissions and 44 percent of U.S. toxic chemical pollution. UC Berkeley chemical engineering Ph.D. Adam Uliana’s startup ChemFinity is inventing new metal recovery systems that show record performances for recovering over 20 different minerals from wastes, such as platinum from spent catalytic converters or copper from solar panels. ChemFinity was selected for Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Fellows program.

Games

Jessica Jung (UC Berkeley)

UC Berkeley alum Jessica Jung is the lead producer at Niantic Games, where she leads product development, game monetization and partnership initiatives for the company's original franchise, "Peridot," an AR-first mobile game with over 1 million plays, shipping over 100 updates with new game content. Jung launched Niantic's first in-game donation activation with the Transgender Law Center in support of Pride Week, resulting in over $40K+ donated and record engagement from player community platforms.

Lily Lewis (UCLA)

As a partner manager at Twitch, UCLA grad Lily Lewis oversees over 100 of the platform's top creators, working to ensure streamers like Ironmouse, a Puerto Rican streamer with an immunodeficiency, have equal opportunities. She has created educational materials to help streamers secure sponsorships and has trained global teams on creator education. She spearheaded the Together for AAPI Voices campaign, spotlighting over 150 API-identifying streamers.

Health care

Aviv Elor and Ash Robbins (UC Santa Cruz)

The Immergo Labs team, from left to right: Greg Gewickey, strategic advisor; Ash Robbins, CTO; Max Kuznetsov, integrations engineer; Sean Wells, physical therapy advisor; Mike Powell, CEO; Aviv Elor, CRO; Sri Kurniawan, UX advisor and professor of Computational Media; Mircea Teodorescu, engineering advisor and associate professor of Computer Engineering.

As co-founders of Immergo Labs, Aviv Elor and Ash Robbins are using artificial intelligence and virtual reality to help physical therapists to work via telehealth with patients anywhere in the world. Immergo Labs has raised about $1.5 million for its technology that collects data during the appointment and uses AI to auto-generate notes for the therapist to review. Elor graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2019 with a bachelor’s in robotics engineering and in 2021 with a Ph.D. in computational media and works as an adjunct professor of computational media on campus. Robbins has a bachelor’s degree in robotics engineering from UC Santa Cruz and will complete a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering in 2026. (Read more at UC Santa Cruz News and about their 2024 NSF grant here).

Jasmin Brooks Stephens (UC Berkeley)

UC Berkeley psychology professor Jasmin Brooks Stephens is a clinical psychologist who focuses on suicide and racial trauma prevention, as well as eliminating mental health disparities for Black communities.

Yue Clare Lou (UC Berkeley)

Yue Clare Lou is the cofounder of Sift Biosciences, a startup using artificial intelligence and high-throughput screening to create next-gen immune boosters based on her Ph.D. research at UC Berkeley. The company spun off of the Women In Enterprising Science program at UC Berkeley with a $1 million grant.

Hollywood

Dalia Ashurina (UC Irvine)

Dalia Ashurina. Credit: Marilyn Days Photography

Assyrian-American director and UC Irvine alumna Dalia Ashurina is known for her theater work, including the recent Broadway productions of "Phantom of the Opera" (for which she served as resident director from 2022 to 2023) and the Tony Award-winning "Sweeney Todd" (where she was an associate director). An advocate for Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) voices and stories, Ashurina helped two SWANA playwrights (Awni Abdi-Bahri and Atra Asdou) guide their projects to production. Another recent project of Ashurina's is the half-hour comedy pilot "Understudies," which she directed and co-wrote. She is developing the semi-biographical musical "Edessa of Baghdad" with composer Avi Amon. (Read more at UC Irvine).

Natalie Coffen (UCLA)

UCLA alum Natalie Coffen is the creative executive at Push It Productions, a comedy-forward production company cofounded by Wanda Sykes and Page Hurwitz. She is also an in-house producer for Push It and produced "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution," the first feature-length documentary about LGBTQ+ stand-up comedy, as well as Michelle Buteau's Netflix special, "A Buteau-ful Mind."

Omarr Rambert (UCLA)

Distribution, licensing and intellectual property rights are some of the most important topics in Hollywood, and as an associate entertainment attorney at law firm Sheppard Mullin, UCLA alum Omarr Rambert sits at the intersection of it all. Rambert works with clients ranging from production studios to major brands, such as BET Studios, Paramount Global, Spotify, Peloton, QVC and more.

Kristina Windham (UCLA)

UCLA alum Kristina Windham runs business development at Maximum Effort, the production company and creative agency founded by Ryan Reynolds and George Dewey. In her role, she identifies brand partners for the creative agency; leads commercial growth for sports assets Wrexham AFC, Necaxa and Alpine F1; and works through various investment opportunities.

