Arias, of Clovis, initially was disappointed when she wasn’t admitted to several big-name universities. Then she toured UC Merced.

“It just blew me away — the people and the type of community,” said Arias, whose major is applied mathematics with an engineering emphasis. “I think about that all the time. UC Merced offered me so much that I just wouldn’t have been offered anywhere else.”

Her list of achievements includes an internship at the NASA Langley Research Center through UC Merced’s MACES program — which stands for Merced nAnomaterials Center for Energy and Sensing. She also worked as an undergraduate researcher in two different campus labs and helped found the Society of Physics Students. Arias plans to pursue a Ph.D. in mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Early on, the chance to become a DECARTES (Data-Enabled Science and Computational Analysis Research, Training and Education for Students) Scholar contributed to her career path. In part, she spent several weeks of three consecutive summers developing programming, mathematical modeling and machine-learning skills and also completed an independent project.

“I had never programmed in my life and I didn’t know much about technology or my own computer,” Arias said. That experience helped launch an ambition to become a successful Hispanic female engineer and help others reach their potential.

She plans to research hypersonics — traveling roughly five times faster than the speed of sound — for her doctorate. Her goals also include becoming a pilot, an astronaut, a research engineer, a musician/DJ and a leader in education reform and STEM outreach.

Arias thinks fellow graduates can identify with her story.

“I want everyone to feel that excitement and feel proud of going to UC Merced,” she said.

Caradonna, of Gilroy, started her college career in Hawaii on a basketball scholarship. Youth and distance from home led to her return to Gilroy after one year.

Caradonna enrolled in community college and continued chasing her basketball dreams — ultimately, to UC Merced. First, she had to overcome the challenge created when some credits from Hawaii didn’t count toward her athletic eligibility.

She talked with Coach Sarah Hopkins-Cherry, took a campus tour and worked out with the women’s basketball team. A determined Caradonna added 20 units to her workload before a mid-year transfer.

“To feel like I was getting a second chance was big for me,” Caradonna said. In 2017, she was part of the team’s “three-peat” conference championship — just the start of her UC Merced experience.

Caradonna fell in love with academics as she dug into her Spanish major. She discovered empowerment in her studies and the “super-powers” that languages hold.

She also found a home in the Transfer, Returning and Veteran program, where she now serves as lead fellow and peer instructor.

“That really helped shape me and the teacher I’m going to be some day,” she said. Next is a Fresno State master’s program in higher education administration and leadership.

Caradonna feels gratitude toward UC Merced and the community that supported her when a concussion and other issues knocked her out of school for a month. She talks about leading and celebrating individuality as a gay Chicana with tattoos.

“There is an unspoken support on campus,” she said. “Everyone pays it forward in some way. There’s no way you can step on this campus without feeling it.”

In July 2017, anthropology Professor Kathleen Hull hired Perez as an archaeological intern based on her performance in the Lithic Artifact Analysis class. Now she’s leaning toward anthropology after loving her first backpacking experience.

Perez was part of a team that conducted archaeological excavation for a wilderness evaluation project in the Sierra Nevada back-country. It was a 10-day trip, including four days to backpack in and out of the area.

“It was a pleasure to have Araceli working with me on the Yosemite project — she was observant, skilled, thorough, diligent and game for whatever tasks needed to be completed,” Hull said. “The entire crew enjoyed working with her and we were impressed with her eagerness and ability to do new things.”

Perez, an avid hiker, said that work spurred more interest in outdoor activities and the branch of archaeology in anthropology. Following the trip, she also worked to catalog, analyze and photograph the site collections.

“It was a new experience for me, and something I hadn’t considered before,” she said. “I didn’t really picture being able to do that, but I enjoyed it and the lab work.”

“It was a new experience for me, and something I hadn’t considered before,” she said. “I didn’t really picture being able to do that, but I enjoyed it and the lab work.”

Perez was looking for just those kinds of opportunities when she decided to attend UC Merced after a campus tour.

“It really caught my attention — it was the newest UC and it was small,” she said. “I felt like there would be more opportunity.”

Throughout her years on campus, Perez made diverse choices — including trying out for the cheerleading squad even though she didn’t have any experience.

“I just decided to try something new,” she said. Perez spent two years on the team and also worked for two years in on-campus catering.

“I was constantly amazed by her ability to do so many diverse things — from class work to her job on campus to her extracurricular activities — and do them all so well,” Hull said. “I don't know how she found the time or the energy, but she clearly is very skilled at pursuing and balancing all her interests.”

Perez said UC Merced helped inspire her to work harder academically and to grab hold of new opportunities.

