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Faculty

Virginia Adan-Lifante

Virginia Adan-Lifante

Teaching Professor of Spanish and World Languages Program Coordinator

vadan-lifante@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 379

  • Second language acquisition
  • Hispanic women literature
  • Hispanic culture
  • Puerto Rican literature and culture
  • Representations of Domestic Violence on Hispanic Cultures

Zenaida Aguirre-Munoz

Professor of Cognitive Science

zaguirre-munoz@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 261A

  • STEM education
  • Bilingualism
  • Disciplinary Literacy
  • Assessment and Evaluation
  • Teacher Development
Mark Aldenderfer

Mark Aldenderfer

Distinguished Professor Emeritus

maldenderfer@ucmerced.edu

  • Archaeology
  • Quantitative methods
  • Geographic information systems
  • Hunters and gatherers
  • Andean Preceramic and Formative, Central Asia and Tibet

Myles Ali

Assistant Professor

mali10@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 272

  • African History, especially 19th and early 20th century Sierra Leone.
Paul Almeida

Paul Almeida

Professor of Sociology

palmeida@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 228

  • Climate Action
  • Political Sociology
  • Environmental Sociology
  • Globalization
  • Social movements
Lorena Alvarado

Lorena Alvarado

Assistant Professor of Musicology

lalvarado10@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 355

Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes

Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes

Professor of Economics

camuedo-dorantes@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 362

  • Immigrants and Immigration Policy
  • Labor Economics
  • Health, Education and Public Economics
  • Crime and Incarceration
Susan Amussen

Susan Amussen

Distinguished Professor of History and UC Merced Presidential Endowed Chair in the Humanities

+1 (209) 228-4590

samussen@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 221

  • Early Modern Britain and the Atlantic World
  • Early Modern Gender and Race
  • Social and cultural history
  • History and Literature

 

 

Arturo Arias
  • Mesoamerican Indigenous literatures and cultures
  • Central American & Latina/o cultural studies
Kristina Backer

Kristina Backer

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science

kbacker@ucmerced.edu

  • Auditory Cognitve Neuroscience
  • Auditory Perception
  • Speech Perception
  • Hearing Loss
  • Development and Aging
  • Bilingualism

Christina Baker

Associate Professor

cbaker26@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 330

  • Black Feminism
  • Black Studies
  • Film
  • Education

Ramesh Balasubramaniam

Professor of Cognitive Science

+1 (209) 228-2314

ramesh@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 259A

  • Sensorimotor neuroscience
  • Complex systems
  • Perception
  • Action
Briana Ballis

Briana Ballis

Assistant Professor of Economics

bballis@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 358

  • Labor Economics
  • Public Economics
  • Education, Health and Inequality

Mayra Bamaca

Associate Professor of Psychology

mbamaca@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 364A

Jayson Beaster-Jones

Jayson Beaster-Jones

Professor of Music

+1 (209) 228-2521

jbeaster-jones@ucmerced.edu

Arts & Computational Sciences, 113

  • Ethnomusicology 
  • Anthropology
  • South Asian studies
  • Indian Cinema (Bollywood)
  • Popular Musics
  • Gateway to Merced (community-engaged research)
Irenee Beattie

Irenee Beattie

Associate Professor of Sociology

ibeattie@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 230

  • Sociology of education
  • Social inequality (race/class/gender/sexuality)
  • Social capital
  • Adolescent transitions to adulthood

Estee Beck

Merritt Writing Program Director

ebeck2@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 315

Heather Bortfeld

Heather Bortfeld

Professor of Psychology and Emmett, Bernice & Carlston Cunningham Endowed Chair in Cognitive Development

hbortfeld@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 247B

  • Infant development
  • Speech perception
  • Language processing
  • Cochlear implants
  • fNIRS
  • Optical imaging

Asa Bradman

Professor of Public Health

abradman@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 356A

My research focuses on environmental exposures and their health impacts, particularly in children. My overall goal is to conduct research that informs policies to improve public health.

Katherine Brokaw

Katherine Steele Brokaw

Associate Professor of English

kbrokaw@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 375

  • Shakespeare and performance
  • Theatre in community
  • Practice as research and community-engaged research
  • Eco-theatre and eco-criticism
  • Medieval and Renaissance drama
Paul Brown

Paul Brown

Professor of Health Economics

+1 (209) 628-7554

pbrown3@ucmerced.edu

COB-1, Room 369

  • Health Economics
  • Behavioral Economics
  • Health Services Research
  • Farmworkers Health
Nancy Burke

Nancy Burke

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Endowed Chair and Co-Director UC-Cuba Multi-Campus Academic Initiative

nburke2@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 363B

  • Global health
  • Social inequalities in health/health disparities
  • Health behavior
  • Cancer
  • Oral health
  • Medical anthropology
  • Clinical trials recruitment/research participation
  • Refugees
  • Survivorship
  • Immigration
Fatima Burney

