School of Social Sciences Humanities and Arts

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Interaction of Faces, Postures and Scenes Affect Emotion Perception, Study Shows

What happens if you take a person's happy face, put it on an angry-looking body and place that in front of a disgusting scene? What do people see? What emotion do people perceive when you mix and match these different cues?

Community and Labor Center Accurately Forecasts Voter Preferences in Fresno Within 1 Percentage Point

A partnership among UC Merced's Community and Labor Center and several Fresno area community groups was able to predict accurately the Fresno results for the gubernatorial recall election held Sept. 14.

Fresno Speaks 2021 is a partnership of the center and the Fresno County Civic Engagement Table, which includes Communities for a New California, Jakara Movement, Hmong Innovating Politics, Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce, Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, and Faith in the Valley.

HIV Preventative Developed in LiWang Lab Takes One Big Step Forward

An HIV-inhibiting silk film designed to advance prevention and help end the AIDS epidemic in countries in Africa, developed by UC Merced Professor Patti LiWang, has met recent success at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis.

“They show complete protection,” LiWang said. “The films worked perfectly on the macaques at Davis.”

Research Shows Sleep and Social Support Are Vital to Latina Teen Mothers' Mental Health

It's no surprise that a good night's rest is one of the most important factors for a person's well-being, but not everyone can say they have the luxury of being able to sleep for eight hours a night. New research from UC Merced is shedding light on the problems this can cause, specifically for the mental health of Latina teen mothers.

Incoming Grad Students Get a Jump Start

While the campus remained quieter than usual this summer, a group of new graduate students began their UC Merced journey earlier than the rest of their cohort.

UC Merced Faculty Land Three UC-HBCU Grants, Most in System

The University of California Office of the President awarded three out of only seven UC-Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Initiative grants to UC Merced faculty members.

The initiative has fostered faculty partnerships with HBCUs to support enhanced diversity and representation of Black scholarship in graduate education and the professoriate since 2017.

New AI Institute Expands UC Merced’s Smart, Sustainable Agriculture Effort

With a new $20 million federal grant, UC Merced becomes part of a multi-institutional research collaborative to develop artificial intelligence — or AI — solutions to tackle some of agriculture’s biggest challenges related to water management, climate change and integration of new technology into farming.