Kenneth Mashinchi

Viet Ta (’10) and Janna Rodriguez (’12) are the newest alumni establishing an endowed scholarship at this year’s annual Alumni Signature Ceremony on Saturday, April 13. Ta and Rodriguez join nine fellow alumni who have established endowed scholarships through pledges of $10,000.

The event will take place during Bobcat Day from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. in the Leo and Dottie Kolligian Library. Ta and Rodriguez will sign a gift agreement and share their stories of giving with attendees.

The University of California, Merced, today announced the appointment of Dania Matos as Associate Chancellor of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. 

Matos is the first appointment to the new position, which will serve on Chancellor Dorothy Leland’s senior leadership team and is charged with advising the team on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion and overseeing campus diversity initiatives. Her appointment, which begins in July,  follows a nationwide search that included input from throughout the campus community.

Two of the state’s leading political figures will make their return to UC Merced to serve as keynote speakers at the university’s 14^th commencement exercises in May.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California’s First Partner, and Eleni Kounalakis, the state’s first female Lieutenant Governor, will address more than 1,300 graduates and their families over two ceremonies May 18-19. The Class of 2019 will be the largest in UC Merced’s history.

Alzheimer’s disease affects people all over the world and Kumaran Akilan’s family is no different.

As the first-year student from Cupertino waits to see if his grandfather’s mild cognitive impairment is indeed Alzheimer’s, Akilan has been busy deciphering a new way to diagnose the disease — with a smartphone.

With the help of a friend, Akilan recently developed a computer-vision algorithm that extracts the retinal vessel system and determines abnormalities that can help detect the presence of Alzheimer’s.

Representatives from UC Merced have joined President Janet Napolitano’s newly formed Chicano/Latino Advisory Council for the University of California.

Under the leadership of Professors Asmeret Berhe and Stephen Hart, three UC Merced Environmental Systems (ES) graduate students have been awarded fellowships from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to advance their doctoral theses.

UC Merced welcomed Beth Mitchneck, vice provost for Faculty Success at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, as part of Chancellor’s Dialogue on Diversity and Interdisciplinarity series last week.

Mitchneck presented “Institutional Change for Equality: A Recipe for Change,” which provided a framework for institutional transformation to help universities become more gender equitable.

Under the leadership of Professors Asmeret Berhe and Stephen Hart, three UC Merced Environmental Systems (ES) graduate students have been awarded fellowships from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to advance their doctoral theses.

UC Merced honored nearly 200 employees for their loyalty to the university and higher education at the annual Celebrating Service breakfast earlier this week.

Those honored each received a crystal award with milestone markers for their service to UC Merced and lapel pins for their total service. A service milestone is reached every five years.

Division leaders for the employees shared a few words about the employees’ impact during their years of service.

With nearly a third of all food worldwide being wasted and millions of people going hungry every day, preventing food from going to waste is a crucial operation.

The Bobcat Eats Food Waste Awareness and Prevention Program may have a long name, but in a short amount of time it is playing a major role in curtailing food waste in Merced County by rescuing food that would otherwise go to waste.