Manufacturing and industry

Max Cao and Lars Berscheid (UC Berkeley)

Along with over-30 cofounder Yahav Avigal, Max Cao and Lars Berscheid launched Jacobi Robotics to build software that makes robot arms faster and easier to program. The three met at the UC Berkeley AI Research Lab and started the company in 2022 based on their research in motion planning. The startup has raised $6.2 million and signed customers that include robotic solutions provider Formic as well as electronics makers and consumer products companies.

Christina Seong (UC Berkeley)

Christina Seong, a Korean immigrant with an economics degree from UC Berkeley, started Versable to use AI to help automotive retailers and manufacturers better understand their product data. Seong began working in private equity after graduation to pay off her student loans, a path that led her to entrepreneurship. The Los Angeles–based startup has raised $2.6 million with a customer base that includes automotive suppliers Forvia Hella, Mighty Auto and Zeder Corp.

Marketing and advertising

Gökçe Güven (UC Berkeley)

Inspired by moneymaking marketing programs like United Airlines' MileagePlus, Gökçe Güven’s startup Kalder embeds cash-back and rewards programs directly into the websites of clients like chocolatier Godiva. “If you look at giants, what they did great for the past decade is they built financial technology capabilities inside their marketing machines,” says the UC Berkeley alum. Kalder charges 60 cents monthly (and a small processing fee) for each customer who links their credit card to its programs, plus a half-cent per dollar on every transaction made with that same card at one of 25,000 partnering merchants. The company brought in $1.5 million in revenue last year.

Media

Ludwig Hurtado (UCLA)

As special projects editor at The Nation, UCLA alum Ludwig Hurtado oversees the publication's podcasts, YouTube content and original series, launching podcasts like "Elie Mystal's Contempt of Court," a series on how to reform the Supreme Court. Outside of his work at The Nation, Hurtado recently launched "Play," an independent zine about food and recipes from LGBTQ+ chefs, artists and writers. His first book, "Bad Foodies," will be published by Beacon Press and covers the sociopolitical and ethical aspects of food.

Vanessa Le (UC Irvine)

When Vanessa Le was applying to medical school, she wrote her first book, "The Last Bloodcarver,” a young adult medical mystery novel that chronicles the life of a girl with the wild power to alter the biology of anyone she touches. It was given starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Booklist, among others, and shortlisted for the YA Book Award. She is currently at work on her next book while enrolled in medical school at UC Irvine, where she is studying to be an oncologist.

Alice Ma (UC Berkeley)

UC Berkeley alum Alice Ma is a cofounder of Mad Realities, which creates original, social-first shows reaching millions of viewers across various platforms including YouTube, TikTok and its own site, Madrealities.tv. Its first original series, the dating show "Proof of Love," became a social media hit, ending with a sold-out live finale at New York City's Webster Hall. Its latest series, "Shop Cats," went viral in 2024, with each episode garnering an average of 2.8 million views and more than 400,000 followers across multiple platforms. In total, Mad Realities has received more than 150 million views.

Retail and commerce

Science

Mitchell Angove (UC Davis)

UC Davis alum Mitchell Angove cofounded Feanix Biotechnologies, which analyzes animal genomes to predict traits like size, milk production and other key health markers. This helps customers decide which animals to breed, leading to more efficient agricultural practices with positive impacts on the food supply and climate change. So far, the company has raised $5.3 million in venture backing.

Justin Bui (UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab)

Justin Bui is using electrochemical technologies to help decarbonize the world. His research contributed to the development of Captura's carbon removal plant, which now removes 100 tons of carbon dioxide from the ocean every year, and his work on seawater electrolysis is helping make hydrogen fuel from the ocean at sHYp. Bui received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley, was an NSF and NDSEG graduate research fellow at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab and is an incoming assistant professor at New York University.

Liz Izhikevich (UC San Diego, UCLA)

UC San Diego alum and UCLA professor Liz Izhikevich focuses on improving the internet's performance and security, both on this planet and in space. Her work has changed how researchers and industry professionals search for performance faults and security threats on the internet and has identified previously unknown threats. Netflix is also improving video delivery for over one million satellite broadband users thanks to her work.

Shane Shahrestani (UCLA)

There are two different primary types of strokes; diagnosing the correct one is crucial but can take hours. To address the problem, UCLA alum Shane Shahrestani’s company StrokeDx has developed portable imaging devices that determine stroke type in minutes. The company has raised over $7 million in investment.

Sai Zhou (UC San Diego)

UC San Diego alum and Ph.D. candidate Sai Zhou creates wearable ultrasound devices for monitoring and managing diseases. Zhou developed the world’s first wearable ultrasound device that offers 3D brain imaging to detect cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke and vasospasm. He founded a startup commercializing his research and will serve as its CEO after graduation.

