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UC Merced Graduate Ends Exciting Year with Professorship at Cal Poly

September 9, 2024
It is a serious understatement to say Carlos Diaz Alvarenga had a big year: He graduated from UC Merced, successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis and landed a position as an assistant professor at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. Oh, and he got married. "Yeah, those are all big life events and...

Bakersfield Student Ready to Go the Distance at UC Merced

September 9, 2024
This is part of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2024 semester. A high school distance runner from Bakersfield is striding into new territory, becoming the first person in her family to attend college. Leslie Aquino brings academic distinction and a...

Physics Grad Student Receives Competitive UC Fellowship

September 5, 2024
Ph.D. student Micah Oeur has been awarded a 2024-2025 UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship to support her physics research and boost her goal to be a professor. PPPF’s goal is to enhance faculty pathways for historically underrepresented groups, particularly Chicanx/Latinx,...

Mellon Grant Launches ‘Interwoven Futures’ Community Partnership Project

September 5, 2024
UC Merced has received a $750,000 boost to its mission to invest in the San Joaquin Valley’s unique cultural, creative and linguistic wealth by working with the region’s people to strengthen communities and champion social justice. The university’s Center for the Humanities...

As California Develops More Clean Energy, Researchers Delve Into How to Store it

September 4, 2024
As California lawmakers consider a package of bills aimed at increasing the production of clean energy, a major question arises: How would we store all this new power? Storage is a vital issue because while the state can create plenty of energy through solar, wind and hydro power, there...

UC Merced Ranked No. 1 in the Nation for Social Mobility, No. 18 Overall

September 4, 2024
When it comes to changing the lives of its students, UC Merced is second to none. In the latest Wall Street Journal America's Best Colleges rankings, UC Merced was the No. 1 university in the nation for social mobility — a term used to describe how well colleges and...

Study: People Facing Life-or-Death Choice Put Too Much Trust in AI

September 4, 2024
In simulated life-or-death decisions, about two-thirds of people in a UC Merced study allowed a robot to change their minds when it disagreed with them -- an alarming display of excessive trust in artificial intelligence, researchers said. Human subjects allowed robots to sway their judgment...

Researchers Discover Mechanism that Could Control Longevity, Cancer Cell Production

September 3, 2024
Researchers at UC Merced used fruit flies to uncover a cellular process common to many organisms that could dramatically impact the understanding of cancer and aging. Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Fred Wolf, then-graduate student Sammy Villa and Genentech Vice President and...

Enthusiasm High for Debut of Environmental Humanities Major

August 30, 2024
More than 170 students have enrolled this fall for classes in UC Merced’s new environmental humanities major, a degree that will prepare them to be advocates and storytellers for the living world. The debut of the bachelor of arts degree is the culmination of years of preparation by...

It’s a ‘Welcome’ Party at UC Merced Scholars Bridge Crossing

August 28, 2024
UC Merced said “welcome” to its 2,400 new students Tuesday as only UC Merced can, with a joyous and colorful Scholars Bridge Crossing ceremony that symbolizes their transformation into Bobcats at the San Joaquin Valley’s only research university. Hundreds of those first-year or...

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