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Open Arms, Open Skies: Students Welcomed at Spirited, Soggy Scholars Bridge Crossing

August 26, 2025
Spirits were high and futures bright while all else was soaked in a summer storm that made Tuesday morning’s Scholars Bridge Crossing, UC Merced’s traditional greeting to new students, a welcome unlike any before. Call them Thunder ‘Cats. The ceremony embraced about 2,000 first-year and transfer...

Fellowship Lifts Mission of Farmworkers’ Daughter to Improve Immigrant Health

August 13, 2025
A daughter of San Joaquin Valley immigrant farmworkers has earned the opportunity to study alongside a nationally prominent health researcher and energize her mission to improve the well-being of agricultural laborers. Fabiola Perez-Lua, who in May received a Ph.D. in Public Health at UC Merced,...

Fellowship Lifts Mission of Farmworkers’ Daughter to Improve Immigrant Health

August 13, 2025
A daughter of San Joaquin Valley immigrant farmworkers has earned the opportunity to study alongside a nationally prominent health researcher and energize her mission to improve the well-being of agricultural laborers. Fabiola Perez-Lua, who in May received a Ph.D. in Public Health at UC Merced...

Amemiya Awarded for Research, Teaching, Outreach and Service

August 4, 2025
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Chris Amemiya, former interim director of the Health Sciences Research Institute, has been honored by the Pan American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology (PASEDB) with the Service Award. This prestigious award celebrates a society...

Study: Mexican American Millennials Link Success to Providing for Parents

August 4, 2025
For many first-generation Mexican American college graduates, the definition of success includes paying their parents’ bills or even buying them a home. Lifting the social or financial status of their elders is a goal that often defines upward mobility for Latinx millennials, especially the...

UC Merced’s Berhe Joins Scientists in Warning of Global Land Mine Crisis

July 24, 2025
More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians, every year.  As the world’s geopolitical landscape shifts, nine scientists studying different aspects...

Humanities Grad Student Advocates for Student Parents

July 24, 2025
When Nicolette Lecy began her graduate studies at UC Merced, life was anything but typical. It was August 2020, in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lecy’s classes were held remotely, and she had limited access to campus. Another challenge that could have hindered Lecy’s academic goals — she...

Igniting Our Response to Wildfires: the Power of Metaphors

July 21, 2025
As wind-whipped walls of flame destroyed hundreds of Los Angeles-area residences last January, one media report framed the disastrous wildfires in beastly terms, saying they were “ripping through homes.” The report then shifted to militaristic imagery: “Firefighters here have an uphill battle.” A...

Depression Due to Politics: the Quiet Danger to Democracy

July 7, 2025
On laptop screens, televisions and social media feeds across the nation, images and words fueled by a fractured political landscape spout anger, frustration and resentment. Clashing ideologies burst forth in public demonstrations, family gatherings and digital echo chambers. Red-hot rhetoric and...

Two Social Science Graduate Students Earn Fellowships

July 3, 2025
UC Merced Ph.D. candidates Eliana Fonsah and Nihan Karagul are recipients of the highly competitive dissertation fellowship from the UC Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). They competed with doctoral candidates from across the UC system, resulting in about 10% of applicants...

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