This is a list of notable alumni and faculty of the University of California, Riverside.

• Richard R. Schrock – Chemistry, 2005, professor at University of California, Riverside^[1]

• Peter Adriaens – professor of engineering and entrepreneurship at the selling Biology textbook^[2]
• Mason Gaffney – professor of economics and prominent Georgist
• Harmohinder Singh Gill – plant pathologist who pioneered fungus classification by disc electrophoresis
• Lynn G. Gref – technologist and systems engineer
• Matthew Haughey – blogger and founder of MetaFilter
• Anthea M. Hartig – director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (2019–present)
• Marigold Linton – director of American Indian outreach at the University of Kansas
• Todd D. Little – professor of Educational Psychology, Texas Tech University
• Gary North – economist and author
• Arthur Riggs – director of the Beckman Research Institute and former geneticist with Genentech and father of modern biotechnology
• Pedram Salimpour – physician-scientist, author, and professor
• Bettie Steinberg – microbiologist, Chief Scientific Officer for The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research
• Peter Steinberger – Dean of the Faculty at Reed College, Robert H. and Blanche Day Ellis Professor of Political Science and Humanities
• Tim White – professor of integrative biology and research, paleoanthropologist
• Jennifer Wilby – director of the Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull
• Charles E. Young – first UCR student body president and former chancellor at the University of California, Los Angeles

• Mark Andrus – Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, As Good as it Gets
• Earl W. Bascom – inventor, actor, rodeo cowboy, Hall of Fame inductee, international artist and sculptor
• Frank Bidart – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Amine Bouhafa – Tunisian composer and engineer, winner of the 2015 César Award for Best Music for the movie Timbuktu
• Steve Breen – 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist
• Joanna Cameron – actress and model The Secrets of Isis
• Jamie Chung – actress, TV series The Real World: San Diego and films, such as I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Sorority Row, Grown Ups, The Hangover II
• Billy Collins – eleventh US Poet Laureate
• Katherine Fugate – screenwriter Valentine's Day and creator of Army Wives TV series
• Elizabeth George – mystery writer
• Barbara Hambly – novelist and screenwriter
• Howard Hendrix – novelist
• Ryan Holiday – author of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator; director of marketing for American Apparel
• Lisa Kekaula – lead singer for The Bellrays
• Patricia Ja Lee – actress known for role as Cassie Chan as the Pink Ranger in the television series Power Rangers: Turbo and Power Rangers in Space
• Nakul Dev Mahajan – choreographer
• Daryl F. Mallett – author, editor, publisher
• Fatima Farheen Mirza – novelist, A Place for Us
• Steve Nguyen – film director, producer
• Ruben Quesada – poet
• Lindsay Ridgeway – actress, Boy Meets World
• Philip Michael Thomas – actor, Miami Vice
• Charlyne Yi – actress, comedian, and performance artist (Knocked Up)

• Matt Andriese – Major League pitcher for the Seattle Mariners
• Michael Basinger – former professional football player for the Green Bay Packers
• Jennifer Bermingham – golfer
• Pat Hill – head football coach of Fresno State
• Butch Johnson – former professional football player for the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos
• Joe Kelly – Major League pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers
• Aaron Long – professional MLS soccer player for Los Angeles Football Club
• John Lowenstein – former Major League Baseball player
• Steve Lubratich – former Major League Baseball player and current Cleveland Indians Special Assistant to the GM
• AnnMaria De Mars – 1984 Judo World Champion, mother of Ronda Rousey
• Brenda Martinez – track and field athlete
• Gary McCord – professional golfer, CBS announcer and analyst and won the DII individual golf championship in 1970
• Troy Percival – all-time saves leader for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• Dan Runzler – Major League pitcher for the Boston Red Sox
• Marc Rzepczynski – Major League pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks
• Michael Salazar – professional MLS soccer player
• Eric Show – former professional baseball player for the San Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics
• Chris Smith – Major League pitcher for the Oakland Athletics
• Erasmo Solorzano – professional MLS soccer player for the Chivas USA acquired in the 2007 draft
• Brendan Steele – professional golfer on the PGA Tour

• Gary North – economist
• Shelli Taylor – CEO of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (2020–present)
• Jordan Meltzer – CEO of Clubbie (2020–present)

• Ruben Barrales – deputy assistant to President Bush and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in the White House, former San Mateo County supervisor
• Sabrina Cervantes – current California State Assemblywoman for the 60th District
• Paul Cook – former U.S. Member of Congress for the CA-08 district, current Supervisor for San Bernardino County
• David S. Cunningham, Jr. – Los Angeles City Council member, 1973–87
• Patricia Lock Dawson – mayor of Riverside, 2020–present
• Julie Furuta-Toy – current U.S. Ambassador to Equatorial Guinea
• Eduardo Garcia – current California State Assemblyman for the 56th District
• Sherilyn Peace Garnett – United States district judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California (2022–present)
• Michael Huerta – former Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration
• Jerold Krieger – Judge for the Los Angeles Superior Court (1988–2002)
• Lloyd Levine – former California State Assemblyman for the 40th District
• Jose Medina – current California State Assemblyman for the 61st District
• Holly J. Mitchell – current California State Senator for the 30th and 26th (2013–2014) District, former California State Assemblymember to the 54th and 47th (2010–2012) Districts
• Ronald Neumann – former U.S. Ambassador to Algeria
• Rod Pacheco – former Riverside County District Attorney, California Assembly member
• Virginia A. Phillips – senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California
• Anthony Rendon – Speaker of the California State Assembly (2016–2023)
• Gloria Romero – former State Senate Majority Whip, former California Assembly member, 49th District
• Stefanie Schaeffer – defense attorney, 2006 winner of The Apprentice
• Marc Steinorth – current California State Assemblyman for the 40th District
• Mark Takano – current U.S. House of Representative for the 41st District

• Jeff Cooper – creator of the modern technique of shooting; firearms expert who defined the modern scout rifle
• John Mack Faragher – historian
• James Holmes – gunman in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting; currently serving a life sentence for murder
• Shruti Kapoor – economist, women's right's activist, and social entrepreneur
• Anil Raj – humanitarian activist killed in 2019 in a terrorist attack in Kabul while working for U.N.

