USD Magazine Fall 2020

CLASS NOTES USD MAGAZINE

COURTESY OF CURTIS CHAMBERS ‘19 (BS/BA)

[ u n p r e t e n t i o u s ]

by Elisa Lurkis A Curtis Chambers gives back big time to USD FLYING HIGH, UNDER THE RADAR few years ago, Curtis Chambers was not really on anyone’s radar at the

Given the stratospheric trajec- tory of his career, it’s hardly sur- prising that finishing his degree wasn’t a priority, but a variety of factors convinced him to finally close the loop. He and his wife, Shirley, were renovating their San Francisco home and needed to re- locate while the work was under- way. Both of their parents live in San Diego and were happy to welcome them home indefinitely. But the primary influencer was Shirley. “My wife said to me, ‘How are we going to convince our daugh-

founding team. Serendipitously, it was one of Chambers’ former classmates and friends, Lisa Johansen ’04 (BS/BA) who mentioned his name while having dinner with Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering Dean Chell Roberts. The dean reached

out to Chambers, who was living in San Francisco, and arranged an initial meeting. “When I first met him, I couldn’t believe how young and humble he was,” he recalls. “You would never guess that this young guy was the software genius behind Uber.”

University of San Diego. This in spite of the fact that Chambers — who had nearly completed his computer science degree at USD — was a member of Uber’s

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USD MAGAZINE