Social impact

Angeline Dukes (UC Irvine)

At 24, UC Irvine alumna Angeline Dukes became the founding president of Black In Neuro, an international organization that supports and empowers Black scholars in neuroscience-related fields worldwide. As founding president, Dukes, who also serves as assistant professor in the University of Minnesota's Department of Neuroscience, leads a team of more than 20 organizers who have hosted more than 110 free, public events with attendees across 60 countries. With a continuously growing membership of more than 1,300 Black scholars and leaders, the Black In Neuro community serves as a resource for potential speakers, collaborators and mentors for the next generation of Black science leaders. (Read more at UC Irvine).

Stephan Peng (UC Berkeley)

Stephan Peng launched Redbloom Health after being inspired by his own battle with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a disorder that affects roughly 15 percent of Americans. Launched in 2023, the biotech company clinically treats IBS using what UC Berkeley MBA grad Peng calls "a medicinal food formulation delivered through a delicious gut-healthy chili crisp with a clinical protocol."

Social media

Jordan Howlett (UC Riverside)

Known as "Jordan The Stallion" across social media platforms, the now-viral creator and UC Riverside alum Jordan Howlett overcame homelessness and depression to become a Division I baseball player before starting his social media career. He has since raked in billions of views and drawn over 29 million followers across platforms — including 13 million on TikTok — by sharing videos of his lifestyle, opinions, jokes, reactions, go-to recipes and hot takes on the fast food industry and latest trends.

Andre Jones (UCLA)

UCLA alum Andre Jones is a digital talent agent at Hollywood agency William Morris Endeavor, where he's focused on social media partnerships and digital growth strategy for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ content creators. Jones also supports the social media needs of comedy and music talent like Ivan Cornejo, Xavi and Saucy Santana.

Anna Nordstrom (UCLA)

Anna Nordstrom is the product manager in charge of TikTok's STEM feed, dedicated to educational content within the app focused on science, technology, engineering and math. Nordstrom has launched the feed in over 40 countries. Before joining TikTok, she led product management at Pledge, a nonprofit fundraising platform where she helped patent PledgeCrypto, a cryptocurrency donation platform that supported the United Nations' Climate Neutral Now Initiative. Recently, she published the online guidebook "Innovating for Good: The Product Manager's Guide to Social Impact" for product managers looking to implement social impact. Nordstrom also developed and taught a course called Innovations in Social Entrepreneurship at her alma mater, UCLA.

Nicole Vincent (UC Santa Barbara)

UC Santa Barbara alumna Nicole Vincent is a top agent in UTA's Creators division, representing some of the biggest names in digital content, including Charli D'Amelio, Jake Shane and Emma Chamberlain. In 2024 she closed over 473 deals totaling $30 million in value, while her clients generated in the high eight figures in revenue.

Sports

Mallory Swanson (UCLA)

https://www.forbes.com/profile/mallory-swanson/?list=30under30-sports/

A member of the senior national team since she was 17, former UCLA soccer star Mallory Swanson added to her prolific international resume by scoring four goals at the 2024 Paris Olympics, including the winning goal of the gold-medal match. At the club level, in January 2024 Swanson signed what was at the time the largest and longest contract in National Women’s Soccer League history: a five-year deal with the Chicago Red Stars reportedly worth more than $2 million.

Venture capital

Rak Garg (UCLA)

UCLA alum Rak Garg became Bain Capital Ventures' youngest-ever partner in 2024, three years after joining the firm. He's deployed more than $150 million into startups, especially in cybersecurity and AI infrastructure, such as Unstructured, Cleanlab, Pallet and Poolside. Previously, Garg launched BCV Labs, the firm's AI incubator, which helped build six startups including Contextual and Prophet.

Molly Mielke (UCLA)

Potential backers raised their eyebrows when UCLA grad Molly Mielke, a film student turned graphic designer, decided to launch her venture firm. Mielke had designed products at Figma and Notion and consulted for companies including Stripe and Retool, but she had no formal investment track record. She eventually convinced limited partners to back Moth Fund, where Mielke is the sole general partner and has raised $6 million. She's focused on early-stage startups, providing checks up to $250,000 to companies like electric scooter firm Infinite Machine and a robotic dishwasher company called Armstrong. She plans to double down in years to come. "The right LPs understand VCs should be weird, and they should stand out."

Taha Ziaee (UC Berkeley)

UC Berkeley alum Taha Zaiee was the first in his family to attend college after moving to the U.S. from Pakistan. Now, Ziaee is a principal at BOND, where co-leads software, consumer internet and emerging markets investment efforts, overseeing more than $400 million in deployments and managing investments valued at $15 billion–plus