Students

Ants, Endurance and a Ph.D. at the Finish Line

March 18, 2026

UC Merced graduate student Reo Maynard studies a carpenter ant from one of his many ant colonies.

On most days, Reo Maynard’s life swings between two ecosystems: the microscopic world inside an ant’s gut and the sprawling one that stretches from Fresno to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The 51-year-old Navy veteran, dad of two, screenwriter-in-waiting and newly minted Fresno City...

Professor Stephanie Woo, left, and graduate student Leesa Strasser are trying to unlock the mechanics of endodermal cells.

Award Supports Study of Fish Embryos to Understand Process that Affects Birth Defects

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has given Professor Stephanie Woo the CAREER award to help her delve into congenital birth defects by looking at the embryonic cells of zebrafish. Woo is...

UC Merced students help clean out storage units that flooded in an early January 2023 storm.

UC Merced Students Help Clean Up Flooded Storage Facility

Several UC Merced students pitched in Saturday, Jan. 28 to help people whose belongings were damaged when rains earlier this month flooded a storage facility. Students from sports teams and...

Professor Findlater and graduate student Aneelman Brar.

Findlater First at UC Merced to Join DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas that is contributing to irreversible climate change. Scientists know how to capture CO2, and they know how to transform it into useful molecules and materials...

A child plays with blocks in a classroom.

UC Merced Leading Effort to Boost Number of Early Childhood Teachers with $1.8 Million

To ensure the youngest students are ready for the K-12 education system, UC Merced is leading a joint effort to attract and prepare more transitional kindergarten (TK) teachers to serve in classrooms...

Give to UC Merced 2022 Breaks Fundraising Record

UC Merced's annual month-long fundraising campaign, Give to UC Merced, wrapped up on Dec. 31, 2022, as the most successful in the initiative's history. The effort eclipsed the original goal...

UC Awards $16.4 Million in Grants to Address Climate, Energy and Health

For the first time, UC Merced faculty members from each of the campus’s three schools have been chosen as principal investigators on some of the 21 exciting new projects that are being funded...

Former School of Engineering Dean Mat Matsumoto with Professors Anita Bhappu and Alejandro Gutierrez and most of the Center for Advancing Diversity in Engineering fellows at the Fall 2022 Innovate to Grow event.

Innovate to Grow Expands to Include, Inspire First-Year Students

Innovate to Grow is a twice-yearly celebration of student ingenuity hosted by the School of Engineering (SoE). In a way, it's a science fair for college students to help solve problems...

Sharee Sok, Korynn Maravilla and Diana Maravilla pose for a photo at UC Merced.

Working at UC Merced Is a Family Affair for Three Generations

"A family that works together, stays together" is not usually how the saying goes. But for one family at UC Merced, it describes their relationship perfectly. Diana Maravilla has worked...

Graduate Summer Bridge Program Recognized as a ‘Program to Watch’

Graduate Division’s Competitive Edge Summer Bridge program for incoming Ph.D. students was identified as a Program to Watch by Excelencia in Education, a national effort to identify evidence-...