Asmaa Mohamed’s enthusiasm for research is contagious. Her passion not only radiates through her words, but it is also evident in the research career she has built in her undergraduate years at UC Merced.

Mohamed was born in Egypt. In 2013, her father accepted a position as a senior medical physicist in the Merced Cancer Center, prompting her family to move to Merced. About four months before immigrating, she began to learn common words to prepare for full English immersion.

Quantitative and Systems Biology (QSB) graduate student Anh Diep will represent UC Merced at the University of California Grad Slam finals in San Francisco on May 10.

Graduate student Vicky Espinoza shared the plight of some San Joaquin Valley families with a wide audience this spring in her role as a Next Generation delegate to this year’s Chicago Council on Global Affairs Global Food Security Symposium, entitled “From Scarcity to Security: Managing Water for a Nutritious Food Future.”

UC Merced’s Graduate Division will host its Grad Slam competition on April 18 with graduate scholars presenting on topics ranging from Valley Fever immune response and antibiotic resistance to computer vision and mathematical methods for thermal collection. This year’s competition started in March with 30 graduate students in the qualifying round, from which the judges narrowed the field to the top 12.

The campus’s 2019 Grad Slam semi-finalists are:

Viet Ta (’10) and Janna Rodriguez (’12) are the newest alumni establishing an endowed scholarship at this year’s annual Alumni Signature Ceremony on Saturday, April 13. Ta and Rodriguez join nine fellow alumni who have established endowed scholarships through pledges of $10,000.

The event will take place during Bobcat Day from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. in the Leo and Dottie Kolligian Library. Ta and Rodriguez will sign a gift agreement and share their stories of giving with attendees.

Alzheimer’s disease affects people all over the world and Kumaran Akilan’s family is no different.

As the first-year student from Cupertino waits to see if his grandfather’s mild cognitive impairment is indeed Alzheimer’s, Akilan has been busy deciphering a new way to diagnose the disease — with a smartphone.

With the help of a friend, Akilan recently developed a computer-vision algorithm that extracts the retinal vessel system and determines abnormalities that can help detect the presence of Alzheimer’s.

Jeffrey Aceves is an excellent student. Always has been. He graduated high school with a 4.3 GPA and an Eagle Scout ranking. He graduated from UC Merced in 3 ½ years, having come to the campus with 20 college credits already completed.

The Bakersfield native is driven, dedicated and not afraid to push his personal envelope. He was named Outstanding Bioengineering Student of 2018, was a finalist for the UC Distinguished Leader Award, has already co-authored one published academic paper and graduated with honors.

Warren Nanney, who’s pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, received a three-year NASA fellowship that’s creating a unique opportunity for him to develop biosensors that could detect heart attacks before symptoms appear.

NASA recently awarded 12 fellowships totaling $1.9 million to graduate students through its Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) and Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) to conduct research and contribute directly to NASA’s work and mission.

UC Merced has a track record of helping first-generation and underrepresented students succeed in college, earning high rankings nationally for social mobility and outperforming expected graduation rates.

As UC Merced students continue to rise above their circumstances, a Bay Area organization is producing a pipeline that helps these students begin the road to success before they set foot on the campus.

For Merced native Tessa Provins, the opportunity to attend UC Merced for her graduate education was a chance to come home again — but it wasn’t simply the familiar location that drew her to the campus.

Provins earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University in 2013 before pursuing her graduate education at UC Merced. She completed a master’s degree in 2016 and a Ph.D. in political science in 2018.