School of Social Sciences Humanities and Arts

UC Merced political science professors publish in leading journals and with top university presses at a rate that outpaces just about every other elite institution.

Most students don’t arrive at UC Merced by way of Germany and Hawaii.

Seeking to combat a debilitating and sometimes fatal disease commonly found in the San Joaquin Valley, three regional institutions are uniting to improve the area's health.

The University of California, Merced, Health Sciences Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco Fresno Medical Education Program and the California State University, Fresno Central California Center for Health and Human Services are working together to determine research priorities and public service needs to address valley fever.

A dozen UC Merced undergraduates will gain an edge in their journey toward a career in biomedical and behavioral research, courtesy of five years' funding from the National Institutes of Health.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of California, Merced, has begun an ambitious quest to discover common principles that guide evolution of structures at the linguistic and molecular levels.

Professors Rick Dale in cognitive science, David Ardell in evolutionary biology and Suzanne Sindi in applied mathematics will spend the next three years conducting research that employs computational and mathematical models as well as human data to see what kind of fundamental similarities and differences they can find.

UC Merced’s first Ph.D. graduate is back on campus. But this time, Ricardo Cisneros isn’t enrolled as a student; he’s a professor instead.

Cisneros, who earned his doctorate in Environmental Systems from the School of Engineering in 2008, was the first environmental health professor hired in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts for its public health program.

UC Merced has a unique opportunity to help the San Joaquin Valley as the university forges the newest branch of the Blum Center for Developing Economies.

The $400,000, two-year seed grant through the University of California allows the university to launch its center, themed “Global California: The World at Home.” The UC Merced initiative is affiliated with the Blum Center at UC Berkeley, which was founded by a gift from investment banker and UC Regent Richard C. Blum.

People routinely encounter familiar components from everyday life in new combinations, such as when a co-worker takes on a new role or a sentence uses a word in a new way.

We typically excel at interpreting these new experiences, but researchers do not yet understand the neurological basis of this phenomenon. How does the brain assemble new ideas from familiar parts?

An exhibit coordinated by a UC Merced professor weaves together music, literature, photography, video and oral history to tell stories of the workers who keep the region’s economy moving.