Outreach

Chia Thao was a teenager when she arrived in Fresno with her family to begin a new life. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, where her Laotian parents had fled after the Vietnam War.

“Our parents brought a skillset to the U.S., found a home in the Central Valley and began farming,” Thao said. “This connected them back to their homeland.”

Over the years, she witnessed the challenges small-scale farmers faced and it prompted her research interests. Now, she is using her cultural knowledge of her community to help improve health outcomes.

Audio has become a top form of entertainment over the past several years, in large part due to the rising popularity of podcasts. UC Merced graduate students are seizing the opportunity to help improve science literacy.

A group of Quantitative and Systems Biology (QSB) graduate students started RadioBio, a science podcast that discusses biology topics, in 2016. The podcast sparked from a discussion between the students and Professor Fred Wolf during a graduate professional skills development course.

One of the pillars of UC Merced is service and giving back to the community.

Now the university, Yosemite National Park and partners in the region are offering a new program to help a group of people who gave back in advance — those who served in the military and now qualify for GI Bill benefits.

The county fair offers food and fun, and thanks to UC Merced, this year’s Merced County Fair will also feature an interactive space for kids to learn.

UC Merced’s Mobile Maker Space is an innovative mobile science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) hub with hands-on activities and workshops geared toward students in kindergarten through high school. Attendees have an opportunity to experience the Mobile Maker Space at the fair’s Discovering Science exhibit before it launches to the public early next year.

Two UC Merced Ph.D. students took to the State Capitol yesterday with representatives from the other UC campuses to advocate for the importance of the research being done across California.

Kisha McGuire has discovered an opportunity to do what she loves for an institution she’s grown to care deeply about.

McGuire graduated from UC Merced in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, and soon started a full-time staff position in the Fiat Lux Scholars Program within the campus’s Calvin E. Bright Success Center.

Certain aspects of children's social cognition ripple throughout their lives, including whether small children can understand that other people’s minds are different than their own.

That understanding plays a critical role in relationships, cooperation with other people and even in academic performance.

For the past 20 years, developmental psychologists have operated under the belief that children from low-income backgrounds are severely delayed in developing this skill.

This year’s Research Week, March 4-8, promises more community connections than ever before.

Research Week , sponsored by the Office of Research and Economic Development, focuses on the research conducted at UC Merced that fosters the development of students and faculty and extends growth from within the campus to the global academic community.

Araceli Hernandez could have been playing video games, swimming or sleeping in over summer break, but instead she was doing math. And she’s happy about it.

Hernandez took part in one of three summer programs on campus developed by UC Merced’s Center for Educational Partnerships (CEP) with funding from U.S. Department of Education Trio grants aimed at increasing the number of youth from disadvantaged backgrounds who complete high school and enroll in and complete their postsecondary education.

Taking part in a summer program can help students develop new skills, get hands-on experience, meet other students with similar interests and get a taste of college life. It’s also a plus on college applications — it shows that the student is committed to learning.

For elementary, middle and high school students from Merced, Fresno and beyond, UC Merced has been the perfect place to participate in a variety of special summer learning opportunities.