This is a list of notable alumni and faculty of the University of California, Riverside.

Notable alumni

Notable faculty

• Chris Abani – professor of creative writing and recipient of the Pen Center Freedom to Write Award, Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
• Reza Aslan – Professor of Creative Writing, writer, producer, critic, religion scholar, television celebrity James Joyce Award
• John Baez – professor of mathematics, mathematical physicist
• Alexander A. Balandin – professor of electrical engineering
• Lindon W. Barrett – professor and cultural theorist
• Bir Bhanu – Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering, director of the Center for Research in Intelligent Systems
• Alfred M. Boyce – first dean of the College of Agriculture
• Patricia Cardoso – Award-winning filmmaker, Professor of Film
• Christopher Chase-Dunn – sociologist, contributor to world-systems theory
• Sean Cutler – plant scientist noted for discovery of pyrabactin
• Mike Davis – Emeritus Professor, urban theorist and author MacArthur Fellow in 1998. He won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction
• James H. Dieterich – Distinguished Professor of Geophysics, member of the National Academy of Sciences
• Kim Yi Dionne – political scientist
• Josh Emmons – American novelist
• Steve Erickson – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, American author, essayist, critic Lannan Literary Award Guggenheim
• John Martin Fischer – professor of philosophy, Vice-President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, primary proponent of semi-compatibilism
• Katie Ford – American Poet
• Theodore Garland, Jr. – a founder of the field of evolutionary physiology
• Gail Hanson – Distinguished Professor of Physics
• Allison Adelle Hedge Coke – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, poet, writer, editor, China's First Jade Nurtured SiHui Female International Poetry Award, a Witter Bynner Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholar, American Book Award,
• Juan Felipe Herrera – Emeritus Professor, poet, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair, National Book Critics Circle Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, PEN USA Poetry Award, American Book Award, California State Poet Laureate, United States Poet Laureate
• Ivan Hinderaker – former chancellor
• Nalo Hopkinson – Professor of Creative Writing, science fiction and fantasy writer Andre Norton Award and British Fantasy Award
• Theodore L. Hullar – former chancellor
• Laila Lalami – professor, Pulitzer Prize finalist
• Perry Link – Chancellorial Chair, professor of China Studies
• Ronald O. Loveridge – Mayor of Riverside, California
• Tom Lutz – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, author, literary critic, founder and editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books
• Robert Nisbet – conservative sociologist and early Dean of Letters and Science at UCR
• John W. Olmsted – first chairman of the Humanities division
• Raymond L. Orbach – former chancellor and first Under Secretary of Energy for Science
• Michelle H. Raheja – Associate Professor of English, autobiography, visual culture, and film critic, Director of California Center for Native Nations, Fulbright Scholar awarded the first annual Emory Elliott Book Award
• David Reznick - Distinguished Professor of Biology, Evolutionary Biologist
• Robert Rosenthal – professor of psychology, former chair of Harvard's psychology department
• Irwin Sherman – professor of biology, specializing in malariology
• George Edgar Slusser – professor of comparative literature, science fiction expert
• Andrea Smith – Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Nobel Peace Prize nominee
• Jane Smiley – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, writer, Pulitzer Prize winning author
• Harry Scott Smith – entomologist
• Susan Straight – Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, writer, National Book Award finalist Lannan Literary Award
• Karl Taube – professor of anthropology, specializing in research into pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures
• Bob Toledo – former UCR football coach, 13th head coach of UCLA
• John V. Tunney – professor of business law, former United States Senator and member of Congress
• Jonathan H. Turner – sociologist, one of the last remaining grand theorists in the discipline, author of Structure of Sociological Theory and Emergence of Sociological Theory
• Seymour Van Gundy – former dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences
• Georgia Warnke – Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the director of the Center for Ideas and Society