Fatima Burney

Assistant Professor of Literatures and Languages

fburney@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 353

  • Global Romanticism
  • World Poetry
  • Ecocriticism
  • Digital Humanities

Linda Cameron

Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 228-2252

lcameron@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 308A

  • Health communications and interventions for changing health behaviors
  • Imagery and affective processes influencing risk perceptions and behavior
  • Smoking prevention
  • Interventions for promoting adjustment during cancer treatment and survivorship
Eileen Camfield

Eileen Camfield

Teaching Professor/Senior Lecturer with Security of Employment and Faculty Associate for Writing and Pedagogy, Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning

+1 (209) 228-3407

ecamfield@ucmerced.edu

Arts & Computational Sciences Building, Office 152

  • Writing to Enhance Learning (Across the Curriculum)
  • Resiliency Theory
  • Self-Efficacy Development
  • Faculty Development in Pedagogy
Gregg Camfield

Gregg Camfield

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

+1 (209) 233-1072

gcamfield@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 371

  • American literature and culture — from 18th century poet Joel Barlow to the television cartoon "Beavis and Butt-Head"
  • Ethical and esthetic debates of the 19th century, concentrating on the works of Mark Twain, American literary humor, literary sentimentalism and domesticity

Stephanie Canizales

Assistant Professor of Sociology

scanizales@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 359

  • Migration and immigrant integration

Alec Chan-Golston

Assistant Professor of Public Health

achan-golston@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 354B

  • Spatial data analysis
  • Hierarchical modeling
  • Finite population estimation
  • Geographic health disparities
Aditi Chandra

Aditi Chandra

Assistant Professor of Art History/Visual Studies

+1 (209) 228-2321

achandra4@ucmerced.edu

ACS, Room 125

  • South Asian and Islamic Art and Architectural History
  • Colonial and Post/Colonial Studies
  • Space  Identity
  • Empire & Space
  • Gender Studies

Ricardo Cisneros

Associate Professor of Environmental Health

rcisneros@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 361A

  • Environmental health
  • Effects of air quality on health
  • Forest fires
  • Asthma
  • Environmental Epidemiology, Water and Health

Lindsay Crawford

Assistant Teaching Professor of Public Health

lcrawford5@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 354A

  • Health Promotion
  • Health Education
  • Pedagogy
  • Teaching and Learning
Aditya Dasgupta

Aditya Dasgupta

Assistant Professor of Political Science

+1 (209) 228-3617

adasgupta3@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 310

  • Comparative politics
  • Political economy
  • South Asia
Kevin Dawson

Kevin Dawson

Associate Professor of History

+1 (209) 756-4512

kdawson4@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 277

  • Atlantic history
  • Early American history
  • African diaspora 
Robin Maria DeLugan

Robin Maria DeLugan

Professor of Anthropology

+1 (209) 658-9481

rdelugan@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 353A

  • Collective identity
  • Social memory
  • The nation-state
  • Migration and transnationalism
  • Political Anthropology
  • Community engaged scholarship
Elaine Denny

Elaine Denny

Assistant Professor of Political Science

edenny@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 342

  • Political psychology
  • Economic insecurity
  • Risk and decision-making
  • Political behavior
Sarah DePaoli

Sarah DePaoli

Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 228-4549

sdepaoli@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 312A

  • Structural equation models
  • Finite mixture models
  • Longitudinal models
  • Bayesian latent variable modeling
  • Bayesian model mis-specification
  • Categorical latent variable models
Maria DePrano

Maria DePrano

Professor of Art History

mdeprano@ucmerced.edu

ACS, Room 126

  • Art patronage
  • Family
  • Gender
  • Women
  • Italian Renaissance art
  • Domestic Interior
  • Material Culture

Kyle Dodson

Associate Professor of Sociology

+1 (209) 201-7124

kdodson2@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 229

  • Political sociology
  • Quantitative methodology
  • Social change
  • Social stratification

Sapana Doshi

Associate Professor

sdoshi3@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 361

Charlie Eaton

Charlie Eaton

Associate Professor of Sociology

ceaton2@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 219

  • Economic Sociology
  • Inequality
  • Political sociology
  • Social policy
  • Education
  • Healthcare
  • Elites
Anna Epperson

Anna E. Epperson

Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences

aepperson@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 362A

  • Community-driven strategies to reduce risk behavior
  • Racial/ethnic health disparities
  • Tobacco use prevention

Edward Flores

Associate Professor of Sociology

+1 (562) 656-9838

eflores52@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 231

My research interests are centered around labor, community organizing, immigration, religion and race.

