The day Daniel Zimmerman arrived in the United States as a German exchange student, he walked into his new high school and locked eyes with Deborah. It was a moment neither of them would forget, and the beginning of a love story that would carry them across continents and, eventually, to UCLA School of Law.

Deborah Goldberg ’96 was someone who moved through the world with both fierce conviction and deep compassion. A graduate of Brown University, she spent three years in Germany on an academic exchange scholarship before enrolling at UCLA Law, where she served on the Women's Law Journal and authored a note examining abortion law in Germany through a U.S. lens. Daniel, who had joined her in the United States, enrolled in UCLA Law's LLM program. They married during Deborah's second year of law school, and in 1996, the pair graduated and began building a life together.

After graduation, Deborah channeled her legal training into advocacy work, driven by a belief that the law was a tool for protecting people. When she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2014, that instinct only deepened. She became a tireless patient advocate, working with organizations including Genentech, Guardant Health, Colontown, the Colon Cancer Alliance, and The WunderGlo Foundation. She faced her illness with what Daniel describes as "both grit and grace."

After fighting for five and a half years, Deborah died in 2020.

In the years since, Daniel searched for a way to honor Deborah. He found his answer in establishing the Deborah R. Goldberg Scholarship, an endowed fund at the UCLA Law Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy, supporting students dedicated to reproductive justice.

"I wanted to find a way to honor her that truly reflected who she was," Daniel says. "Deborah believed that advancing reproductive justice was a legal, cultural, and moral imperative."

The scholarship will support future generations of advocates in perpetuity.