Brenda Ortiz

While the COVID-19 pandemic has kept most students and faculty mentors off campus, UC Merced’s commitment to providing research experiences to undergraduate students has not wavered.

Over the past 14 years, the Summer Undergraduate Research Institute (SURI) has become an integral part of the research training for many students. Each summer, SURI scholars spend nine weeks performing academic research alongside faculty mentors in their disciplines.

UC Merced graduate students Anabel Castillo, Veronica Lerma and Sammy Villa are recipients of the University of California’s inaugural President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship (PPPF).

Two UC Merced Ph.D. students, a recent undergraduate and an alumna have each been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP).

The fellowship provides multiyear support to predoctoral students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The fellowship is highly competitive, with annual acceptance rates of about 14 percent from among more than 12,000 applicants.

UC Merced’s Graduate Division wrapped up its annual Grad Slam competition this week, announcing Physics doctoral candidate Boe Mendewala as its campus champion.

The judges awarded two runners-up, Shayna Bennett, a third-year Ph.D. student in Applied Mathematics, and Melinda Gonzales, a first-year Ph.D. student in Environmental Systems.

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 teaching assistants (TA) make the shift.

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 student research — continued as planned.

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, Germany. They will join about 600 young scientists from 101 countries and attend lectures and small seminars with around 70 Nobel laureates.

Audio has become a top form of entertainment over the past several years, in large part due to the rising popularity of podcasts. UC Merced graduate students are seizing the opportunity to help improve science literacy.

A group of Quantitative and Systems Biology (QSB) graduate students started RadioBio, a science podcast that discusses biology topics, in 2016. The podcast sparked from a discussion between the students and Professor Fred Wolf during a graduate professional skills development course.

UC Merced doctoral student Melissa Spence and incoming graduate students Caleb Larnerd and Cristian Sarabia were awarded Graduate Research fellowships (GRFP) from the National Science Foundation.

The fellowship provides multiyear support to predoctoral students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) awarded Quantitative and Systems Biology graduate student Craig Ennis the Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Service Research Award.

The award provides multiyear support to predoctoral students in health-related fields.

“It’s exciting to be awarded this fellowship because it provides support that allows me to further develop my research, and also grow professionally,” Ennis said.