The UC Merced Foundation has named Stephanie Gallo, chief marketing officer at GALLO, to its Board of Trustees. A respected community leader and seasoned executive, Gallo brings extensive experience and a strong commitment to advancing educational initiatives and regional innovation.

As CMO of GALLO — the world’s largest family-owned winery, co-founded by her grandfather, Ernest, and great uncle, Julio — Gallo oversees the global management and strategic direction of the company’s brand portfolio.

Community leader and Creekside Company co-owner Jay Mahil has been named to the UC Merced Foundation Board of Trustees.

A fourth-generation farmer and the first in his family born in the United States, Mahil grew up in Lodi and is a longtime Fresno resident. After graduating from Lodi High School and Fresno State, he joined his family’s farming business, playing a key role in its modernization and expansion across the region.

In an unprecedented show of unity, leaders from Merced City School District, Merced Union High School District, Merced College and UC Merced came together to discuss how continued collaboration can transform education and opportunities across the region.

Spirits were high and futures bright while all else was soaked in a summer storm that made Tuesday morning’s Scholars Bridge Crossing, UC Merced’s traditional greeting to new students, a welcome unlike any before.

Call them Thunder ‘Cats.

The ceremony embraced about 2,000 first-year and transfer students to a campus that this fall semester marks 20 years since the first undergraduate class began at the newly built institution, bringing the power of a University of California education to the Central Valley.

Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development Gillian Wilson has been named a 2024 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

Being elected an AAAS Fellow is one of the most prestigious honors awarded by the association. Wilson is one of only eight astronomers honored this year.

UC Merced is being recognized from coast to coast as an institution that “redefines academic excellence, Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz said Wednesday in the annual State of the University address.

“As chancellor of this magnificent institution, I tell you that the state of our university is strong, and growing stronger year after year,” Muñoz said.

Professor Leonardo R. Arriola from UC Berkeley has been named dean of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA) as of Aug. 1.

Vice Chancellor and Provost Betsy Dumont made the announcement today, saying Arriola was chosen after a nationwide search that produced a diverse array of candidates.

It’s spring break 2009 and Jane Lawrence is rushing across campus, the words from the phone call still ringing in her ear. The unimaginable is happening and she must tell Charles Nies,

First Lady Michelle Obama is coming to UC Merced as commencement speaker.

Lawrence, the vice chancellor for student affairs, finds her associate vice chancellor in his office. With the campus quiet and students gone home, Nies had brought his two young daughters to work.

In a thick rainforest in Papua New Guinea, they're tracking bats. Researchers glue radio transmitters to the creatures’ little, furry bodies, then wait. And wait. When a bat flits to another position, the humans sprint through the foliage, stop and take a reading.

It’s 1 a.m. The researchers will do this all night, running from spot to spot, triangulating the bats’ movements. Logging data.

Having a blast.

“It’s just fun, right?” Betsy Dumont said, recounting a moment lived on the way to becoming one of the world’s top bat biologists. “It’s hard and it’s fun.”