“The sense of community here — it’s very welcoming,” she said. “There are many people who will help you do what you need to do to succeed.”

Saturday’s ceremony included a historic moment for the university. Modesto native Berenice Cervantes-Perez became the first graduate of UC Merced Extension's Teacher Preparation Program. The program debuted this academic year and provides culturally responsive instruction to help educate the newest group of TK-12 teachers in the San Joaquin Valley. Berenice completed the program in less than a year and is set to begin her teaching career in Manteca in the fall.

The weekend’s festivities also marked the 10-year anniversary of UC Merced’s first full graduating class. Members of the class of 2009 played a role in the commencement ceremonies, with several serving as flag bearers. Brooklynn Pham (’09), who sang the national anthem at the 2009 commencement, returned to sing the alma mater at Sunday’s ceremony. Jason Castillo (’09), the student speaker for the first graduating class, presented the alumni speech Saturday to the newest cohort of UC Merced alums — a group that now includes more than 10,000 former Bobcats.

“Your UC Merced journey does not end here, and neither does the connection you have with your alma mater,” Castillo said. “What sets UC Merced apart from other universities is that this is a young university that has been completely built on the efforts of its faculty, staff, students and alumni. Unlike more established institutions, we cannot rest on the reputation of our university, but instead, we are part of creating our reputation as a campus.”

UC Merced’s first class set the tone for the robust social and academic experience students have today. The group’s persistence and innovation convinced former First Lady Michelle Obama to serve as commencement speaker for 2009’s historic graduating class.

“All students in UC Merced’s inaugural class took a great risk in turning down established universities to create the basis of what this campus could become,” said Jason Castillo, student speaker at the first commencement. Castillo, who is now a Mohs surgeon and dermatologist in Southern California, returned as an alumni speaker at the commencement for the schools of Natural Sciences and Engineering last weekend. “We were all leaders in our own ways and developed the skills to work together, struggled to create, fought for change, and believed we could make a difference.”

The dedicated students lobbied Obama, writing letters about their unique experience and urging her to grace the stage to help them celebrate their commencement.

Heather Hopkins (’09), a flag bearer at the ceremony, said the journey to bring Obama to campus made her feel “completely energized and full of hope.”

“We had to consistently tell everyone where UC Merced was, why it was relevant, why our education was equal to all others. In that moment, when Michelle chose us, it felt like all of the hard work, passion and dedication that went into UC Merced was validated,” Hopkins said. “To this day, thinking about that moment gives me chills.”

The success of bringing Obama to campus and the subsequent growth in student enrollment are not the only metrics by which to measure UC Merced’s ascension in the 10 years since that commencement.

UC Merced is the fastest-growing public university in the nation and Education Dive’s 2018 University of the Year. It’s also the greenest —the only university in the nation with every building LEED Certified. In terms of research, it is the youngest university to ever receive a Carnegie R2 research classification and has 24 CAREER awards to its name.

While these successes have raised UC Merced’s profile, if you ask alumni, not everything has changed.

“Two things that haven't changed are the passion for the university from the staff, faculty and students, and the sense that students can achieve anything they want with the right amount of time, effort and dedication,” Fong said.

As for the memories? Those are irreplaceable.

“I made great friends and have memories I will never forget,” said Trevor Albertson (’09), one of seven Ph.D. graduates in 2009, who now serves as dean of Lassen Community College. “I received a world-class education. And I joined the University of California family. I wouldn't change it for anything. Looking back, I would do it all over again.”

Mortality rates have declined in recent years in California because of concerted efforts to improve quality of care, but the researchers pointed out that their data shows mental health and substance use issues are still affecting a large number of new mothers.

“Most of these deaths occur in the second half of the year after birth,” Goldman-Mellor said — suggesting, Margerison added, that “The later post-partum period is an important time to continue providing women with substance use and mental health resources.”

Factors contributing to these deaths could include the stigma and potential legal repercussions that remain around admitting to and getting help for substance abuse or psychiatric problems, especially among new mothers, Goldman-Mellor said.

The researchers, who studied epidemiology together as graduate students at UC Berkeley, said they plan to work together to learn more about this and other topics surrounding maternal health outcomes.

Goldman-Mellor said further studies could deepen researchers’ understanding of why certain women faced higher and/or lower risk for post-partum death due to drug overdose or suicide, including potentially important factors related to their socioeconomic status, health care access, and cultural sources of support.

And, because about 75 percent of the women who died in the first year had accessed hospital emergency rooms at least once after giving birth, potential intervention points could be identified, as well.

