Friends and former colleagues are mourning the death of Denice Denton, a pioneer in engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who went on to become chancellor of the University of California-Santa Cruz.
Denton, 46, died of an apparent suicide on Saturday. Police and university officials said she appears to have jumped from an apartment building.
Denton was one of the first female engineering faculty members at UW-Madison. She came to UW in 1987, and was the only woman in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the time. She was known for mentoring and encouraging other female assistant professors in engineering and the sciences.