In Brief

Ph.D. Student Awarded Fellowship to Advance Environmental Health and Harmful Algal Bloom Mitigation

December 18, 2025

Collage photo of Black male with dark hair and beard wearing blue and gray long sleeve shirt and photo of campus signage and palm trees.

Public health Ph.D. student Felix Agyemang Opoku has been awarded the UC Global Health Initiative Center for Planetary Health Water and Health Summer Research Fellowship. The research fellowships are designed to provide students with funding to conduct research on water and health. Opoku...

Faculty member and NCPC community research lead, Nancy Burke, listens to a presentation at the NCPC's workshop titled “Hook, Line & Sinker: Crafting Compelling Policy Messages.”

NCPC Workshop Empowers Stakeholders to Craft Compelling Anti-Smoking Policy Messages

The rate of smoking in the San Joaquin Valley is the highest in California — on par with tobacco-producing regions in Georgia and South Carolina — and UC Merced’s Nicotine and...

Seven ‘Outstanding Students’ Receive Medals

Hundreds of accomplished students walked in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA) commencement earlier this month, proudly wearing their cap, gown and stole. Among them were a...

UC Merced Receives Collaborative Grant to Improve Equity in STEM Education

At UC Merced, research and education are inextricably intertwined – in the lab and in the classroom. Professors continually refine and advance their teaching methods and curriculum to convey...

Marisela Padilla Alcala (left) and Sarah Lee were recently recognized as recipients of the Carter Joseph Abrescy and Larry Kranich Library Award for Student Research Excellence. Arlene Kranich (center) presented the awards.

Two Students Honored for Excellence in Use of Library Resources

Long hours spent using the library’s print and digital resources are often a hallmark of a college student’s academic career. For Marisela Padilla Alcala and Sarah Lee, time spent in the...

Physics Professor’s Work in Liquid Crystals Earns Prestigious Medal

Physics Professor Linda Hirst has been named this year’s recipient of the British Liquid Crystal Society’s C. Hilsum Medal for her contributions to liquid crystal science and technology...

Ennis Receives Prestigious NIH Fellowship for Research of Biofilms

The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) awarded Quantitative and Systems Biology graduate student Craig Ennis the Ruth L. Kirschstein...

UC Merced Shows Sustainability Matters in Cool Campus Challenge

The Cool Campus Challenge called for UC campuses to spend the month of April pledging to reduce their carbon footprints, and UC Merced didn’t disappoint. The university finished fourth overall...

UC Merced MESA Lab Wins Big Ideas Contest

Now ubiquitous, machine learning has made its way into farming, thanks to an affordable, unmanned ground vehicle that recognizes and spatially maps agricultural pest infestations, treating them with...

Professor Im stands before a mathematical equation.

Scheduling Algorithms Earn Computer Science Researcher an NSF CAREER Award

Professor Sungjin Im, with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award, making him the 21st recipient...