UC Merced Psychology Professor Sarah Depaoli has been recognized as a Rising Star by the Association for Ps

Professor Clarissa J.

Lorraine Sturdevant always wanted to explore other countries, but finances were always an obstacle.

Jefferson Kuoch-Seng is now the official voice for the University of California’s roughly 240,000 students — the first UC Merced student ever to serve in that role.

How patients perceive and talk about their illnesses can have an impact on how they recover and heal, according to a growing area of health research being furthered by UC Merced health psychology Professor Jitske Tiemensma.

"It should be a team effort to treat a patient. Medical doctors often have no idea about the psychological consequences of disease," she said. "It's really important for them to have close ties to health psychologists."

Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a civil rights activist who was killed by the Ku Klux Klan while driving another activist home from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in March 1965, has been named the 2014 recipient of the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance.

Professor Carolin Frank will collect $1.6 million over the next four years to continue researching the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in pine needles and to work with the Sierra Foothill Charter School, which she helped found.