Christian Fons-Rosen

Christian Fons-Rosen

Associate Professor of Economics

cfons-rosen@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 353

  • Economics of Science and Innovation
  • International Economics
  • Political Economy
Weisong Gao

Weisong Gao

Assistant Professor of English

wgao4@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 355

  • Queer Theory
  • Diaspora
  • Environmental Humanities
  • Global Asias
  • Asian American Studies
  • Contemporary Literature
Humberto Garcia

Humberto Garcia

Professor and Vincent Hillyer Chair in Literature

hgarcia22@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 383

  • Eighteenth- and Nineteenth- Century British Literature and Art
  • British Romanticism
  • Postcolonial, Transnational, and Ethnic Studies
  • Islamic and Persian Studies
  • Gender and Sexuality Studies

Blythe George

Assistant Professor of Sociology

blythegeorge@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 327

Paul Gibbons

Paul Gibbons

Associate Teaching Professor of Writing Studies

+1 (209) 228-2384

pgibbons@ucmerced.edu

ACS, Room 147

  • Creative Writing Pedagogy
  • Hybrid Writing
  • Improvisation and Writing
Jeffrey Gilger

Jeffrey Gilger

Dean and Professor of Psychological Sciences and Former Emmett, Bernice & Carlston Cunningham Chair in Cognitive Development

+1 (209) 228-4641

jgilger@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 306B

  • Normal and abnormal neuropsychological development and genetics
  • Etiology of learning-language disorders
Jan Goggans

Jan Goggans

Posthumous Emerita

Tanya Golash-Boza

Tanya Golash-Boza

Professor of Sociology

tgolash-boza@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 224

  • Immigration policy
  • Deportations
  • Mass incarceration
  • Human rights
  • U.S. Latinos/as
  • Latin America
Sidra Goldman-Mellor

Sidra Goldman-Mellor

Associate Professor of Public Health

+1 (209) 228-2498

sgoldman-mellor@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 360B

  • Mental Health
  • Suicidal Behavior
  • Substance Abuse
  • Epidemiology
  • Emergency Department Utilization

Mariaelena Gonzalez

Associate Professor of Public Health

+1 (209) 228-2332

mgonzalez82@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 359A

  • Health disparities
  • Social epidemiology/social determinants of health
  • Tobacco control
  • Oral health
  • Latino health
  • Immigrant/refugee health
Rowena Gray

Rowena Gray

Associate Professor of Economics

rgray6@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 367

  • Economic history
  • Labor economics
  • Crime
  • Housing
Zach Grossman

Zachary "Zack" Grossman

Associate Professor of Economics

zgrossman@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 355

  • Psychology & Economics
  • Experimental Economics
  • Game Theory
  • Applied Mechanism Design
Hanna Gunn

Hanna Gunn

Assistant Professor of Applied Ethics

hgunn@ucmerced.edu

SSM 257B

Social epistemology

Virtue & vice epistemology

Feminist philosophy of language

Ethics & epistemology of the Internet and new media

Sandie Ha

Sandie Ha

Assistant Professor of Public Health

+1 (209) 228-3615

sha55@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 356B

  • Environmental epidemiology
  • Perinatal epidemiology
  • Maternal and child health
  • Valley fever
  • Chronic diseases
  • Climate change and health
Martin Hagger

Martin Hagger

Distinguished Professor

mhagger@ucmerced.edu

SSM 312B

  • Attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and motivation
  • Behavior change
  • Selfregulation and self-control
  • Development, integration and application of social psychological theory
Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook

Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook

Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 205-6873

jhahn-holbrook@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 354

  • Maternal-child health
  • Depression
  • Psychoneuroendocrinology
  • Childhood obesity
  • Social support
Laura Hamilton

Laura Hamilton

Professor of Sociology

lhamilton2@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 225

  • Gender
  • Education
  • Family
  • Sexuality
  • Social inequality
  • Mixed methods
Thomas G. Hansford

Thomas G. Hansford

Professor of Political Science

+1 (209) 228-4037

thansford@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 312

  • Judicial politics
  • Interest group involvement in the courts
  • Supreme Court precedent
  • Public opinion on courts and law
  • Elections and voting behavior
Nigel Hatton

Nigel Hatton

Associate Professor of Literature

+1 (209) 228-4384

nhatton@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 373

  • Nineteenth- and 20th-century American and African American literature and culture
  • Transnational American studies
  • Literature and philosophy
  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Global human rights
  • Narrative medicine
Gregg Herken

Gregg Herken

Professor of History, Emeritus

gherken@ucmerced.edu

  • History
  • American diplomatic history
  • Nuclear history
  • History of the Cold War
Matthew Hibbing

Matthew Hibbing

Associate Professor of Political Science

mhibbing@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 323

  • American politics
  • Political behavior
  • Political psychology
  • Biology and politics

Daniel Hicks

Associate Professor of Philosophy

dhicks4@ucmerced.edu

  • Public scientific controversies (climate change, vaccines, genetically modified crops, pesticides, chemical safety, race science, etc.)
  • Environmental Public Health
  • Environmental Justice
  • Science Policy
  • Feminist Philosophy
Justin Hicks

