List of Famous people born in California, United States of America
Catlin Adams
Catlin Adams is an American actress and film director. Her main roles include The Jazz Singer and Toothless. She is also well known for her performance as promiscuous carnival worker Patty Bernstein in The Jerk. As a director, she shared a Directors Guild of America Award for an afterschool special.
John D. Roberts
John Dombrowski Roberts was an American chemist. He made contributions to the integration of physical chemistry, spectroscopy, and organic chemistry for the understanding of chemical reaction rates. Another characteristic of Roberts' work was the early use of NMR, the concept of spin-spin coupling.
Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson
Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson was an American fashion consultant, businesswoman and philanthropist. She was a corporate director of The Walt Disney Company and the Fluor Corporation. She served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 1981 to 1984. She was the founder of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Lionel Lindon
Lionel Lindon, ASC was an American film cameraman and cinematographer who spent much of his career working for Paramount.
Raoul Björkenheim
Raoul Björkenheim is an American jazz guitarist from Los Angeles.
Richard A. Tapia
Richard Alfred Tapia is an American mathematician and champion of under-represented minorities in the sciences. In recognition of his broad contributions, in 2005, Tapia was named "University Professor" at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the University's highest academic title. The honor has been bestowed on only six professors in Rice's one-hundred-five-year history. On September 28, 2011, President Barack Obama announced that Tapia was among twelve scientists to be awarded the National Medal of Science, the top award the United States offers its researchers. Tapia is currently the Maxfield and Oshman Professor of Engineering; Associate Director of Graduate Studies, Office of Research and Graduate Studies; and Director of the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education at Rice University.
Matthew Lien
Matthew Carl Lien is a Yukon, Canada based world music singer-songwriter and producer. His primary lyrical and musical focus is on environmental and cultural themes.
Bruce Winstein
Bruce Winstein was an experimental physicist and cosmologist noted for his early work in elementary particle physics, particularly work toward demonstrating a serious asymmetry between particles and their anti-particles. Later in his career, he worked in experimental cosmology, measuring polarization in the microwave background radiation whose properties date back to the early universe.
Hayley Peirsol
Hayley Reide Peirsol is an American former distance swimmer. She swam under Dave Salo with Irvine Novaquatics prior to attending Auburn University. While at Auburn, Peirsol trained under David Marsh, Dorsey Tierney and the late Ralph Crocker. She earned 3 individual NCAA titles and 3 individual SEC titles in the 1650 freestyle as well as 3 NCAA and 4 SEC team titles. In 2006 and 2007, Peirsol also trained with Club Wolverine at the University of Michigan along with teammates Erik Vendt, Michael Phelps, Klete and Kalyn Keller, and Kaitlin Sandeno under Bob Bowman and distance expert Jon Urbanchek. In 2006, Hayley became the third woman in history to ever break 16 minutes in the 1500 meter freestyle, the other two women being Janet Evans and Kate Ziegler.
Sara Del Rey
Sara Ann Amato is an American professional wrestling trainer and retired professional wrestler best known by her ring name Sara Del Rey. She was a mainstay for Chikara and Shimmer, but also appeared for many other independent promotions in the United States, including Ring of Honor (ROH), IWA Mid-South and All Pro Wrestling, as well as Mexico's Lucha Libre Femenil. Del Rey also taped several matches, competing under a mask and using the name Nic Grimes, for the MTV promotion Wrestling Society X. Del Rey was the inaugural Shimmer Champion and co-holder of the Shimmer Tag Team Championship with Courtney Rush, making her the promotion's first double champion. In 2012, Del Rey became only the fourth woman to make it to Pro Wrestling Illustrated's list of top 500 wrestlers in the world. She is currently employed by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as the Assistant Head Coach and producer of their developmental territory NXT, based at the WWE Performance Center.