This post was updated Jan. 2 at 12:42 p.m.
Rob Reiner, a filmmaker, activist and former UCLA theater student, was found dead Dec. 14. He was 78.

Kent Wong, the former director of the UCLA Labor Center and an advocate for workers’ rights, died Oct. 8. He was 69 years old.
Wong was the director of the UCLA Labor Center from 1991 to 2023, during which he oversaw the 2021 development of its new MacArthur Park headquarters, said Toby Higbie, a professor of history and labor studies.

This post was updated Oct. 15 at 10:06 a.m.
Friends and family of UCLA alumnus Helya Bahari Kashani gathered at a vigil on campus Sept. 28 to commemorate her life.

Jewel Thais-Williams, a UCLA alumnus, the founder of LGBTQ+ nightclub Jewel’s Catch One and an HIV/AIDS activist, died July 7. She was 86.
Thais-Williams opened Catch One on West Pico Boulevard in 1973 to serve as “a sacred space” for underserved communities of color, said Donald Kilhefner, who was a close friend of Thais-Williams for more than 40 years.

Sandra Harding, a former distinguished professor of education and gender studies, died March 5. She was 89.
Internationally recognized for developing “standpoint theory” – which frames science as shaped by cultural and social contexts rather than as purely objective – Harding’s work critiqued classic academic theories that often overlooked the impacts of race, gender and ethnicity on knowledge production and the practice of science.

This post was updated Aug. 11 at 10:14 p.m.
The Rev. James Lawson Jr. – a civil rights activist, UCLA faculty member and the namesake of a UCLA Labor Center building – died June 9.

Holding flowers and electric candles, dozens of people gathered in Bruin Plaza Friday night at a vigil for Lindsey Trieu, a UCLA student who died in March.