Justin Hicks

Associate Teaching Professor of Economics

+1 (209) 233-3867

jhicks@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 346

  • Microeconomics
  • Applied econometrics
  • Economics of innovation
Colin Holbrook

Colin Holbrook

Associate Professor of Cognitive Science

cholbrook@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 255A

  • Group prejudice
  • Morality
  • Threat psychology
  • Human-robot interaction
  • Evolutionary psychology
Mai-Linh Hong

Mai-Linh Hong

Assistant Professor of Literatures and Languages

hongm@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 371

Jennifer Howell

Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences

howell@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 302A

  • Health psychology
  • Social psychology
  • Self/identity
  • Decision-making and behavior
  • Responding to bad news
Kathleen Hull

Kathleen Hull

Professor Emerita, Anthropology & Heritage Studies

khull3@ucmerced.edu

  • Anthropological archaeology
  • Ethnohistory
  • Colonial encounters in the Americas
  • Prehistoric demography
  • Ancient hunter-gatherer societies of western North America

Thelma Hurd

Professor of Public Health and Thondapu Family Endowed Chair

thurd2@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management Building, 351A

  • Oncology
  • Public Health-Health Equity/Disparities
  • Healthcare
Robert Innes

Robert Innes

Distinguished Professor and County Bank Chair in Economics

rinnes@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 325

  • Environmental economics
  • Law and economics
  • Industrial organization
  • Agricultural policy and markets
  • Finance

Elif Isbell

Assistant Professor of Psychology

eisbell@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 362B

  • Brain and cognitive development
  • Children’s experiences at home and in schools
  • Academic readiness and achievement

Jason Isbell

Assistant Professor of Psychology

jisbell@ucmerced.edu

David Jennings

David Jennings

Associate Teaching Professor

djennings3@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 259B

  • Ancient philosophy
  • Moral and political philosophy
  • History of philosophy
Carolyn Dicey Jennings

Carolyn Dicey Jennings

Professor of Philosophy

+1 (209) 600-9654

cjennings3@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, Office 385

  • Attention
  • Perception
  • Consciousness
  • Action
Fan Jia

Fan Jia

Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences

fjia3@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 304A

  • Missing data analysis
  • Longitudinal data analysis
  • Multilevel modeling
  • Structural equation modeling
  • Mediation and moderation analysis

Andrew Johnston

Assistant Professor of Economics

acjohnston@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 384

  • Labor Economics
  • Public Economics
  • American Poverty
  • Applied Econometrics

Emily Johnston

Assistant Teaching Professor

emilyjohnston@ucmerced.edu

ACS 148

  • First-Year Writing Pedagogy
  • Rhetorical Empathy and Rhetorical Listening
  • Rhetorical Genre Studies
  • Rhetorics of Health and Medicine
  • Intersectional Feminism
  • Trauma Studies
Andrea Joyce

Andrea Joyce

Associate Professor of Public Health

ajoyce2@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 358B

  • Biological control
  • Integrated pest management
  • Vector ecology
  • Populations genetics, speciation
  • Public Health Entomology

Matthew Kaiser

Professor of English

mkaiser2@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 385

  • Nineteenth-century British literature and culture
  • Cognitive approaches to the study of literature
  • Gender and sexuality studies
David Kaminsky

David Kaminsky

Professor of Music and Dance

dkaminsky@ucmerced.edu

ACS, Room 118

  • Music and dance, especially as they relate to:
  • Social power
  • National identity
  • Gender and sexuality 
  • Cultural ownership
Christopher Kello

Christopher Kello

Professor of Cognitive Science

ckello@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 262B

  • Reading
  • Speech
  • Neural networks
  • Complex systems

Esra Kose

Assistant Professor in Economics

esrakose@ucmerced.edu

COB-1 349

  • Public Economics
  • Labor Economics
  • Health Economics
Jason Lee

Jason Lee

Associate Teaching Professor of Economics

jlee287@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 342

  • Economic history
  • Economic growth
  • Financial economics
  • Macroeconomics
  • Money and banking
Dorothy Leland

Dorothy Leland

Professor Emeritus

  • Continental and humanistic philosophy
Brad LeVeck

Brad LeVeck

Associate Professor of Political Science

bleveck@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 314

  • Experiments
  • Models of political decision-making
  • Strategic cognition and learning in games

Jiajun Liang

Assistant Professor

jliang74@ucmerced.edu

Haiyan Liu

Haiyan Liu

Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences

hliu62@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 306A

  • Latent variable analysis of social networks
  • Structural equation modeling
  • Bayesian methods
  • Time series and dynamical system analysis
  • Categorical data analysis

