The universe's expansion is accelerating, driven by a mysterious force.
Each generation of scientists leaves behind a world slightly more legible than the one they inherited — and this spring, UC Santa Cruz pauses to honor three alumni whose careers have done exactly that. From the molecular architecture of viruses to the accelerating edges of the cosmos, Gregory Reyes, Larry de Ghetaldi, and Nicholas Suntzeff have each, in their own register, pushed back against ignorance and inequity. Their recognition is less a celebration of individual achievement than a meditation on what a single university, and a single era of curiosity, can quietly set in motion.
- Three decades of biotech work by Gregory Reyes yielded viral detection breakthroughs, hepatitis C and HIV treatments, nearly 100 papers, and 50 patents — a career built from a first-generation college student's quiet determination.
- Larry de Ghetaldi spent years fighting a Medicare reimbursement system he believed structurally disadvantaged California physicians, becoming a nationally recognized voice for reform before his death in August 2025 at age 69.
- Nicholas Suntzeff co-founded the research teams that discovered the universe is not slowing down but accelerating outward — a finding so disruptive it rewrote cosmology and contributed to the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- The three honorees collectively span science's full range of scale: from the protein coat of a virus to the dark energy pulling galaxies apart, with the machinery of healthcare policy somewhere in between.
- UC Santa Cruz will formally recognize all three at a private ceremony on May 28, framing their careers as proof that rigorous science and meaningful public service are not competing callings but the same one.
Three UC Santa Cruz science alumni are being honored this spring for careers that have reshaped medicine, healthcare policy, and cosmology. Gregory Reyes, who studied biology at Kresge College in 1976, was the first in his family to attend college, graduating summa cum laude before earning both an M.D. and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins. Over more than thirty years in biotechnology, he co-discovered the hepatitis E virus, helped develop Victrelis — a landmark hepatitis C drug — and contributed to early HIV therapies targeting the CCR5 protein. He holds 50 patents and has published nearly 100 papers, and today serves as vice chair of the UC Santa Cruz Foundation.
Larry de Ghetaldi graduated from Merrill College in 1976 and, after medical training at Wayne State, USC, and Stanford, returned to Santa Cruz in 1984 to practice family medicine. He rose to leadership within Sutter Health and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, but his most enduring legacy was his national advocacy for reforming Medicare's geographic reimbursement system — a structure he argued created deep inequities for California physicians. De Ghetaldi died on August 10, 2025, at age 69, leaving behind a reform effort that had earned him recognition far beyond the clinic.
Nicholas Suntzeff earned his astronomy Ph.D. from UC Santa Cruz in 1980, following a mathematics degree from Stanford. He co-founded two major supernova research collaborations whose observations of distant exploding stars revealed something no one had anticipated: the universe's expansion is accelerating, driven by what is now called dark energy. The discovery overturned decades of assumption and contributed to the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Suntzeff also served as a Jefferson Science Fellow at the U.S. Department of State, working on humanitarian affairs, and is now a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M.
The Science Division will honor all three at a private ceremony on May 28 at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn. Dean Bryan Gaensler described their careers as embodying UC Santa Cruz's dual commitment to groundbreaking research and public service — a span of work that reaches from the molecular to the cosmic, and from the laboratory to the halls of policy.
Three alumni of UC Santa Cruz's science programs are being honored this spring for careers that have reshaped medicine, healthcare policy, and our understanding of the cosmos. Gregory Reyes, who studied biology at Kresge College in 1976, spent more than three decades in biotechnology and pharmaceutical research, developing new ways to detect viral genomes and helping create treatments for hepatitis C and HIV. Larry de Ghetaldi, who graduated from Merrill College in 1976 with degrees in biology and chemistry, returned to Santa Cruz as a family physician and became a nationally recognized voice for reforming how Medicare reimburses doctors in different regions—a system he argued unfairly disadvantaged California practitioners. Nicholas Suntzeff, who earned his Ph.D. in astronomy from the university in 1980, co-founded research teams whose observations of distant supernovae revealed that the universe is accelerating outward, a discovery that contributed to the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Reyes was born in Fresno in 1953 to Filipino and Mexican-American parents and was the first in his family to attend college. He graduated summa cum laude and went on to earn both an M.D. and a Ph.D. through Johns Hopkins University's Medical Scientist Training Program, focusing his research on viral biology, particularly herpes simplex virus. After clinical training and a cancer research fellowship at Stanford, he built his career in the private sector, co-discovering and characterizing the hepatitis E virus and contributing to the development of Victrelis, a breakthrough hepatitis C medication. His work on early HIV therapies targeting the CCR5 protein helped open new treatment pathways. He has published nearly 100 scientific papers and holds 50 patents. Today he serves as vice chair of the UC Santa Cruz Foundation and advises biotech startups in San Diego.
