UC Santa Barbara is home to Nobel Laureates, two in my alma mater Chemistry Department:        

Alan J. Heeger, Professor of Physics and of Materials
2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
"For the discovery and development of conductive polymers"

Walter Kohn, Founding director, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
"For his development of the density-functional theory"

"Ideas seem to come 'out of the blue' and what you see in one area along with your own area could spark thoughts in a whole new direction."
- Professor Bill Kaska, faculty for an inorganic laboratory course that I took my senior year.  Our lab photo was at one time featured as the Chemistry Department homepage (Professor Kaska, back row, right.  Myself, front row, right).

Under his mentorship, I went on to successfully interview at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.