Ren Liu

Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences

rliu45@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 306B

  • Psychometrics

Felicia Lopez

Assistant Professor of Literatures and Languages

flopez44@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 357

    • Mesoamerican Glyphic Writing Systems
    • Nahuatl Literature and Translation
    • Mesoamerican Religious Traditions
    • Mesoamerican and Indigenous Science
    • Indigenous Language Revitalization
Ignacio Lopez-Calvo

Ignacio Lopez-Calvo

Director of the Center for the Humanities, Presidential Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Latin American Literature

+1 (209) 228-4595

ilopez-calvo@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 216

  • Cultural production by and about Latin American authors of Asian descent
  • The literary and cultural representations of the relationship between human rights, racialization, gender, migration, and authoritarianism

Tonya Lopez-Craig

Lecturer SOE for Art

Yang Lor

Assistant Teaching Professor of Sociology

ylor2@ucmerced.edu

*Education

*Stratification

*Culture

*Race & Ethnicity

*Asian Americans

*Hmong Americans

Dalia Magana

Dalia Magaña

Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics

dmagana6@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 214

  • Medical discourse (Spanish in healthcare, intercultural communication)
  • Sociolinguistics (code-switching, language attitudes and ideologies)
  • Heritage language pedagogy
  • Discourse analysis (systemic functional linguistics, Conceptual Metaphor theory)
Paul Maglio

Paul Maglio

Professor of Cognitive Science

pmaglio@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 206A

  • Service science
  • Human-computer interaction
  • Distributed cognition
Alexandra Main

Alexandra Main

Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences

amain@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 302B

  • Emotional development
  • Empathy
  • Interpersonal processes
  • Conflict management
  • Culture

Sean Malloy

Professor of History

smalloy@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 273

  • U.S. diplomatic history
  • Nuclear history
  • War and morality
  • Twentieth century U.S. social movements
  • African American history

Tyler Marghetis

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science

tmarghetis@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 260A

  • Abstract Concepts
  • Metaphor & Figurative Thought
  • Higher-Level Cognition
  • Distributed Cognition
  • Cross-Cultural Research
  • Culture & Cognition
  • Embodied Cognition
  • Complex Systems
  • Time Series Methods
Maria Martin

Maria Martin

Assistant Professor of African History

mmartin360@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 280

  • African Women and Gender
  • 20th Century Intellectual History of African Women
  • Inductive Development of Black Feminist Theory
  • African Nationalism
  • Transnational Black Experiences
  • Africa in Classical Antiquity
Manuel Martin-Rodriguez

Manuel Martin-Rodriguez

Distinguished Professor of Literature

+1 (209) 217-7255

mmartin-rodriguez@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 220

  • Chicano/a/x and Latino/a/x literature
  • Film studies
  • Literary theory
  • Children's literature
Teenie Matlock

Teenie Matlock

Professor Emerita

+1 (209) 228-2954

tmatlock@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 263B

  • Cognitive science
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Linguistics
  • Semantics
  • Metaphor
  • Climate communication

Anil Menon

Assistant Professor in Political Science

armenon@ucmerced.edu

COB-2 313

  • Political Behavior 
  • Migration & Diaspora  
  • Historical Political Economy 
  • Political Rhetoric & Persuasion

Amanda Mireles

Assistant Teaching Professor of Sociology

amireles5@ucmerced.edu

Courtenay R. Monroe

Professor of Political Science

courtenaymonroe@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 322

  • International organizations
  • Comparative political institutions
  • Human rights
Nathan Monroe

Nathan Monroe

Professor of Political Science and Tony Coelho Endowed Chair in Public Policy

+1 (209) 228-4598

nmonroe2@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 320

  • American political institutions, especially the U.S. Congress — theory and practice of agenda setting and partisanship
  • Legislative term limits
  • Election administration
  • Positive political theory

Holley Moyes

Professor of Anthropology

hmoyes@ucmerced.edu

LAB: SSM, Room 333

  • Archaeology of religion
  • Cave archaeology
  • Mesoamerica
  • Dynamics of complex society
  • Geographic information systems
  • Spatial cognition
  • Cognitive science affiliate
Kit Myers

Kit Myers

Assistant Professor of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

kmyers6@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 328

  • Race
  • Gender
  • Family
  • Adoption
  • Law
David C. Noelle

David C. Noelle

Associate Professor of Cognitive Science

+1 (209) 228-4101

dnoelle@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 262A

  • Computational cognitive neuroscience
  • Connectionism
  • Cognitive control
  • Learning from direct instruction
  • Rule-guided behavior
  • Concept formation
  • Working memory
  • Implicit/explicit learning
  • Cognitive neuroscience

Samantha Ocena

Associate Teaching Professor

socena@ucmerced.edu

Arts & Computation Sciences Building, Office 149

  • Creative Writing (fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction)
  • First-Year Composition
  • Sound & Audio Storytelling
  • Collaborative Storytelling
  • Professional Writing
  • Anti-racist Pedagogy

