Brenda Ortiz

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

December 18, 2025

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.

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 fellowships are designed to provide students with funding to conduct research on water and health. Opoku...

Graduate student Jackie Shay has stepped up for the campus and students during the COVID-19 crisis.

Grad Student Aids Campus’s Move to Remote Teaching

When UC Merced began transitioning to emergency remote instruction in late March, hoping to lessen the spread of COVID-19, Jackie Shay didn’t waste any time jumping in to help her fellow...

Top 10 Finalists Advance in UC Merced’s Grad Slam

Although COVID-19 has changed everyone’s plans this spring, Graduate Division staff members rallied to make sure the campus’s annual Grad Slam competition — showcasing graduate...

CalTeach helps address the shortage of math and science teachers through innovative programming.

CalTeach Program Helps Fill Teacher Shortage Gap

When you add UC Merced students majoring in math and science with a mentor teacher it equals real-life experience teaching in local schools. That’s one of the many goals of UC Merced’s...

Two Grad Students to Attend Nobel Laureate Meetings

UC Merced graduate students, Md. Mehdi Masud and Akshay Paropkari, will travel this summer to attend the prestigious 70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, an invitation-only gathering in Lindau,...

Electrical Engineering, within the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Group at UC Merced, was ranked No. 129 by U.S. News, up 32 places from No. 161 last year.

Six Graduate Programs Recognized by U.S. News Rankings

U.S. News & World Report has ranked six of UC Merced’s engineering graduate programs in its 2021 Best Graduate Schools rankings released today, a sign that the university’s...

NVIDIA Awards Fellowship to EECS Student for Computing Research

The NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Program awarded up to $50,000 to UC Merced graduate student Xueting Li for her research in self-supervised learning and relation learning between different visual...

Psychological Sciences Ph.D. student Maria Ramirez Loyola is working to understand why some people are better equipped than others to handle stressful experiences.

Grad Student Seeks Key Characteristics to Resiliency

From a young age, Maria Ramirez Loyola has been fascinated by the trait of resiliency. Her mother escaped an abusive marriage and fled from Mexico to the U.S. with two small children in tow....

Maria Nishanian will assist graduate students with academic support, time management skills, communication skills, and referrals to campus and community resources.

Grad Students Gain an Ally in New Academic Counselor

Graduate students face a number of unique challenges as they embark on the life-changing journey of earning their master’s or Ph.D. Adjusting to graduate studies, achieving work-life balance...

Public Health Grad Student’s CDC-funded Research Helps Mosquito Control

Public health Ph.D. student Ryan Torres presented research at last month’s Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California Conference in San Diego that could be foundational for future...