School of Social Sciences Humanities and Arts

A new state law will make a difference in accessing education for the dependents of disabled veterans in California, thanks to the initiative of UC Merced Interdisciplinary Humanities graduate student Karla Seijas.

For professors, it’s up or out when it comes to tenure and promotion: After five years on the job as assistant professors, junior professors’ promise is evaluated by their more senior colleagues.

Distinguished Professor Martin Hagger from the Department of Psychological Sciences has been awarded one of this year’s Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher awards.

UC Merced is part of several new initiatives aimed at increasing the accessibility and inclusivity of data science studies and opening new opportunities for historically underserved students after graduation.

New grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE) and the California Learning Lab are funding collaborations with a sister campus and several community colleges as well as the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) to accomplish these goals.

Four UC Merced graduate students can focus fully on their research and academic studies this year thanks to a generous gift from the Northern California Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation.

ARCS, a national organization established and operated entirely by women, is committed to the advancement of science in the United States by financially supporting distinguished graduate students in science, technology, engineering and medical research disciplines at its partner institutions.

One of the major challenges of this century is democratically engaging institutions and large numbers of people with strategies to mitigate global warming by minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.

The new issue of Foundry, a digital platform similar to a magazine, assembled by the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), features works by three members of the UC Merced campus community.

Founding faculty member and distinguished literature Professor Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez is being honored for his contributions to Chicano/Latino studies with the Don Luis Leal award, considered the most important in the area of literary studies.

Martín-Rodríguez is the youngest scholar to receive the award, the first of his generation and the only one of the six awardees who is not Latinx; he is Spanish.

Writing is still the most important, and most-used, form of communication in the world.

"Writing is crucial in that it's both a product and a process. It's in the fabric of what we do," said Paul Gibbons, teaching professor of writing studies at UC Merced. "Writing is a way of doing things in the world, of asking for things. It's still a major coin of the realm."

Compelling storytelling is vital to ensuring the action needed to secure a habitable planet for future generations, according to an increasing amount of research.

UC Merced is recruiting students now to become the next environmental storytellers.

Students who are interested in creatively conveying the urgency of environmental issues can make that mission the focus of their studies when the new environmental humanities (EH) major begins at UC Merced in fall 2024.