• Chris Abani – professor of creative writing and recipient of the Pen Center Freedom to Write Award, Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
• Reza Aslan – Professor of Creative Writing, writer, producer, critic, religion scholar, television celebrity James Joyce Award
• John Baez – professor of mathematics, mathematical physicist
• Alexander A. Balandin – professor of electrical engineering
• Lindon W. Barrett – professor and cultural theorist
• Bir Bhanu – Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering, director of the Center for Research in Intelligent Systems
• Alfred M. Boyce – first dean of the College of Agriculture
• Patricia Cardoso – Award-winning filmmaker, Professor of Film
• Christopher Chase-Dunn – sociologist, contributor to world-systems theory
• Sean Cutler – plant scientist noted for discovery of pyrabactin
• Mike Davis – Emeritus Professor, urban theorist and author MacArthur Fellow in 1998; won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
• James H. Dieterich – Distinguished Professor of Geophysics, member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Kim Yi Dionne – political scientist
• Josh Emmons – novelist
• Steve Erickson – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, author, essayist, critic Lannan Literary Award Guggenheim
• John Martin Fischer – professor of philosophy, vice-president of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, primary proponent of semi-compatibilism
• Katie Ford – poet
• Theodore Garland, Jr. – a founder of the field of evolutionary physiology
• Gail Hanson – Distinguished Professor of Physics
• Allison Adelle Hedge Coke – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, poet, writer, editor, China's First Jade Nurtured SiHui Female International Poetry Award, a Witter Bynner Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholar, American Book Award,
• Juan Felipe Herrera – Emeritus Professor, poet, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair, National Book Critics Circle Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, PEN USA Poetry Award, American Book Award, California State Poet Laureate, United States Poet Laureate
• Ivan Hinderaker – former chancellor
• Nalo Hopkinson – Professor of Creative Writing, science fiction and fantasy writer Andre Norton Award and British Fantasy Award
• Theodore L. Hullar – former chancellor
• Laila Lalami – professor, Pulitzer Prize finalist
• Perry Link – Chancellorial Chair, professor of China Studies
• Ronald O. Loveridge – mayor of Riverside, California
• Tom Lutz – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, author, literary critic, founder and editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Robert Nisbet – conservative sociologist and early Dean of Letters and Science at UCR
• John W. Olmsted – first chairman of the Humanities division
• Raymond L. Orbach – former chancellor and first Under Secretary of Energy for Science
• Robert Rosenthal – professor of psychology, former chair of Harvard's psychology department
• Irwin Sherman – professor of biology, specializing in malariology
• George Edgar Slusser – professor of comparative literature, science fiction expert
• Andrea Smith – Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Nobel Peace Prize nominee
• Jane Smiley – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, writer, Pulitzer Prize winning author
• Harry Scott Smith – entomologist
• Susan Straight – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, writer, National Book Award finalist Lannan Literary Award
• Karl Taube – professor of anthropology, specializing in research into pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures
• Bob Toledo – former UCR football coach, 13th head coach of UCLA
• John V. Tunney – professor of business law, former United States Senator and member of Congress
• Jonathan H. Turner – sociologist, one of the last remaining grand theorists in the discipline, author of Structure of Sociological Theory and Emergence of Sociological Theory
• Seymour Van Gundy – former dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences
• Georgia Warnke – Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the director of the Center for Ideas and Society

No.	Portrait	Provost	Term	Notes
1		Gordon S. Watkins	1949–1956	First provost.[3]
2		Herman Spieth	1956–1958	Spieth was appointed provost in 1956 as a replacement to Watkins. When Riverside was upgrade to a general campus in 1958, Spieth was named to the new post of chancellor.[3]

No.	Portrait	Chancellor	Term	Notes
1		Herman Spieth	1958–1964	[3]
2		Ivan Hinderaker	1964–1979
3		Tomás Rivera	1979–March 16, 1984	First minority UC Chancellor. Died in office.
–		Daniel G. Aldrich	May 1984–June 30, 1985	(acting)
4		Theodore L. Hullar	July 1, 1985–1987	[4][5]
5		Rosemary S.J. Schraer	1987–April 10, 1992	First woman UC Chancellor. Died in office.[6]
6		Raymond L. Orbach	April 20, 1992–March 1, 2002	Although Orbach was supposed to take over from Schraer on July 1, 1992, Schraer unexpected death on April 10 changed everyone's plans. As a result, the UCR Academic Senate invited Orbach to start his new job on April 20.[7][8][9]
–		David H. Warren	March 2, 2002–June 30, 2002
7		France A. Córdova	July 1, 2002 – June 30, 2007	[10][11]
–		Robert D. Grey	July 1, 2007–August 31, 2008	Acting chancellor[12]
8		Timothy P. White	September 1, 2008–December 30, 2012	[13][14]
–		Jane Close Conoley	December 31, 2012–August 18, 2013	Acting chancellor[14]
9		Kim A. Wilcox	August 19, 2013–present	[15][16]