“These deaths are likely just the tip of the iceberg in terms of substance use and mental distress,” Margerison said. “We need to take the next steps to understand how to help women who experience these problems during and after pregnancy.”

Stockton native Jovo Velasco finished a bachelor’s degree in public health at UC Merced in May and will attend the University of Southern California’s Master of Health Administration program in the fall. He received offers from five graduate programs: University of La Verne, University of Illinois-Chicago, Portland State University, Penn State and USC, and he believes his experience with the UROC had a lot to do with his success.

“UROC gave me a glimpse as what to expect from graduate school,” he said. “I took advantage of what the program offered and challenged myself by designing my own research study as the primary data collector.”

Velasco’s research with faculty mentor Professor Denise Páyan, focused on people ages 65-90 who reside in Merced County. He asked participants about challenges they face navigating the healthcare system and social services in Merced, as well as their perceived benefits of being part of a community senior center, their perceptions of nursing homes and assisted living communities, and what services they need that are not being provided to them.

Last fall, he received the UROC-H Public Humanities Grant made possible through a diversity initiative grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The collaborative program was developed for undergraduate student research in the humanities and is led by UROC, the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, and the Graduate Division, with additional support provided by the Center for the Humanities.

With the grant, Velasco is using his previous research results to engage the Merced community with his project.

“A huge portion of UROC is helping prepare you for grad school,” Velasco said. “We had to write a personal statement, a statement of purpose and a CV. I used these essays when I submitted my grad school application.”

Jeffrey Aceves is driven, dedicated, and not afraid to push his personal envelope. He was named UC Merced’s Outstanding Bioengineering Student, was a finalist for the Distinguished Leadership Award, and graduated with honors in 3½ years in December 2018.

Now, the Bakersfield native is headed to Harvard University to earn his Ph.D.

As a new student at UC Merced, Aceves immediately took control of his college career. He found or made opportunities for himself, from leading other students in his residence hall as director of activities and helping found a fraternity to applying for and getting a slot in Professor Jennifer Manilay’s lab, where he co-authored a paper for the Journal of Immunology.

And every time internships or fellowships presented themselves, he jumped. Aceves credits the UROC Summer Undergraduate Research Institute Fellowship and KURE, the Kidney Undergraduate Research Experience, with contributing to his success.

Starting this fall at Harvard, he’ll be working with Professor Jennifer Lewis, whose lab is working on developing an artificial kidney using 3D printing.

Aceves wouldn’t have known about Lewis’ lab if it weren’t for another UROC internship that took him to the University of Alabama at Birmingham for a summer, where he discovered that his time in Merced allowed him “hang with” students from bigger, older universities, such as Cornell.

“That is what has been such an important part of the great education I’ve received at the UC,” Aceves said. “The research, the experiences. At any other school, I wouldn’t have flourished like I have here.”

After graduate school, he hopes to find a faculty position at a research university so he can be a mentor for students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Soto is one of eight UC Merced humanities graduate students participating in the collaborative project funded by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation entitled “Building Research Partnerships in the San Joaquin Valley: Community Engaged Research and Graduate Mentorship in the Interdisciplinary Humanities.” The participants collaborate with community partners on projects that illustrate how humanities research can affect the local, regional and national dialogues on key issues.

“The character of the university; its relative smallness within the UC system; its location in a part of California that is not well-served by the UC system; its close connection to the city of Merced and community organizations — all of that creates a really interesting environment within which to pursue a project like this,” Henry Luce Foundation Vice President Sean Buffington said. “We’re very excited about the initiative and its potential as a model for other humanities doctoral programs.”

Beginning last fall, the Luce fellows studied the principles and best practices of community-engaged scholarship in an Interdisciplinary Humanities graduate course (IH 206). It’s an approach to research that mentor and world heritage Professor Nicola Lercari said is based on mutual benefit to community and academic collaborators.

“Our graduate students and community partners designed and advanced four community-engaged research projects that provide great visibility to the university in our region of service through applied-research projects developed with and for the local community,” Lercari said. “These projects explored a broad spectrum of methods and practical approaches to community-engaged scholarship and digital humanities, including archive research, digital data management and curation and public dissemination.”

The Luce fellows are working on digital-humanities-focused projects with community organizations as well as experts from the UC Merced Library that culminates at the end of the summer.

In addition to Soto’s Water Governance and Power project, there are three other Luce research projects (learn more by selecting a photo below):

Building a Center of Excellence

UC Merced’s unique public-private partnership (P3) with Plenary and lead contractor Webcor has garnered numerous awards and recognition from across the country, including being named P3 Social Infrastructure Project of the Year in 2017 and “Americas P3 Deal of the Year” by Thomson Reuters’ Project Finance International in 2016.

