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Denice Denton was an academic professor of Electrical Engineering and university administrator. She was born Aug. 27, 1959 in El Campo, Texas. She earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Denton held academic appointments at the University of Massachusetts, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison,. Beginning in 1996, Denton was Dean of the College of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington, the first woman to hold such a position at an NRC-designated Research One university. Her research was in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) as an enabling technology, particularly in life sciences applications. On February 14, 2005, Denton became Chancellor of the UC Santa Cruz. On June 24, 2006, following a brief hospitalization for clinical depression, she fell to her death from the roof of her apartment building, an apparent suicide. Denton had earned an international reputation for effective advocacy supporting access to science, math, and engineering opportunities for women and minorities.