Graduate Students

An exacting nanosecond jolt of electricity can briefly open a cell’s wall, allowing for the delivery of drugs or DNA.

Spurred by a gift from a prominent dairy woman, the University of California, Merced, announced plans today for a center to promote leadership qualities among its diverse student population.

Margo Souza, former president and CEO of Turlock’s Circle H Dairy Ranch Inc., has pledged $1 million to establish The Margo F. Souza Leadership Center — a multi-faceted leadership program — housed within UC Merced’s Office of Student Life.

Retired astronaut and engineer Jose Hernandez and acclaimed author and organic farmer David Mas Masumoto will deliver keynote addresses at the University of California, Merced’s eighth commencement exercises May 18 and 19.

With more than 900 students eligible to graduate, this year marks the largest graduating class in UC Merced’s history.

As a result of such growth, the campus plans two school-based ceremonies to accommodate students and their families.

People don’t often think of deformation as a good thing.

UC Merced biology Professor Rudy Ortiz is furthering his innovative research into diabetes with support from a major pharmaceutical company.

For alumnus Justin Hicks, graduate school at UC Merced was a trailblazing experience.

A pioneering American novelist and a former California Poet Laureate will be the keynote speakers at two April events being organized by graduate students and faculty in World Cultures.

Researchers at the university in your backyard are delving into issues of great importance to the San Joaquin Valley, the state, the nation and the world.

You can learn more about their work at the eighth annual UC Merced Research Week, from March 4 through 8, on campus and in downtown Merced.

Research at UC Merced encompasses cancer; diabetes; climate change; water, soil and air quality; water availability; nanotechnology and robotics; history; mapping; archaeology; human genes; and much, much more.

Peek in the windows at the Mechatronics, Embedded Systems and Automation (MESA) Lab sometime. You’ll probably see students flying small remote-controlled vehicles at all hours of the day and night.

Sometimes the students are having so much fun they have to be pushed to go home and sleep.

But what seems like a hobby or diversion is actually serious research.

Graduate student Sharon Patris likes spending time at a lake in the middle of the forest on an uninhabited island in the western Pacific.

The marine lake named Ongiem’l Tketau and informally known as Jellyfish Lake, is home to the golden jellyfish, a species Patris studies as part of her work with UC Merced School of Natural Sciences Professor Michael Dawson in Palau.