Elizabeth (Betsy) Dumont joins UC Merced today as the newest dean of the School of Natural Sciences. She’s the third dean in the school’s history and the second woman to serve in this capacity, after Founding Dean Maria Pallavicini.
Dumont arrives from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where for the past three years she served as vice provost for academic affairs and director of the Interdepartmental Graduate Programs in Life Sciences. She joined the UMass faculty in 2001.
UC Merced’s branch of the Blum Center for Developing Economies rebooted this spring with a faculty-led effort to spend two years working on becoming the hub for all food-security-related research and outreach on and off campus.
Part of that effort includes seed grants for UC Merced researchers. The Blum Center just announced this year’s winners:
Subalpine meadows are among the Sierra Nevada’s most enchantingly picturesque landscapes.
More than 1,200 undergraduate and graduate students are expected to participate in the University of California, Merced’s 12th 
Jocelyne Fadiga and Havilliah “Jake” Malsbury traveled from different worlds to study at UC Merced.
UC Merced added a powerful new tool to the campus’s 
