Brenda Ortiz

Applied Mathematics graduate student Shayna Bennett will represent UC Merced at the University of California Grad Slam finals on May 7.

Graduate school is tough, but graduate students have a place to turn to for advocacy and support on campus.

Since it was established in 2005, UC Merced’s Graduate Student Association (GSA) has promoted graduate students’ rights and worked with the Graduate Division and other campus leadership to ensure that students’ best interests are met.

UC Merced master’s student Selina Brinkmann has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford University — a first for the campus.

Vice Provost for Academic Personnel Teenie Matlock has been honored with the Athena Award for Academic Leadership by the Women in Technology Initiative at the University of California.

During December, the Give to UC Merced 2020 initiative tripled the campus’s goal of raising $50,000. The final tally: $163,000 raised for a variety of campus initiatives and programs.

The fundraising initiative has traditionally been held on a single day, but in 2020 it was expanded to one month with an online focus and social media-driven effort because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

UC Merced’s Graduate Division provides many programs throughout the year to ensure students succeed academically, including faculty and peer mentoring programs, free tutoring, and social and well-being activities to help foster a sense of belonging and community.

UC Merced doctoral student Xueting Li was selected to participate in Rising Stars 2020 Academic Career Workshop for Women in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, which will be hosted by UC Berkeley virtually Nov. 9-10.

Susan Carter, the campus’s former Director of Research Development from 2008 to 2017, has been named to the charter class of the National Organization of Research Development Professionals (NORDP) Fellows, an organization she was instrumental in supporting in its nascent phase during her time at UC Merced.

Carter and her team assisted faculty pursuing major multi- and interdisciplinary team-based research initiatives and facilitated grant submissions by junior faculty prior to moving to the Santa Fe Institute in 2017.

Shaina Santa Cruz, a graduate student in the Public Health Graduate Program, was awarded the Central California Asian Pacific Women (CCAPW) scholarship.