Undergraduate Students

New Bobcat Looks to Expand Impressive Research Resume

August 29, 2025

This is the final entry of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2025 semester. Adriana Ponce Mata spent the last two summers working in one of the largest and oldest companies in the Bay Area. This fall, she joins UC Merced to begin her next chapter. Through...

A Night of Community Art Showcases Principles of Community

Fourteen students, faculty and staff members drew upon their artistic skills to create an array of art pieces to showcase at UC Merced’s Night of Community Art on April 19. The event is the...

UC Merced Named NACCU Innovative Technology Award Winner

In May 2016, first-year UC Merced student Harrison Tom realized he had more money left on his prepaid meal plan than he could use up before the semester ended. The balance wouldn’t roll over...

Chancellor Dorothy Leland was joined by UC Merced students, staff, alumni and trustees at the second annual UC Merced Day in Sacramento.

Advocates Bring University’s Story to Sacramento on ‘UC Merced Day’

Just days after visiting the nation’s capital, Chancellor Dorothy Leland trekked to the state capital to advocate for the campus and the UC system as part of UC Merced Day. In the second...

Kumaran Akilan presented his research on using a smartphone to potentially diagnose Alzheimer's disease at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

Young UC Merced Student Developing Smartphone Diagnostics for Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s disease affects people all over the world and Kumaran Akilan’s family is no different. As the first-year student from Cupertino waits to see if his grandfather’s mild...

Alumna Kisha McGuire is a program counselor in the Fiat Lux Scholars Program within the campus’s Calvin E. Bright Success Center.

Alumna Staffer Pours Her Passion into Serving Students

Kisha McGuire has discovered an opportunity to do what she loves for an institution she’s grown to care deeply about. McGuire graduated from UC Merced in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree...

Senior Maria Rivas Reyes was part of a small group of UC Merced students who visited Peru during winter break, serving as translators for medical purposes.

UC Merced Students Explore Peru By Volunteering as Translators

The explorer mentality, public health Professor Stephen Wooding said, is what sets the students of UC Merced apart from anywhere else. A willingness to try something new, to go somewhere they’d...

Research Week Offers Events, Education, Tours and More

This year’s Research Week, March 4-8, promises more community connections than ever before. Research Week , sponsored by the Office of Research and Economic Development, focuses on the...

Several UC Merced students have been profiled as rising stars of Bay Area-based Students Rising Above program

Students Celebrated for ‘Rising Above’ at UC Merced

UC Merced has a track record of helping first-generation and underrepresented students succeed in college, earning high rankings nationally for social mobility and outperforming expected graduation...

UC Merced Designing Management School of the Future

A new effort is underway to lay the groundwork for the next major development at UC Merced — a fourth school, this one with the Gallo family name on it. The planning initiative is a faculty-...