Still Making House Calls
If your Victorian home needs a new paint job or retouch, Bob “Dr. Color” Buckter (B.A., ’69) will come over and provide the remedy. This has been Buckter’s specialty for more than 50 years. He has been commissioned to paint Victorian homes in San Francisco alone over 18,000 times, with 7,000 or so more worldwide. The new book “Bob Buckter: Architectural Color Design” serves as his career retrospective, highlighting photographs of over 120 of the houses he has painted over the years.
Buckter keeps his brush moving, although he considers himself “retired” since 1978, after a successful side gig in real estate. When Buckter isn’t painting, he’s often far away from the city, in still colorful, yet more tropical, environs: Since 1994, Buckter has also been a conservationist in Costa Rica, where he owns 1,000 acres of primary and secondary rainforest. He built a rustic lodge high on a mountain ridge, overlooking what he describes as “a view of the world.”
These days, he divides his time between preserving the rainforest and brightening historic homes — and even on the morning he spoke with SF State Magazine, he had already finished painting another Victorian. Retirement, for Buckter, simply means choosing his next canvas.
The Real Win
In March, Conall Jones (B.A., ’05) took home the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short for “All the Empty Rooms,” a film that shares the stories of families affected by gun violence through the bedrooms their children left behind. For Jones, the Oscar’s meaning is simple: “The significance of the win, to me and our entire team, is simply that millions of more people will watch the film.”
That reach mattered more than a speech. On stage, he gave his time to Gloria Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter was killed in the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, so she could speak directly to millions watching. “That’s the win for me,” he says.
Jones describes the moment as both powerful and bittersweet, as families featured in the film celebrated together while grieving. “Many of them felt an urge to tell their child we won,” he says, “but that child is no longer here.”
’80s
Susannah Israel’s (B.A., ’86; MFA, ’00) glazed terracotta sculpture “Rainbow Child” was featured in “The Color Network: Family Album,” an invitational exhibition in Detroit.
’90s
John Estalilla (B.A., ’99) has been appointed by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to the San Mateo County Arts Commission. Serving as the commissioner for District 2, Estalilla helps oversee the county’s arts programs and initiatives, advocating for cultural equity and community engagement through the arts.
’00s
Delroy Lindo (B.A., ’04) received his first Academy Award nomination this year, as Best Supporting Actor for his role in “Sinners.” He is a board member of the SFSU Foundation.
’10s
Zach Pereyra (B.A., ’17) is chief mastering engineer at Larrabee Mastering. He received his first Grammy Award nomination this year for Album of the Year for his work on the Clipse’s “Let God Sort Em Out.” He is married to Mackenzie Guthrie (B.A., ’17), a marketing and communications specialist.
Juan Gonzales (B.A., ’70) won the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. He has spent 40 years as Journalism Department chair at City College of San Francisco. He also advises The Guardsman, the college’s award-winning newspaper, and founded the bilingual community newspaper El Tecolote.
John Patitucci (B.A., ’78) was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for “Spirit Fall.” Throughout his career, he has won three Grammy Awards and has received 16 nominations.
Julie Bettencourt Cliff (B.S., ’79) has been a commercial litigation attorney for more than 22 years. After tragedy and adversity, she has practiced in California and Colorado, in state and federal jurisdictions, and has been published nine times. She is semiretired and lives in Colorado.
Scott Cooper’s (MBA, ’82) book “The Four Paths of Assertiveness” (Johns Hopkins University) is recommended by the science journal Nature as one of nine books that young professionals should consider reading in 2026.
Sam Herzberg (B.A., ’89) received a Lifetime Professional Achievement Award from the California State Parks Trails and Greenways Award Program. Nominated by colleagues at the Bay Area Trail Collaborative and Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, he was recognized for 35 years of public service to the County of San Mateo. He was honored at the California State Parks Trails and Greenways Conference on April 15 at the San Ramon Marriott.
Chris Scarabosio (B.A., ’90) garnered his fourth Academy Award nomination this year. He was nominated for Best Sound for “One Battle After Another.”
