The University of California, Davis, Cal Aggie Alumni Association has announced the recipients of its 2025 Alumni Awards, celebrating extraordinary alumni and friends who have made a lasting impact on their communities and the university.
Former Aggie football captain Derek Baljeu ’17, M.S. ’18 has found his calling in the world of wine, bringing his dedication from the game field to the vineyards as a winemaker in Napa Valley.
After taking the class “Introduction to Winemaking” his first year to fulfill a general education requirement, Baljeu says he fell in love with the subject. He soon changed his major to viticulture and enology and began his first winemaking internship at a small family winery.
According to Maggie Mello ’10, who has experienced several career changes, life has a funny way of working out for the best.
After graduating with honors from UC Davis, Mello spent a decade serving her country as a logistics officer and eventually became a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. Now, she is preparing for a promising future in international development with USAID through the prestigious Donald M. Payne International Development Graduate Fellowship.
Alejandra Ruiz, M.F.A. ’23, is using mushrooms to turn fast-fashion waste into reusable, eco-friendly materials.
By 2015, Ruiz said fast fashion, the mass production of low-cost garments, led to the annual production of 120 billion pieces of clothing, 15-20% of which went to waste. Most discarded items from the United States and other consumer-driven economies are sent to regions of Latin America, Asia, and Africa for disposal.
"Imagine how many of those 120 billion items are going to be discarded in these developing countries just within one year," said Ruiz.
UC Davis alum Jesse “Lxttle Boy Blue” Williams skyrocketed to fame after a viral video of their commencement walk garnered over 24 million views and led to a record deal. Known for their unique “new nostalgia” music style, Williams is set to release their debut album, “Feeling Blue” this fall.
From Spain to California: David Llodra ’01, Ph.D. ’13, ventured halfway around the world to pursue his passion for winemaking at UC Davis. His innovative research about using oak to flavor and finish wines revolutionized the wine and spirits industry and set new standards across the globe. Today, he stays connected to UC Davis by managing annual donations of French and American oak barrels to the university and visiting campus to share his expertise as a guest lecturer.
The University of California, Davis, Cal Aggie Alumni Association has announced the recipients of its 2024 Alumni Awards, an annual program that recognizes remarkable impacts made by alumni and friends of the university.
This year’s winners are leaders in technology, health care, civil advocacy and higher education. All have dedicated their time and resources to create life-changing opportunities for students at UC Davis and around the world.
The Cal Aggie Alumni Association, or CAAA, which serves more than 314,000 UC Davis graduates, has chosen to honor:
Sam Fleischer’s career path to becoming a data analyst for the Los Angeles Dodgers first began with a mathematics internship at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA.
U.S. Ambassador Kathleen FitzGibbon, M.A. ’88, has spent the past 20 years serving as a senior diplomat in Africa, where she has led efforts to negotiate the safe transport of Sudanese refugees from Darfur and quell the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV and Ebola. FitzGibbon has also worked extensively to reduce incidents of human trafficking and create opportunities for women and girls.
Sharon Sharpnack ’65, D.V.M. ’67, and Susan Conner ’65, D.V.M. ’67, have always done everything together, from sharing birthdays, earning UC Davis veterinary degrees and running their own practice in an Oregon town called Sisters.
