Social Justice

Fellowship Lifts Mission of Farmworkers’ Daughter to Improve Immigrant Health

August 13, 2025

UC Merced Ph.D. graduate Fabiola Perez-Lua

A daughter of San Joaquin Valley immigrant farmworkers has earned the opportunity to study alongside a nationally prominent health researcher and energize her mission to improve the well-being of agricultural laborers. Fabiola Perez-Lua, who in May received a Ph.D. in Public Health at UC Merced...

Film Documents the Struggle of Growing Old Behind Bars

A UC Merced professor entered the bleak world of a fading, 64-year-old man in a Virginia state prison to illustrate the challenges of being elderly and incarcerated. “Where’s My Coffee...

UC Merced political science mock legislative hearing

Social Sciences Graduate Programs Shine in U.S. News Rankings

UC Merced’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts made a splash in the latest rankings of university graduate programs compiled by U.S. News and World Report. The university...

Address Stigma, Build Strength: UC Merced Co-leads Project to Lower LGBTQ2S+ Use of Nicotine

LGBTQ2S+ individuals use tobacco and nicotine products at significantly higher rates than straight and cisgender people, research shows. Reasons can include stress and other health problems brought...

Two female standing in front of a poster

Center Engages Campus, Community with Africa and its Diaspora

This story is part of a series for Black History Month. Read more stories highlighting Black excellence at UC Merced. The brutal deaths of African Americans George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others...

Todo Cambia Festival Takes New Artistic Directions

Todo Cambia, UC Merced’s annual Human Rights Film Festival, is about more than film this year. The seven-day festival kicks off Saturday, March 1 with a talk and readings by a former...

5 Questions for Indigenous Author of Acclaimed Memoir Coming to UC Merced

Deborah Taffa, an Indigenous author and educator whose book about growing up in a mixed-race home and struggling with social acceptance was hailed as one the best memoirs of 2024, will make a...

Illustration of burning cigarette in test tubes

Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center Enlists Wastewater Tests in Fight Against Smoking

UC Merced's Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center has embarked on an innovative partnership with university researchers who can track an entire community’s health and habits with...

UC Merced’s Black Excellence Symposium to Honor Legacy and Inspire Future

"A Legacy of Triumph and a Vision for the Future" is the theme of this year's Black Excellence Symposium at UC Merced. The event, part of the university's Valuing Black Lives...

A fluorescence microscope image of one kind of active matter being studied. Image courtesy of Amanda Tan, UC Merced

UC Awards Support Tackling Big Questions in Health, Physics, Agriculture and Climate

Faculty members at UC Merced are taking the lead on four Multicampus Research Program Initiatives (MRPI), working with colleagues around the University of California system to address challenges...

Research