Student & Alumni Success

Bright Center Student Lightens Lives with Determination, Empathy

March 26, 2025

Maddison Crump and two other UC Merced students

Sometimes you meet a young person who makes such a powerful impression that you want to vault forward a few decades to see how much they lifted others and elevated our world. Maddison Crump is one of those people. At age 21 she has logged over a dozen years of making a difference. A self-...

Annaliza Perez Torres is pictured on campus at UC Merced.

UC Merced Grad Honored by Society of Women Engineers

Annaliza Perez Torres has already accomplished plenty. A 2019 graduate of UC Merced, Perez was named the School of Engineering's Outstanding Student in Materials Science and Engineering and...

Star Soccer Player Finds Success On and Off the Pitch

Four years ago, lifelong soccer player Yesenia Tijerina stopped playing when the pandemic shut everything down. Her classes at UC Davis were taken online at her home in Salinas. Tijerina started...

UC Merced Earns Seal of Excelencia Recertification For Advancing Latino Student Success

In recognition for its continuing efforts to advance Latino student success, UC Merced has earned recertification of the prestigious Seal of Excelencia. The Seal is a national certification for...

Ph.D. Student Named as 2024 Dole Caregiver Fellow

Karla Seijas is one of 14 individuals selected from across the nation as an Elizabeth Dole Foundation Caregiver Fellow. The Elizabeth Dole Foundation supports a community of more than 5.5 million...

U.S. News Places UC Merced Among Top 30 Public Schools Following Top Social Mobility Ranking By Wall Street Journal

The University of California, Merced, climbed once again in US News & World Report’s Best Colleges report, rising to the 26th best public school in the nation. Among all universities, UC...

Carlos Diaz Alvarenga and his wife, Rocio Medrano Calderon, are pictured.

UC Merced Graduate Ends Exciting Year with Professorship at Cal Poly

It is a serious understatement to say Carlos Diaz Alvarenga had a big year: He graduated from UC Merced, successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis and landed a position as an assistant professor at Cal...

UC Merced new Bobcat Bound Leslie Aquino

Bakersfield Student Ready to Go the Distance at UC Merced

This is part of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2024 semester. A high school distance runner from Bakersfield is striding into new territory, becoming the...

Physics Grad Student Receives Competitive UC Fellowship

Ph.D. student Micah Oeur has been awarded a 2024-2025 UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship to support her physics research and boost her goal to be a professor. PPPF’s goal is...

UC Merced Ranked No. 1 in the Nation for Social Mobility, No. 18 Overall

When it comes to changing the lives of its students, UC Merced is second to none. In the latest Wall Street Journal America's Best Colleges rankings, UC Merced was the No. 1 university in...

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