Cal astrophysicist Eugene Chiang has chased total solar eclipses across three continents. His advice: stop extrapolating from the partial you saw once, and just go.

In honor of Oski’s 85th birthday, the Cal Alumni Association spoke with five alums who served on the committee between the late 1960s and 2025. What emerged was not one story but five overlapping ones, each shaped by a different decade’s idea of what Oski should be.

She went to Guatemala for six months and ended up staying for two years. That question — what becomes possible when underserved young people get access to technology and learning — never left her.