De Ghetaldi's path took him from San Francisco to Daly City, where he grew up playing soccer before studying science at UC Santa Cruz. After medical school at Wayne State and the University of Southern California, followed by a residency at Stanford, he returned to Santa Cruz in 1984 to practice family medicine. He rose to leadership roles at Sutter Health's Santa Cruz division and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, but his most lasting influence came through his advocacy work on Medicare policy. He became known nationally for his efforts to reform the geographic payment system that determines how much Medicare reimburses physicians in different parts of the country—a system he argued created unfair disparities. De Ghetaldi died on August 10, 2025, at age 69.
Suntzeff's career in observational cosmology began after he earned a mathematics degree from Stanford and completed his astronomy Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz. He co-founded two major research collaborations: the Calán/Tololo Supernova Survey and the High-Z Supernova Search Team. These teams studied Type Ia supernovae—exploding white dwarf stars—and discovered something unexpected: the universe's expansion is accelerating, driven by a mysterious force now called dark energy. This finding overturned the prevailing assumption that gravity would eventually slow cosmic expansion. His work established precise methods for measuring distances across the universe and calculating the Hubble constant, which describes how fast the universe is expanding. Suntzeff has held positions at Carnegie Observatories, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, and is now a Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. Beyond astronomy, he served as a Jefferson Science Fellow in the Office of Human Rights at the U.S. Department of State, working on humanitarian affairs. He has received the Gruber Cosmology Prize and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
The three recipients represent different dimensions of scientific impact: Reyes's work in the laboratory and clinic, de Ghetaldi's commitment to equitable healthcare delivery and policy reform, and Suntzeff's fundamental discoveries about the nature of the universe itself. The Science Division will honor them at a private ceremony on May 28 at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn. Dean of Science Bryan Gaensler said the three alumni exemplify UC Santa Cruz's commitment to groundbreaking research and meaningful public service. Their careers span from the molecular scale of viral detection to the cosmic scale of accelerating galaxies—a reminder that the work of science touches both the intimate and the infinite.
Citações Notáveis
Gregory Reyes, Larry de Ghetaldi, and Nicholas Suntzeff have made lasting contributions to medicine, healthcare equity, and our fundamental understanding of the universe.— Dean of Science Bryan Gaensler
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
What strikes you most about these three careers—is it that they're so different from each other?
Yes and no. They're different in subject matter, but they share something: each person took what they learned here and then went somewhere else to do the actual work. None of them stayed in academia.
De Ghetaldi especially seems like an outlier—a family doctor in Santa Cruz, not running a major research lab.
That's the point, though. He could have done anything with his training. Instead he chose to practice medicine in the place he loved, and then he used that position to change policy at a national level. That's a different kind of impact.
And Reyes—fifty patents is remarkable. How does someone get to that number?
By spending thirty years in industry, solving real problems that companies need solved. Patents aren't published in journals. They're tools. He was building things that work.
Suntzeff's discovery about the accelerating universe—did he know at the time how big that was?
Probably not in the way we understand it now. You're observing distant supernovae, measuring their brightness, calculating distances. You're doing careful work. Then the data tells you something that contradicts what everyone believed. That's when you realize.
All three graduated in the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s. Does that era matter?
It matters that they were trained here, at a young university with strong science programs but without the weight of tradition. They could think differently. And they all went into fields that were still forming—virology, healthcare policy, observational cosmology. They helped shape those fields as they grew.