Health

During college, Dr. Margo Vener was on a completely different career path. Having received a C in chemistry early on, she had all but closed the door on any notion of pursuing a career in medicine. But a conversation with her uncle during her senior year changed all of that.

After telling him she wanted to become a teacher so she could make a difference and really help people in a hands-on way, he suggested it sounded more like she should become a doctor.

“That’s when it clicked,” said Vener. “I hadn't thought of it since I ruled it out after I received a C in that class.”

At their Nov. 15 meeting, the Regents of the University of California gave final approval for the construction of a new medical education building at UC Merced. The vote approved the final design, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) findings and the full budget and financing.

Ed and Jeanne Kashian, longtime UC Merced donors who have supported the campus since its earliest days, have made a $5 million gift to advance the university's medical education efforts.

UC Merced was recently awarded a significant grant from Genentech, a member of the Roche group, to create the UC Merced Center for Health Equity. The initiative will focus on eliminating health disparities and advancing health equity throughout the San Joaquin Valley, particularly among the region’s Hispanic, Latinx, immigrant and rural communities.

Distinguished rankings, new academic offerings, world-class research and campus expansions were among the highlights of the UC Merced State of the University address delivered by Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz.

"The state of this 20-year-old institution is unparalleled in the history of American higher education," said Muñoz. "And now I would like to invite you to join me in imagining an even more impactful future for our campus, faculty, staff and students."

You could almost say Edwin Shen was destined to become a bioengineer. His mother, a medical doctor, practices pathology in Northern California, and his father retired from a career as a mechanical engineer for medical device companies.

“I guess what I do is right in the middle of my parents’ occupations,” he said. “Bioengineering was something my dad recommended I try. I thought research might be something that aligned well with my personality. It turned out to be a perfect fit.”

Physiology Professor Rudy M.Ortiz has been named a Fellow in this year's cohort of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities’ Leadership Academy (La Academia de Liderazgo).

The program is designed to increase diverse representation in executive and senior-level positions in higher education.

UC Merced public health Professor Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young has been awarded an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The $3 million grant will fund Young's ambitious, five-year research project to understand how immigration policy influences health care access and the well-being of Latinos in rural California and Arizona counties, including Merced, Tulare, Imperial, Monterey and Napa.

About 20 UC Merced students spent the past two weeks working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to see if they can solve a problem that could have a significant impact on cardiology.

The annual Data Science Challenge (DSC), a two-week, full-time internship at LLNL, this year teamed students from Merced and UC Riverside. They attempted to see if machine learning could address a gap in the information provided by the common electrocardiogram (ECG) test.

For Joslyn Conchas, becoming a physician wasn’t always the plan.

“I wanted to be a veterinarian, but that was before I saw firsthand how impactful health disparities are within my community,” she said.

Her grandfather was ill and she witnessed his struggles with the healthcare system while he was in and out of the hospital.