Between academic semesters and collegiate soccer seasons, UC Merced standout defender Preeya Singh is representing Fiji on the world stage.

Over the past eight months, Singh has played in multiple World Cup and Olympic qualifying games in addition to NAIA National Championship matches. She has scored goals, won trophies and anchored shutouts. Singh, a biological sciences major, also earned a trio of academic accolades recently and has a 3.78 GPA through four semesters.

California high-speed rail, a multibillion-dollar project designed to connect the Central Valley to Los Angeles and the Bay Area, promises swift transportation, the protection of agricultural land and contributions to a cleaner environment.

It's also providing a lot of jobs - from design to construction to, eventually, operation.

It is impossible to avoid — the real-life event that frames the play “26 Pebbles” is disturbing. Heartbreaking.

Which makes all the more remarkable the play’s uplifting message of human resilience and the ability to come together after an unspeakable tragedy — the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Thirteen graduating students were honored by UC Merced’s School of Social Science, Humanities and Arts for outstanding academic careers.

UC Merced Arts invites everyone to a free performance that serves up whimsy, interactive fun and an inspiring message with a big helping of … operatic singing. 

As senior Bobcats prepare to walk the stage this weekend, we asked them to reflect on their own personal journeys at UC Merced. In response, we received stories of growth, self-exploration and change. The next chapter in their lives will bring on a whole new slate of experiences, and whether they leave the area or stay close, these testimonies show that they're versatile, highly adaptable, and ready for whatever life has planned for them.

It’s a pair of special birthdays for UC Merced’s two student-run journals for undergraduates. The Vernal Pool , which publishes creative stories, poems and images, turned 10 this academic year. Meanwhile, it’s the sweet 16th for the Undergraduate Research Journal , which provides an early taste of the lifeblood of graduate and post-grad research — peer-reviewed publication.

Earlier this month, Ambarish Varadan competed in UC Merced’s Grad Slam finals and seized the title of Campus Champion.

This was the second time the Quantitative and Systems Biology (QSB) Ph.D. candidate from Fremont vied for the top prize. Last year, he placed second among the top 10 contenders.

UC Merced Foundation Board Trustee Robert Bernstein, M.D., and his wife, Diplomat Jane Binger, Ed.D., have made generous donations to support Grad Slam.

In Professor Xuecai Ge ’s lab, where UC Merced researchers study how cells talk to each other to develop and differentiate, a recent surprise discovery is lending insight as to how erroneous cell signals lead to disease and birth defects.

Ge and her colleagues zeroed in on a slice of the communication system, the primary cilia, and found a protein called Numb, which they didn’t expect to be there.

Numb facilitates development of the spinal cord and cerebellum during embryonic neurodevelopment.