Cynthia Larive Named Chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz

Cynthia K. Larive has been named chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz. She will assume her new duties on July 1, 2019.

The university enrolls more than 17,000 undergraduate students and nearly 2,000 graduate students, according to the latest data on file at the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 50 percent of the undergraduate student body.

Dr. Larive currently serves as provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of California, Riverside, a position she has held since 2017. She has been a member of the UC Riverside community since 2005 and has served in various roles including chair of the department of chemistry, divisional dean for physical sciences and mathematics, and vice provost for undergraduate education.

Throughout her career, Dr. Larive has earned many academic and professional accolades including election as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society, the Award for Distinguished Service to the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry, the J. Calvin Giddings Award for Excellence in Education, and the university’s Innovative Teaching Award.

“I am deeply humbled, honored and excited to lead UC Santa Cruz — a campus of the university I love and am greatly indebted to,” said Dr. Larive. “As a first-generation college student, I experienced firsthand the capacity of higher education institutions – and that of UC in particular – to level the playing field for all students, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds, and to positively transform their lives and their futures.”

Dr. Larive is a graduate of South Dakota State University where she majored in chemistry. She holds a master’s degree in inorganic chemistry from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of California, Riverside.