annual report 2023-2024
Foundation update
UC Santa Cruz Foundation Medals awarded
The university celebrated the milestone of the UC Santa Cruz Foundation’s 50th anniversary by honoring two campus community visionaries:
Alumna Julie Packard (Crown ’74, M.A. ’78), a renowned ocean conservationist who helped to found the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The late Narinder Kapanay, a distinguished professor known as the “father of fiber optics,” whose technological advances transformed the world.
Chancellor Cynthia Larive presented the Foundation Medals, the campus’s highest honor, to Packard and Kapany (accepted by his children, Kiki and Raj Kapany, on behalf of their father) in recognition of their exceptionally distinguished achievements, and whose work and contributions to society exemplify the vision and ideals of UC Santa Cruz.
Packard and Kapany have not only made lasting achievements, but both are also former UC Santa
Cruz Foundation board members. In recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the world, Packard also received the UC Presidential Medal, awarded by UC President Michael V. Drake.