Student & Alumni Success

When physics graduate student William Delmas made samples of solar energy harvesting perovskite films two years ago, he had no idea that this summer, he’d be analyzing those same samples after they made a round trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

“It’s really cool to see this come full circle,” Delmas said.

As part of their commitment to advancing educational opportunities for students and giving back to their alma maters, Kyoki Prusela Phillips, ’14, and Tushar Narayan have established the Phillips Narayan Scholarship Endowment at UC Merced. The new scholarship will support promising undergraduates pursuing their bachelor’s degrees.

“Education is an important value for both of us,” said Phillips. “We’ve experienced first-hand the many opportunities that become available because of education.”

Applied Mathematics graduate student Shayna Bennett won first place at the University of California’s Grad Slam finals today (May 7).

Bennett presented her dissertation research, “A New Tool to Fight Invasive Species,” in just three minutes and won $7,000 and the systemwide trophy — known as the Slammy — the campus’s first time winning the top prize.

A half-dozen UC Merced students and alumni are recipients of significant fellowships to help support their graduate education.

“We’re extremely proud of our undergraduate and graduate students and alumni who have earned prestigious fellowships,” Vice Provost and Graduate Dean Chris Kello said. “These awards will allow scholars to embark on or continue their graduate-level research opportunities.”

(Select the link below to learn more about the recipients.)

From graduate student Jose Zamora’s perspective, the CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM) has been a spectacular success.

A student can swing between confidence and uncertainty in the months between signing a university’s acceptance letter and the first day of classes. The people at UC Merced entrusted with helping smooth the path for Bobcats-to-be are constantly fine-tuning the tools of a student-first support system hard-wired into the university’s identity.

UC Merced master’s student Selina Brinkmann has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford University — a first for the campus.

In a record year for applicants to the entire University of California system, UC Merced has received a total of 30,105 prospective student applications among freshman and transfer students into the university — the highest number in the campus’s history. 

This comes as UC Merced hosted its largest-ever student population for fall 2020 — more than 9,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

For Xiaolong “Harry” Chen, UC Merced is more than a university. “It is a friend and a companion,” he wrote in his application to be student speaker at Fall Commencement. Together, they experienced pre-dawn hours at Lantern Café, early evening discourses with friends, and 11 p.m. sprints to complete homework.

Public Health doctoral student Sarah Alnahari was awarded a UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) Predoctoral Fellowship to continue her community-driven research examining tobacco use among Arab Americans in the San Joaquin Valley.

The TRDRP is an initiative created through tobacco taxes and administered by the Research Grants Program Office at the UC Office of the President.