Robert Ochsner

Senior Lecturer SOE of Writing Emeritus

rochsner@ucmerced.edu

Christopher Ojeda

Assistant Professor of Political Science

cojeda5@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 343

Lace Padilla

Lace Padilla

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science

lace.padilla@ucmerced.edu

  • uncertainty cognition
Whitney Pirtle

Whitney Pirtle

Associate Professor of Sociology and John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights

wpirtle@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 223

  • Race and ethnicity 
  • Social stratification 
  • Social psychology 
  • Sociology of health and illness 
  • Quantitative methods 
  • Comparative sociology 

Andrea Polonijo

Assistant Professor of Sociology

apolonijo@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 332

  • Health disparities
  • Medical sociology
  • Vaccination

Sholeh A. Quinn

Professor of History

+1 (209) 228-4593

squinn@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 218

  • Iran

Dunya Ramicova

Distinguished Professor of Art, Emerita

dramicova@ucmerced.edu

  • Costume design (for theatre, opera, ballet, dance, film and television)
  • History of costume design
  • History of clothing and fashion, drawing and watercolor painting
A. Susana Ramirez

A. Susana Ramirez

Associate Professor of Public Health Communication

sramirez37@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 357A

Research Interests:

  • Communication: Advertising, journalism, public opinion, information overload
  • Latinx health
  • Cancer and chronic disease prevention
  • Obesity

 

Teaching:

Linda-Anne Rebhun

Linda-Anne Rebhun

Associate Professor of Anthropology

+1 (209) 228-4550

lrebhun@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 353B

  • Medical anthropology: maternal and child health
  • Psychological anthropology: emotions and romance
  • Gender
  • Religion: magic, witchcraft and folk Catholicism
  • Folklore
  • Latin America, African Diaspora and Africa

Daisy Reyes

Associate Professor of Sociology

daisy.reyes@ucmerced.edu

  • Race/Ethnicity;
  • Latina/o/x Sociology;
  • Sociology of Education;
  • Social Movements;
  • Inequality/Mobility;
  • Sexualities;
Cristian H. Ricci

Cristian H. Ricci

Professor of Iberian and North African Literatures, Spanish Program Coordinator and Faculty Director of the UC Merced International House (Living Learning Communities)

cricci@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 365

  • Iberian Literatures from the 19th to the 21st centuries
  • Contemporary Maghribi literature written in European languages
  • Subsaharan literature
  • Borderland studies
  • African migrations to Europe
  • 20th century Spanish-American literature

Alexandra (Ali) Rivera-Gonzalez

Assistant Professor in Public Health

arivera10@ucmerced.edu

SSM 361B

  • Latino and immigrant health
  • Health policy
  • Health equity
  • Healthcare access and utilization
  • Public health emergencies
  • Puerto Rico health system

Tesalia Rizzo Reyes

Assistant Professor of Political Science

trizzo@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 316

  • Political Behavior
  • Citizen-State Relations
  • Social Policy
  • Bureaucracy and Machine Politics in Latin America
Jill Robbins

Jill Robbins

Professor Emerita of Spanish Literature

jillrobbins@ucmerced.edu

  • Contemporary Iberian Culture
  • Urban Studies
  • Migration Studies
  • Gender and Sexuality Studies
  • Literature and Trauma
  • Affect
  • Film
  • Poetry
David Rouff

David Rouff

Associate Professor; Chair, Department of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies; and, Grey Roberts and Bette Wollstenhulme Presidential Chair in History

dtorres-rouff@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 351

  • Race and ethnicity 
  • Urban history
  • Latina/o history
  • Comparative borderlands 
  • Social institutions
  • Community formation 
  • Public policy
  • California
  • U.S. West
Romina Ruvalcaba

Romina Ruvalcaba

Posthumous Emerita

Karl Ryavec

Karl Ryavec

Professor of Heritage Studies

kryavec@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 217

  • Cultural Geography
  • Historical GIS

Rachel Ryskin

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science

rryskin@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 260B

  • Language Comprehension
  • Language Production
  • Prediction
  • Inference
  • Perspective-Taking
  • Learning and Memory
  • Adaptation
  • Executive Function
Muey Saeteurn

Muey Saeteurn

Associate Professor of History

msaeteurn3@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 279

  • African history, especially social history of the 20th century Kenya
  • History of development
  • Agricultural and rural history
  • Decolonization and independence studies
Jesus Sandoval-Hernandez

Jesus Sandoval-Hernandez

Associate Teaching Professor of Economics

jsandoval-hernandez@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 343

  • Applied econometrics
  • International finance
  • Economic development
  • Latin American economies
  • Macroeconomics
Cassandra "Beth" Scaffidi

