Jody Murray

Writer-in-Residence Mark Arax Chronicles California's Lifeblood: Water

September 18, 2025

UC Merced has debuted a writer-in-residence program with one of California’s premier chroniclers of its history, especially the titanic power plays for land and water that have shaped the state’s growth and loom over its future. Mark Arax, a Fresno native, author and former Los...

Artist Mine Okubo painting exhibition in Riverside

UC Merced Professor Curates a California Woman’s 7 Decades of Artistic Accomplishment

An exhibit curated by a UC Merced professor reintroduces the seven-decade career of an American artist of Japanese descent who defied systemic racism and created a body of artwork true to her unique...

UC Merced's Professor Valerie Leppert at Bobcat Day

Thousands Enjoy a Big ‘Welcome’ at Bobcat Day

Fernando Malagon and his mom stood at the head of a line for guided tours of the university he plans to attend this fall. The informational stroll around UC Merced would be more for her than for him...

Shakespeare in Yosemite Goes Big for Magical ‘Midsummer’

There’s nothing small about this year’s Shakespeare in Yosemite production. It boasts the largest cast in the program’s seven-year history and, for the first time, features a full...

Speech therapists and TeleLingo creators Lorena Aceves Hernandez and Brenda Sanchez

Creators of TeleLingo, a Spanish Immersion Show for Children, Come to UC Merced

(Lee este artículo en español.) Take the cultural rewards of preserving Spanish for babies and toddlers in a bilingual home. Bring in two speech pathologists steeped in techniques that make...

Yehuda Sharim film "Flora" still image three daughters

Sharim Film 'Flora' to Premiere at Philadelphia Festival

"Flora," the latest film by Yehuda Sharim, will have its world premiere later this spring at a festival in Philadelphia, according to the UC Merced global arts professor. Sharim...

CRES Earns Mellon Grant for Student-led Activities

UC Merced’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) is among 95 programs recognized and supported by the Mellon Foundation in an initiative called Affirming Multivocal Humanities. CRES...

Bobcat Art Show piece, "Alignment and Dissolution", digital art on metal.

Bobcat Art Show Puts Broad Range of Creativity on Display

The 12th edition of the Bobcat Art Show, which debuts this week in a new space, is further proof that creativity can come from anywhere in the UC Merced community. “In addition to the...

Youth Grapple with Interpreting the Unspoken for Their Immigrant Families

UC Merced researchers are shedding light on a little-explored aspect of cross-cultural communication that involves no spoken words but sometimes can cause confusion and anguish for children acting as...

Provost Betsy Dumont. Quote: What can we do to set up UC Merced for where it wants to be in 20 years?

Curiosity and Care: Betsy Dumont's Path to UC Merced Provost

In a thick rainforest in Papua New Guinea, they're tracking bats. Researchers glue radio transmitters to the creatures’ little, furry bodies, then wait. And wait. When a bat flits...