Who will UC Merced’s Grad Slam champion be?
Cheer on the finalists on April 8 and find out.
Graduate students from UC Merced’s three schools will take the stage to compete in the Graduate Division’s 10th Grad Slam finals.
For Joslyn Conchas, becoming a physician wasn’t always the plan.
“I wanted to be a veterinarian, but that was before I saw firsthand how impactful health disparities are within my community,” she said.
Her grandfather was ill and she witnessed his struggles with the healthcare system while he was in and out of the hospital.
Ten graduate UC Merced students will take the stage on April 10 to compete in the Graduate Division’s Grad Slam finals.
Grad Slam is an annual University of California competition that aims to make research accessible to all by providing emerging scientists and scholars with the skills to engage the public in their work. Nearly 30 UC Merced graduate students competed in the qualifying round in March and the top 10 are advancing to the campus’s finals.
UC Merced Professor Clarissa J. Nobile has been named a 2022 Innovation Fund investigator by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Nobile and University of Missouri Professor David G. Mendoza-Cózatl have formed one of six interdisciplinary teams chosen for the prestigious award.
The duo is combining expertise from Nobile’s research in microbial communities and Mendoza-Cózatl’s work in plant biology to study how plants and microbes interact in the context of iron uptake and utilization.
UC Merced is highlighting incoming first-year students for fall 2022 — a dynamic, diverse and accomplished cohort of new Bobcats.
Jordynn Lewis is excited to start her journey as a UC Merced Bobcat when the fall semester begins in August. The first-year student recently graduated from Holy Names High School in her hometown of Oakland.
Public Health doctoral student Sarah Alnahari was awarded a UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) Predoctoral Fellowship to continue her community-driven research examining tobacco use among Arab Americans in the San Joaquin Valley.
The TRDRP is an initiative created through tobacco taxes and administered by the Research Grants Program Office at the UC Office of the President.
Shaina Santa Cruz, a graduate student in the Public Health Graduate Program, was awarded the Central California Asian Pacific Women (CCAPW) scholarship.
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 mosquito-control efforts.
Chia Thao was a teenager when she arrived in Fresno with her family to begin a new life. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, where her Laotian parents had fled after the Vietnam War.
“Our parents brought a skillset to the U.S., found a home in the Central Valley and began farming,” Thao said. “This connected them back to their homeland.”
Over the years, she witnessed the challenges small-scale farmers faced and it prompted her research interests. Now, she is using her cultural knowledge of her community to help improve health outcomes.