Most importantly, the project exemplifies the university’s commitment to sustainability. Every building in the project is expected to earn LEED Platinum certification through the U.S. Green Building Council.

Sustainability is also the focus of one of the new buildings. The Sustainability Research and Engineering Building will allow faculty and staff — including the Office of Sustainability, which has moved from the Downtown Campus Center to the building — to collaborate and provide guidance for a multidisciplinary campuswide sustainability initiative in the university’s first Center of Excellence. The Center focuses on integrating sustainability into all university functions — teaching, curriculum, research, student engagement, outreach and operations.

“Sustainability is a grand challenge, and since UC Merced’s inception, diverse students, staff and faculty have generated knowledge and solutions that advance us toward a sustainable future,” said Faculty Advisory Committee on Sustainability Chair Professor Michael Dawson. “Meeting the grand challenge requires a coming together of the university with surrounding communities, and this new academic quad provides a home for imperative convergence research and an accelerator for the sustainability initiative.”

Faculty members in the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering will make up the bulk of the School of Engineering’s presence in the Sustainability Research and Engineering Building.

School of Engineering Dean Mark Matsumoto said the new building will help expand the number of faculty and research opportunities for the departments.

“The Center of Excellence, machine shop and maker space are greatly welcomed, allowing more researchers and students from the schools of Engineering and Natural Sciences to collaborate more and create lab equipment and prototype devices for research, development and testing,” Matsumoto said. “With the recent enrollment increases in the engineering majors over the past five years, the new instructional lab spaces will allow us to meet enrollment growth and offer us opportunities to expand our lab course offerings.”

Rolling Out the Red Carpet for the Arts

Whether it’s practicing in the new dance studios or performing in the new cinema-quality 292-seat auditorium, The Arts and Computational Sciences Building will enable students to hone their crafts in spaces tuned toward their success.

The building will also include a new music room, dance studio, recording studio, visual arts lab, audio-visual lab, art history lab and seminar room, which will play host to Global Arts, Media and Writing Studies (GAMWS) lectures and presentations.

“These are going to be among the most utilized spaces on campus,” said Professor Jayson Beaster-Jones, who served as a GAMWS faculty consultant on the project. The spaces required minute attention to detail and had to be fitted properly with the appropriate technology, such as sprung wooden floors and tall mirrors in the dance studios, as well as the right acoustics in the auditorium.

“This required someone to be there throughout the entire process to think about sound and to ask the applied mathematicians on the floor above us what they need to make this arrangement work for them,” Beaster-Jones said. “Despite how loud we're going to be, I don’t think anyone will have to worry about sound.”

Professor and Chair of the Department of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures Katie Brokaw, who produces the campus’s annual Shakespeare in Yosemite event, said the new building will provide opportunities to expand the scope of arts classes and enable the theatre, music and dance programs to have their own rehearsal rooms. Until now, groups have had to rehearse in hallways when the one rehearsal room was occupied, she said.

“I am looking forward to being able to incorporate more acting and movement into our drama classes when we teach in the new studios,” Brokaw said. “These spaces will greatly expand the student experience both in and outside of class, allowing students many more opportunities to work together on collaborate performative arts.”

The Applied Mathematics department said the move onto the third floor of the Arts and Computational Sciences Building will put the entire group in the same building for the first time since 2007. Former department Chair Professor Francois Blanchette helped coordinate the department’s move into the new building and said having a home base that also features the Math Center will attract students to the major. The close proximity to physics and chemistry faculty — the departments will be on the second floor — will ensure computational sciences research collaborations.

“Being physically close is particularly useful when it comes to co-advising students, using each other as a sounding board and generally exchanging ideas,” Blanchette said. “The best research is often unplanned, so it is important to facilitate frequent informal meetings with other scientists.”

To make the university-community partnership possible, Gomez begins meeting with other committee leaders for the event as early as January. One key figure on the committee is Martha Acevedo, who has served on the board of the MAC for 25 years and fought to instill the importance of this cultural holiday into the lives of students and community members.

“Death is not something to be sad about all the time. This holiday is an opportunity once a year to be with our relatives. It’s a chance to celebrate life,” Acevedo said. “Death is not something horrible in Mexico – it’s sad, but it is necessary. It is accepted. We know we are going to die, so we enjoy life and pay tribute to those who have passed.”

Acevedo’s daughter, Eve Delfín, was one of the original three students to graduate from UC Merced in 2006. Like her mother, in her time at UC Merced, Delfín was a steward of her Mexican heritage. She founded the university’s first Folklorico dance troupe, which practices traditional Mexican dancing complete with nail-heeled shoes and ruffled skirts.