Michael E. Spagna (Ph.D., ’92) is the new president of Sonoma State University. Prior, he was interim president of Cal Poly Humboldt and provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at CSU Dominguez Hills.
Josie Iselin (MFA, ’94) is lecturer faculty in SFSU’s School of Design. One of her latest projects, “Five Foundational Kelp,” is a mural in the University’s new Science and Engineering Innovation Center.
Kirby Wright (MFA, ’94) is the feature writer for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. His recent work has been accepted for publication by the University of Akron, UC Riverside and Mary Washington University in Virginia.
Ben Villegas Randle (B.A., ’05) is the new artistic director of New Conservatory Theatre Center, San Francisco’s premier LGBTQIA theatre for 45 years. He succeeds Ed Decker (B.A., ’79), the center’s founding artistic director.
April Ellis (MSW, ’07) is a registered horticultural therapist and founder of Riva Mental Health, where she supervises social workers and marriage and family therapists as they work toward licensure. Ellis is a member of the board of directors for the American Horticultural Therapy Association and the California Horticultural Therapy Network.
Ashley Fumiko Dominguez (B.A., ’08; M.A., ’10) has been promoted to senior director of federal relations at UCLA. She uses many of the vital skills she learned while at SFSU to “make college more accessible to anyone who dreams of higher education, regardless of their background.”
Armineh Noravian (Ed.D., ’14) is president of STEM-Engine Education, a new nonprofit dedicated to developing STEM learning tools, toys and instructional aids for visually impaired and disabled students in pre-kindergarten to 12th grade.
Godofredo Vasquez (B.A., ’14) and Camille Cohen (B.A., ’20) each had one of their photographs featured in The Washington Post’s Enduring Images of 2025. Vasquez’s photo is a close-up of a St. Louis Cardinals player sliding into home plate, shot for the Associated Press. Cohen’s photo, from the Post, shows a boxing match between two robots that took place at a co-working and living space in San Francisco.
Brenda Landa (B.S., ’15) is executive chef at Outerlands, named “one of San Francisco’s most beloved restaurants” by the San Francisco Chronicle. Her menus blend California ingredients with Mexican traditions and cross-cultural influences. With family roots in Michoacán, Mexico, Landa began her culinary career while attending SFSU as a Hospitality Management major before training at Alice Waters’ Rome Sustainable Food Project.
Nick Gumas (B.A., ’16) has photographed performances by many of today’s top musicians at major music festivals, including Austin City Limits, Outside Lands and Governors Ball. While studying opera at SFSU he performed with the California Symphony, an experience that continues to shape how he captures live performance.
Kiante Marron (B.A., ’22) won the 2026 Bay Area Film Night Sponsee award, providing the fledgling filmmaker the opportunity to attend the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
Ezra Mendales (M.S., ’23) described a new species of the common Galapagos lava heron as part of his master’s thesis with his mentor, SFSU Associate Professor Jaime Chaves (M.S., ’04). The duo partnered with California Academy of Sciences Ornithology Curator Jack Dumbacher, who shares a joint lab with Chaves and is a longtime collaborator.
Kimberly deBoer (B.S., ’23; M.S., ’25) was named a 2025 NCAA Women of the Year Top 30 Honoree. She is the first athlete in Gators volleyball history to earn the honor. She is assistant women’s volleyball coach at California Baptist University.
Erika Ono-Kerns (B.S., ’23) is finishing a master’s degree at UCLA, where she’s creating mathematical models of elephant seal disease (avian influenza H5N1) at Año Nuevo State Park before heading to veterinary school. February 2026 marked the first detection of the disease in marine mammals in California and northern elephant seals.
Lucia Louise Ippolito (MFA, ’25) is a muralist, educator and activist in San Francisco’s Mission District. She is lecturer faculty in SFSU’s Latina/Latino Studies Department. “I teach youth the history of street art, muralism and Indigenous Black and Brown community-based artists, many of whom have shaped the cultural landscape of the