Student & Alumni Success

Rhondene Wint is one of 10 exemplary graduate students to be featured in the March 17 special issue of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education (Diverse) based on “standout scholarship thus far and their current trajectory toward a very promising future in academia and beyond,” according to the magazine’s press release.

Graduate students who are passionate about their research, concerned about the environment and eager to reach across disciplinary boundaries are invited to apply for a three-week summer program in which they will team up with like-minded scientists and engineers to design solutions to environmental sensing challenges.

Founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) in 1951, National Engineers Week is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers.

This year, Engineers Week runs from Feb. 20-26, and to celebrate the students, faculty, alumni, programs and accomplishments, all nine UC campuses that have engineering schools or programs collaborated to present some of the most interesting stories from the past year.

A research project conducted by a UC Merced graduate student is becoming a reality as the Turlock Irrigation District (TID) approved piloting the first-in-the-nation construction of solar panels over water canals.

A team from UC Merced comprising eight undergraduate and graduate students has won the inaugural CITRIS Aviation Prize. For engineering the winning proposal, they will receive a $2,000 cash award, as well as a $25,000 budget to support a live demonstration of their flight in spring 2022.  

In his early 20s, Cory Mccullough battled addiction and stole to support his habits. The Dos Palos native spent several stints in prison as early as 2011 for commercial burglary. Education was the last thing on his mind.

Now, the former inmate finds himself in the joint again, this time not behind bars but helping incarcerated people forge their paths to higher education.

A team of eight scientists from around the country is organizing a new project to foster belonging and participation among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students in the geosciences, supported by the National Science Foundation.

Paleoecology Professor Sora Kim is a member of the team that’s led by Professor Daniel Ibarra with Brown University’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Science, and Professor Kimberly Lau with Penn State’s Department of Geosciences.

More than 40 student teams from the School of Engineering will show off the projects they’ve been designing and assembling for community partners — from data analysis and food processing to autonomous mobile robots and water-treatment monitoring.

Their community college experiences occurred hundreds of miles apart, but Kim Arellano Carmona and John Wilson each found the support and inspiration that would propel them to Ph.D. candidate studies at UC Merced.

Now they both have a golden opportunity to give back as awardees of a fellowship program that has them shadowing community college mentors and, in the spring semester, teaching classes at Bakersfield College.

University of California, Merced women's soccer defender Maddie Door has been named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District Women's Soccer First Team for her stellar performances athletically and in the classroom.