Cassandra "Beth" Scaffidi

Assistant Professor of Anthropology & Heritage Studies

cscaffidi@ucmerced.edu

Science & Engineering - 1, 216

  • Andean bioarchaeology
  • paleodietary reconstruction, nutrition, and foodways (stable isotopes)

Bristin Scalzo Jones

Assistant Teaching Professor of Environmental Humanities

bjones34@ucmerced.edu

COB-2 351

  • Environmental Humanities
  • Animal Studies
  • 19th-21st Latin American and Italian Literatures
  • Latin American Dictatorship
  • Ecocriticism
Kurt Schnier

Kurt Schnier

Associate Provost for Academic Planning and Budget

+1 (209) 205-6461

kschnier@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 351

  • Fisheries research
  • Experimental economics
  • Health economics
Rose Scott

Rose Scott

Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 228-4362

rscott@ucmerced.edu

Social Sciences & Management, 310B

  • Cognitive development
  • Language acquisition
  • Psychological reasoning
Nicosia Shakes

Nicosia Shakes

Assistant Professor of History and CRES

nshakes@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 329

  • Africana theatre and popular culture
  • Race, gender, and sexuality
  • Black radicalism in the Americas
  • Critical ethnography

Yehuda Sharim

Assistant Professor, Media & Performance

ysharim@ucmerced.edu, filmlab@ucmerced.edu

Office: ACS, Room 144, Film Lab: ACS, Room 132

  • Film Theory and Practice
  • Mizrahi Studies
  • Representations of Border Crossing
  • Decolonial Art and Cinema Practices
  • Comparative Immigrant and Refugee Studies

Andrew Shaver

Assistant Professor of Political Science

ashaver@ucmerced.edu

COB-2 353

Ketki Sheth

Associate Professor

ksheth@ucmerced.edu

COB-1 361

Mario Sifuentez

Mario Sifuentez

Associate Professor of History

msifuentez@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 271

  • Race
  • Immigration
  • Labor
  • Water
  • Food
Paul Smaldino

Paul Smaldino

Associate Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences

psmaldino@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 255B

  • Cultural Evolution
  • Mathematical and Computational Modeling
  • Social Networks
  • Complex Systems
  • Human Behavioral Ecology
  • Social Identity
  • Game Theory
  • Innovation
  • Cooperation
  • Norms
  • Evolutionary Dynamics
Sabrina Smith

Sabrina Smith

Assistant Professor of Latin American History

sesmith@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 276

  • Latin America
  • African Diaspora
  • Slavery Studies
  • Race
  • Gender
  • Colonialism
Anna Song

Anna V. Song

Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 228-4591

asong5@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 310A

  • Tobacco and Cannabis Use
  • Community-Partnered Research
  • Health Policy and Health Equity
  • Psychological Antecedents to Risk Behaviors

Todd Sorensen

Associate Teaching Professor in Economics

tsorensen@ucmerced.edu

  • Labor Market Structure
  • Immigration
  • Discrimination
Michael J. Spivey

Michael J. Spivey

Professor of Cognitive Science

+1 (209) 228-4588

spivey@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 264A

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Visual Perception
  • Sensorimotor Processing
  • Cognitive Science
  • Embodied Cognition
  • Cognitice Psychology
  • Dynamical Systems Theory
  • Eye-Tracking
Daniel Thompson

Daniel Thompson

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

dthompson29@ucmerced.edu

S&E-1, Room 230

  • Political and economic anthropology
  • Urban political economy
  • Geopolitical borderlands and state-building in border regions
  • Cartography and GIS
  • Horn of Africa, Somali and Ethiopian diaspora

Christina Torres

Professor of Anthropology

christina.torres@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 351B

  • Bioarchaeology 
  • Mortuary archaeology 
  • Identity
  • Cultural modifications of the body
  • Trauma
  • Andes
Theofanis Tsoulouhas

Theofanis "Fanis" Tsoulouhas

Professor of Financial Management and Associate Dean of University Extension

+1 (209) 500-6315

ftsoulouhas@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 357

  • Corporate governance and finance
  • Tournament theory
  • Contract theory
  • Economics of information
Ana Tur-Prats

Ana Tur-Prats

Assistant Professor of Economics

atur-prats@ucmerced.edu

COB1, Room 364

  • Culture and Institutions
  • Economic History
  • Political Economy
  • Gender Economics
  • Health Economics
Zulema Valdez

Zulema Valdez

Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for EJIE and Professor of Sociology

zvaldez@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 226

  • Intersectionality (race, class and gender)
  • Latino/a sociology
  • Economic sociology
  • Entrepreneurship
Nella Van Dyke

Nella Van Dyke

Professor of Sociology

nvandyke@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 227

  • Social movements and hate crime, with an emphasis on how characteristics of the social environment influence levels of collective action
  • Social movement tactics and rhetoric
  • How political threats inspire social movement coalitions

