Graduate Students

From Wild Mushrooms to Punchlines, Bobcats Learn in Out-of-the-Box Ways

May 26, 2026

A student hones communication skills by learning how to use comedy to deliver messages.

Editor's note: This story is republished from the Spring/Summer 2026 issue of UC Merced Magazine. Walk across UC Merced’s campus on any weekday, and you might hear laughter spilling from a classroom, feel the thrum of a wind tunnel or spot students crouched in a field searching for...

Group of individuals attending event with grads student presenting on stage

Ready, Set, Slam: 10 UC Merced Scholars Battle for Champion Title

Ten UC Merced graduate researchers are gearing up to deliver the most intense three minutes of their academic careers. Each spring, master’s and Ph.D. students across the campus’s...

Leadership in STEM: Abigail Gyamfi Honored with 2025 ACS Leader Scholars Award

Chemistry and Biochemistry (CBC) Ph.D. candidate Abigail Gyamfi has earned the 2025 American Chemical Society Leader Scholars Award. The ACS Leader Scholars program recognizes outstanding...

graphic with five individuals higlighted; three females and two males with UC Merced and ARCS logos on blue background

Innovative Research Secures Coveted Fellowships for Ph.D. Students

The ARCS Foundation Northern California awarded five UC Merced graduate students with 2025-26 fellowships. ARCS advances science and technology in the United States by providing financial awards to...

Spectroscopy at the UC's W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii helped the researchers interpret complex data about ultramassive galaxies. Photo courtesy of the W.M. Keck Observatory.

Astronomers Reveal Hidden Activity in the Early Universe’s Most Massive Galaxies

An international team of astronomers has studied ultramassive galaxies - galaxies containing more than 100 billion stars - as they existed when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. The...

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.

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

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...

Line of UC Merced graduates in cap and gown

Hundreds of UC Merced Graduates to Cross the Stage at Fall Commencement

Hundreds of UC Merced students will be celebrated this weekend at the university’s fall commencement ceremonies in downtown Merced. Nearly 400 undergraduate students and 40 Graduate Division...

High school students will have a wider array of research opportunities through COSMOS starting next summer.

COSMOS Expands to UC Merced, Opening Doors for California’s Brightest Young Scientists

Starting next summer, UC Merced will join an elite group of University of California campuses hosting COSMOS — the California State Summer School for Math and Science — giving some of the...

Female with brown hair in cream turtle neck top in front of building

Doctoral Student Secures New Fellowships to Support Computational Modeling Research

Physics Ph.D. candidate Arabi Seshappan added two prestigious fellowships to her curriculum vitae: the Chateaubriand Fellowship in Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics & Biology-Health...