Alumni

Students Awarded Prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

June 4, 2025

Two UC Merced graduate students wearing blue

Two UC Merced graduate students and an alum from the School of Natural Sciences were recently awarded fellowships from the highly competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. This year, NSF awarded 1,000 GRFP fellowships compared to about 2,000 in previous years...

Students Save Cash Through New Program Offering ‘Office’ for Free

UC Merced students are now using some of the latest and most popular Microsoft Office applications without having to dig into their wallets. The free software is available under Microsoft’s Student...

Campus Spirit Encouraged Alumna to Pursue Fungi Research

Graduate school is a constant state of discovery, something UC Merced alumna Jackie Shay credits for her current passion: fungus. Shay just returned home from a month in the humid climes of...

Grad Student Crunches Data for Viticulture Lab

Katherine Amrine knows a few things about data analysis. As a UC Merced graduate student, her dissertation described a new way of classifying living things from bits of data gleaned from whole...

UC Merced's First Ph.D. Grad Now Leading the Class

UC Merced’s first Ph.D. graduate is back on campus. But this time, Ricardo Cisneros isn’t enrolled as a student; he’s a professor instead. Cisneros, who earned his doctorate in Environmental Systems...

UC Goes Social to Raise Scholarship Funds

The University of California today (Sept. 18) began Promise for Education, a six-week crowd-funding campaign to engage students, faculty, alumni, celebrities, businesses, politicians and supporters...

UC Merced Alum Travels to U.K. for Master’s Program in Brain Sciences

With UC Merced in her hometown, Hillary Brown had an easy commute to her college campus. She’ll log many more miles on the way to graduate school. Brown is headed to the University of Glasgow in...

Former UC Merced Students Travel Entrepreneurial Path to China

Three entrepreneurs with UC Merced roots are trying to revolutionize the biking experience. UC Merced graduate Seena Zandipour, and former students Tony Belmontes and Kenneth Gibbs, are developing...

Gift for Amphitheater, Research Strengthens Community Connections

The ties between the community and the University of California, Merced, will grow stronger thanks to a gift from longtime campus supporters Joel and Elizabeth Wallace. The Wallaces have given UC...

Science, Math Program to Offer More Paths to Aspiring Teachers

Armanti Hardesty is ready to join the next generation of teachers. “We’re all going into a more technological age,” said Hardesty, an alumnus from Long Beach. “It’s great to have new teachers...