Meredith Van Natta

Assistant Professor of Sociology

mvannatta@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 358

  • citizenship and health
  • health inequalities
Ma Vang

Ma Vang

Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies/History

mvang53@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 2, 325

  • Critical race and gender
  • Critical refugee studies
  • Feminist epistemologies
  • War and U.S. imperialism
  • Hmong American studies
  • Southeast Asian and Asian American histories and cultures

Susan Varnot

Associate Teaching Professor

svarnot@ucmerced.edu

ACS 150

  • Creative writing
  • Interdisciplinarity and creativity studies
  • Memory, Language and identity
  • Poetry & poetics
  • The function & reliability of narrative in internal and external contexts
Patricia Vergara

Patricia Vergara

Assistant Professor of Musicology

pvergara2@ucmerced.edu

ACS, Room 146

  • Latin America
  • Popular music and sound studies
  • Music and mobility
  • Critical race and post-colonial studies
  • Music and violence
  • Memory
  • Affect
Jack L. Vevea

Jack L. Vevea

Emeritus Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 658-1706

jvevea@ucmerced.edu

  • Quantitative methods for combining research results (meta-analysis)
  • Statistical methods for addressing the problem of publication bias

Jan Wallander

Distinguished Professor Emeritus

jwallander@ucmerced.edu

  • Health Psychology
  • Developmental Psychopathology
  • Quality of life during childhood
  • Disparities in health and wellbeing in childhood
Eric A. Walle

Eric A. Walle

Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 228-4634

ewalle@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 304B

  • Emotion
  • Social development
  • Developmental transitions

ShiPu Wang

Coats Chair in the Arts and Professor of Art History

swang7@ucmerced.edu

ACS

  • 20th century American and Asian art
  • American modernism and its global impact
  • Asian-American art
  • Museum collections and curatorial practices
  • Visual culture
Elizabeth Whitt

Elizabeth Whitt

Professor of Sociology

ewhitt@ucmerced.edu

  • The study of higher education
Deborah Weibe

Deborah Wiebe

Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 228-4614

dwiebe@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 308A

  • Diabetes
  • Health
  • Pediatric psychology
Stephen Wooding

Stephen Wooding

Associate Professor of Anthropology & Heritage Studies

swooding@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 360A

  • Evolutionary genetics
  • Taste Perception
  • Ethnobotany
Greg Wright

Greg Wright

Associate Professor of Economics

gwright4@ucmerced.edu

Classroom & Office Building - 1, 359

  • International trade
  • Immigration
  • Economic growth

Yiran Xu

Assistant Professor of Writing Studies

yxu72@ucmerced.edu

Arts & Computational Sciences, 151

  • Multilingual writing development and assessment
  • Second language acquisition & bilingualism
Irene Yen

Irene Yen

Professor of Public Health

iyen@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 357B

  • Neighborhood and place
  • Housing
  • Education — quality and trajectories
  • Structural racism

Kenichi Yoshida

Associate Professor of Art History

kyoshida@ucmerced.edu

COB2, Room 365

  • Contemporary Japanese art and criticism
  • Avant-garde art
  • Poststructuralism 
  • Posthumanism
  • Ecology and aesthetics
  • Design
Jeffrey Yoshimi

Jeffrey Yoshimi

Associate Professor of Philosophy

jyoshimi@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 261B

  • Philosophy of Cognitive Science
  • Phenomenology (especially Husserl)
  • Phillosophy of Mind
  • Neural Networks
  • Dynamical Systems Theory
  • Visualization
  • Citizen Science and Gamification
  • Augmentation Theory
Maria-Elena Young

Maria-Elena Young

Assistant Professor of Public Health

mariaelena@ucmerced.edu

SSM 355A

  • Immigrant Health
  • Immigration Policy
  • Immigration Enforcement
  • Rural Health
  • Community-Engaged Research
Anne Zanzucchi

Anne Zanzucchi

Associate Dean, Special Project Coordinator and Lecturer with Security of Employment in Writing

+1 (209) 228-4173

azanzucchi@ucmerced.edu

COB1, Room 301

  • Writing Program administration
  • Pedagogy and assessment
  • Science and technical writing
Marjorie Zatz

Marjorie Zatz

Special Assistant to the Chancellor and Professor

+1 (209) 228-0085

mzatz@ucmerced.edu

Administrative Building, 331

  • Immigration policy
  • Immigration, crime and victimization
  • Race, gender, and juvenile and criminal court processing and sanctioning
  • Chicano gangs
  • Latin American legal systems
Matthew Zawadzki

Matthew Zawadzki

Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences

+1 (209) 228-4787

mzawadzki@ucmerced.edu

SSM, Room 359B

  • stress and health relationship
  • emotional and social well-being
  • cardiovascular health
  • interventions to improve health