Two undergraduate student speakers will share their journeys and insights with UC Merced’s graduating class and their families and friends at two commencement ceremonies to be held this weekend.
Aneelman Brar wants to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The Chemistry and Chemical Biology Ph.D. student’s three-minute talk entitled “From Pollutant to Fuel and New Products: Recycling Carbon Dioxide” earned her bragging rights as UC Merced's Grad Slam champion and a $5,000 prize, plus the opportunity to represent the campus at the UC systemwide finals on May 5.
Zayd Andre doesn’t consider himself outdoorsy, but the second-year computer science and engineering major from Fullerton caught the exploring bug in elementary school.
“I believe my first trek was with the Cub Scouts in first grade to Holy Jim trail in the Cleveland National Forest. This sparked my passion for nature and hiking, and since then I've tried to go on a hike at least once a month,” he said.
Taylor Fugere is one of 110 doctoral students across the United States and Canada to receive a $20,000 Scholar Award from P.E.O., a philanthropic educational organization dedicated to supporting higher education for women for more than 150 years.
Ten graduate UC Merced students will take the stage on April 10 to compete in the Graduate Division’s Grad Slam finals.
Grad Slam is an annual University of California competition that aims to make research accessible to all by providing emerging scientists and scholars with the skills to engage the public in their work. Nearly 30 UC Merced graduate students competed in the qualifying round in March and the top 10 are advancing to the campus’s finals.
Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) is a national campaign held in April that raises awareness and education about sexual assault. At UC Merced, the Campus Advocacy, Resources and Education (CARE) office holds a range of SAAM events all month in collaboration with students, other campus offices and community organizations to highlight the campus’s commitment to standing in solidarity with and empowering survivors.
This year’s SAAM events include:
Cognitive and Information Sciences (CIS) Ph.D. student Ben Nguyen spent last summer working as a data analyst at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
After transferring from a Sacramento community college to UC Merced in 2007, Maxine Umeh-Garcia was unsure of her future career. She admits she hadn’t looked at the majors the newest UC offered before applying and imagined she’d teach high school math.
She met with her academic advisor and learned the campus offered an applied mathematics major, not pure mathematics. They discussed other options and came to a stalemate.
Teenie Matlock, Cognitive and Information Sciences professor and the McClatchy Chair in Communications, has been awarded the fourth Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building — one of the highest honors in the Cognitive Science Society.
For Matlock, it’s a true honor to be selected for this prestigious international award.
Special Assistant to the Chancellor and sociology Professor Marjorie Zatz has been elected to the 2022 class of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), adding to the list of previous UC Merced recipients.
She is the first social scientist from UC Merced to be elected an AAAS fellow.
