Faculty Supporters
Berkeley has a long history of world-changing innovations borne from the research and scholarship of its best-in-class faculty. The faculty members below — some of whom have founded companies of their own — have made the Founders’ Pledge to promote the ethos of supporting Cal’s innovator ecosystem and to inspire the students, postdocs, and researchers with whom they work to make the Pledge too.

Joseph Shapiro
Assoc. Professor, Agriculture and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Adam Yala
Ass't Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley

Ken Goldberg
Professor, UC Berkeley; Chief Scientist, Ambi Robotics

Dan Nomura
’03, Ph.D ’08
Professor, Chemical Biology and Molecular Therapeutics, UC Berkeley

Simon Schleicher
Assoc. Professor, Architecture, UC Berkeley

Phillip Messersmith
Professor, Bioengineering, UC Berkeley

Angjoo Kanazawa
Ass't. Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley

James Analytis
Assoc. Professor, Physics, UC Berkeley

Baoxia Mi
Assoc. Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley

Wenjun Zhang
Professor, Chemical Engineering, UC Berkeley

Liwei Lin
M.S. ’91, Ph.D. ’93
Professor, Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley

Trevor Darrell
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley; Co-founder & President, Prompt AI

Scott Shenker
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley; Co-Founder, Nicira and Databricks
Pledge fulfilled in 2020

Joseph Hellerstein
M.S. ’92
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley; Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Trifacta
Pledge fulfilled in 2022

James Olzmann
Assoc. Professor, Molecular & Cell Biology, UC Berkeley

Randy Katz
M.S. ’78, Ph.D. ’80
Former Vice Chancellor for Research, UC Berkeley

Shuonan Chen
’13
Lecturer, College of Engineering, UC Berkeley; Partner, Innovation Overflow

Roya Maboudian
Professor, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, UC Berkeley

David Teece
Chairman & Principal Executive Officer, Berkeley Research Group LLC
Pledge fulfilled in 2017

Rebecca Abergel
Ph.D. ’06
Assistant Professor, Nuclear Engineering, UC Berkeley; Co-founder, HOPO Therapeutics

Boubacar Kante
Associate Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley

N. Cecilia Martinez-Gomez
Assistant Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology, UC Berkeley

Jay Keasling
Professor, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, UC Berkeley; Founder, ResVitaBio

Joseph Gonzalez
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley; Co-founder, Spiral Labs

Michael Yartsev
Assistant Professor, Bioengineering, UC Berkeley

Junqiao Wu
Ph.D. ’02
Professor, Materials Science & Engineering, UC Berkeley; Co-founder and Chairman, DeepRed Technologies

Steve Conolly
Professor, Bioengineering, UC Berkeley; Co-founder, Magnetic Insight

Richard Lyons
’82
Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer, UC Berkeley

Polina Lishko
Professor, Molecular & Cell Biology, UC Berkeley; Co-founder, YourChoice Therapeutics

Rikky Muller
Ph.D. ’13
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley

David Schaffer
Professor, Bioengineering, UC Berkeley; Co-Founder, 4D Molecular Therapeutics and IGNITE Immunotherapy

Gordon Rausser
Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley; Co-Founder, OnPoint Analytics
Pledge fulfilled in 2020

Ming Wu
M.S. ’86, Ph.D. ’88
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley

Amy Herr
Professor, Bioengineering, UC Berkeley; Investigator, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Jaijeet Roychowdhury
M.S. ’89, Ph.D. ’92
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley

Markita Landry
Assistant Professor, Chemistry, UC Berkeley

Maria Paz Gutierrez
Associate Professor, Architecture, UC Berkeley

Homayoon Kazerooni
Professor, Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley; Cofounder, Ekso Bionics and SuitX

Raluca Ada Popa
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley; Co-Founder, PreVeil

Anita Balaraman
M.P.H. ’98, M.B.A. ’08
Adjunct Faculty, UC Berkeley; Founder, Epixego

Arash Komeili
Professor, Plant & Microbial Biology, UC Berkeley

Niren Murthy
Professor, Bioengineering, UC Berkeley

Alessandra Lanzara
Professor, Physics, UC Berkeley

Kristofer Pister
M.S. ’89, Ph.D. ’92
Professor, EECS, UC Berkeley; Co-founder, Dust Networks

Stephen Torres
’07
Industry Fellow & Lecturer, UC Berkeley; Founder, Sunible (acquired by Domino)
Pledge fulfilled in 2015

Lee Fleming
Faculty Director, Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership, UC Berkeley

Ting Xu
Professor, Materials Science & Engineering and Chemistry, UC Berkeley

Kenichi Soga
Ph.D. ’94
Professor, Geomechanics, UC Berkeley

Norman Yao
Assistant Professor, Physics, UC Berkeley

Russell Vance
Ph.D. ’00
Professor, Immunology and Pathogenesis, UC Berkeley