News

A new program led by UC Merced in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory aims to train graduate and undergraduate students to work in the rapidly growing industry of quantum information science and technology, or QIST. The U.S. Department of Energy's RENEW (Reaching a New Energy...

UC Merced’s campus community was represented at Merced County’s Hmong American Day, which celebrated a people’s 50-year journey from war and oppression to acceptance and achievement in the United States. Chou Her, UC Merced chief of police and assistant vice chancellor, gave the keynote speech at...

With cheers, hugs and leis, more than 1,500 UC Merced graduates received a celebratory sendoff to their bright futures as a prominent keynote speaker told them to make the most of the here and now. Hundreds of families and friends joined the graduates in three days of commencement ceremonies at the...

The University of California, Merced, will celebrate the accomplishments of more than 1,500 students during its Spring 2025 Commencement ceremonies, to be held May 16 -18 on the UC Merced Recreation Field. The ceremonies will recognize graduates from all academic schools over three days of...

Through the lens of Veronica Adrover we have seen buildings rise, graduates cheer and lasers glow. We’ve seen governors, a First Lady and a former U.S. president. We’ve glimpsed a young bobcat in tall grass and celebrated young Bobcats in labs, corridors and classrooms. Through 20 years at UC...

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted many facets of life, including health care, schools and the work environment. A new study by UC Merced researchers shows evidence that the pandemic also fueled an elevated number of wildfires in the United States that year. How? With schools and businesses...

Zachary Silva’s camera escorts us to extraordinary places. We see UC Merced from high above, the land around the campus warped by a fisheye lens. We look straight down a pole at a fluttering U.S. flag and two lonely tractors. These eye-popping points of view are among other photographs by Silva on...

UC Merced has earned two 2025 Carnegie distinctions, the Student Access and Earnings Classification “Opportunity Colleges and Universities” and the Institutional Classification by the Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on Education. “It speaks to the mission and values we uphold as a...

UC Merced is only two decades into its mission of shaping the next generation of trailblazers. But that’s more than enough time for multiple Bobcats to come from the same family. Dawit Gemeda’s sister attended the university about eight years ago, so the surroundings felt comfortably familiar when...

UC Merced students are getting first-hand experience in providing mental health care to the most vulnerable and needful among us, thanks to a partnership between the university and Merced County. Undergraduate psychology majors are serving as interns at the county’s Department of Behavioral Health...

If Arden, the sprawling, wild forest in William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” were in the United States instead of the Bard’s imagination, it would certainly be a national park. Like Yosemite. That is why this light comedy is an ideal fit for the annual UC Merced theater project that weaves...

Developing a great idea is an accomplishment in itself. But taking it to the next step — into potential commercialization and market opportunities — has the potential to both affect change in the world and produce a livelihood. On April 18, the UC Merced Office of Office of Technology, Innovation...

UC Merced's Lambda Alliance is continuing its tradition of hosting Pride Week from March 31 to April 4. Held each year in April, the week of events celebrates and advocates for the LGBTQ+ community at UC Merced, in the Central Valley and beyond. "We hope that participants walk away with the...

Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development Gillian Wilson has been named a 2024 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. Being elected an AAAS...

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the premier scientific society dedicated to advancing the understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines, has honored a UC Merced professor for his work in AI. Electrical...

A multimillion-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health will fund research at UC Merced that could help cancer patients and others live longer, healthier lives. The $3.5 million, five-year grant will fund bioengineering Professor Joel Spencer's lab, which is investigating the thymus, a...

Shannon Lee, a New York Times bestselling author and the daughter of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, will share her father's messages of healing and unity Thursday, March 6, at UC Merced. The event, which is free and open to the public, also will feature Indonesian-inspired food prepared by UC...

Family is everything to Linda Chang. Chang, a 30-year-old administrative officer with the UC Merced Police Department, was a quiet high school freshman when she joined the Leo Club, the youth branch of the Merced Breakfast Lions Club's community service organization. The youngest of 10 children (...

The night sky is filled with countless mysteries and worlds yet to be explored but that someday might be visited by spacecraft. In a free event titled “Celestial Tales: Stars, Exoplanets and the Myths That Connect Us,” on March 6, the campus community and the public will hear from Professor Yosuke...

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Roland Winston, a pioneer in solar energy, engineering and physics, died Feb. 8 at the age of 88 at his home in Merced. A founding faculty member in the schools of Natural Sciences and Engineering at UC Merced, Winston also founded and directed the intercampus...

This story is part of a series for Black History Month. Read more stories highlighting Black excellence at UC Merced. The Black Scholars Resource Center might be one of UC Merced’s best-kept secrets, although its leaders hope that changes soon. It takes up two rooms – 101 and 102 – on the...

Editor's Note: This feature is part of a series of stories commemorating Black History Month. For more stories highlighting Black Excellence at UC Merced, visit news.ucmerced.edu/news/black-history-month. Students come to the Black Academic Success & Engagement office for any number of reasons...

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 around labor and agriculture, active matter, Indigenous health and fusion energy. “The MRPI program...

Lockdowns. Social distancing. Shuttered schools and businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic and its sweeping disruptions set off a stampede of “what it’s doing to us” research, focused largely on schoolchildren. How were students’ academics affected? Their mental health? Their social development? Left...

It took Lilly Uvalle a few tries to complete her education at UC Merced. Uvalle started her collegiate career in the fall of 2010 after graduating from Buhach Colony High School in Atwater. "I did two years, my freshman and sophomore years," she said. "Then I withdrew. I tried coming back once in...

In 2010, former President Jimmy Carter made his way to a young University of California, Merced campus to accept the Spendlove Prize in social justice, diplomacy and tolerance and to speak to the National Parks Institute. "This is an honor for me," the president said, according to news accounts of...