Delfín was also instrumental in starting the annual Dia de los Muertos tradition at the MAC. She worked with event founders Ruben Sanchez, Joan Sortini and artist Oscar Torres to bring the tradition to the wider Merced community. This year, Acevedo will honor the original founders of the event by awarding them a certificate with the support of local legislators.

This year’s event will feature Mexican traditions, with Gomez’s students painting faces in the style of the holiday’s sugar skulls, or calaveras. Hallways will be draped with colorful Mexican paper garlands, traditional food will be served and La Catrina will be present – perhaps the most recognizable figure of Dia de los Muertos.

La Catrina , a stylishly dressed giant skeleton, will “greet” visitors at the entrance to the MAC. Standing 19 feet tall with her plumed hat, La Catrina is considered the “grand dame of death.”

A traditional aspect of Dia de los Muertos are the altars, created to honor loved ones who have passed. For Gomez’s students, rather than honoring a single loved one, the students are collectively creating an altar to honor something of importance to them. Because the class is focused on art for social change, Gomez encouraged his students to be provocative with their message. This year, their altar will honor the victims of mass shootings that have plagued the country.

Acevedo hopes attendees will move through the MAC exhibition, which covers two floors, and see that loved ones, here and gone, can still influence our lives in a positive way.

“The goal of this event is to impart the culture and knowledge of our ancestors,” Acevedo said. “And to talk about death. Death is like life. It happens and knowing and accepting that means you can really savor the time you have with your loved ones while honoring others who have been close to us.”

The 20^th annual Dia de los Muertos holiday celebrations will begin at 5 p.m. on Nov. 2 at the Multicultural Arts Center located at 645 W. Main Street. It is free and open to the community.

Dawson’s book reveals how West Africans enslaved in the Americas carried with them a rich body of aquatic traditions such as swimming, diving and sailing.

He upends popular beliefs, such as the origin of watercraft used in the American South. Evidence suggests, he said, that enslaved Africans used techniques from West Africa, not indigenous Americans, to build canoes.

As for surfing, he notes, the earliest written descriptions of the sport came from Ghana in the 1660s — a century before English explorers witnessed it in Hawaii.

Yet, even in the classic surf movie “Endless Summer,” Dawson said, the American travelers boast of introducing the sport to a Ghananian beach while people can be seen surfing in the background.

“There has been an erasure of history,” Dawson said. “It is part of a mythology that Africa had nothing of value and merit for the rest of the world. … The argument was that Africa was this backwards, uncivilized, savage place and that the only things Africans had to offer was their labor.”

For centuries, West Africans recognized waterways as cultural and social spaces, not fearsome intervals between land. European explorers who came upon them marveled at their abilities in an oceanscape considered to be the “realm of Satan.”

In the New World, waterways became places for commerce and recreation. Dawson’s book tells of enslaved women who steered canoes to market and of men who parlayed their diving expertise, say, to salvage gold or silver from a shipwreck, to secure privileges such as time off.

With the end of slavery, however, white merchants and land owners could no longer profit from the aquatic skills of slaves.

“Once freed, they begin to be forced off the water into more strenuous, less profitable work,” Dawson said.

Over time, as waterfronts became desirable recreational and residential areas for white Americans, blacks increasingly lost access to beaches and lakes — a trend that continues. For both whites and blacks, swimming and boating came to be seen as “un-black activities.”

The USA Swimming Foundation reports that two-thirds of African-American children have little to no ability to swim, far worse than rates for others. The widespread lack of water skills has dire results. Black children and teens are 5.5 times more likely to drown in swimming pools, according to the Centers for Disease Control .

Dawson’s research is being cited by swimming advocates and community organizers to push for greater access to pools and aquatic lessons among urban youth. “Undercurrents of Power,” he said, is helping challenge the myth that “black people don’t swim.”

For Dawson, it’s a mythology that gave him his first taste of racism when he was about 5 years old.

“I was playing with some white kids at Cabrillo Beach, by Long Beach, and I said, ‘Hey, let’s go swimming!’ One of the kids said, ‘Colored people don’t swim.’

“I had no idea what that even meant, but I knew it was an insult.”

Dawson challenged the older, larger boy to a race — in the water — and easily won.

“He wanted to fight me and I was able to keep toying with him, letting him get kind of close to me and then swimming off and laughing.”

The encounter led Dawson to recognize that power relationships built on land do not necessarily extend to the water.

“The kid probably could’ve beaten me up on land,” he said. “But in the water, he was powerless.”

Thao’s research involves assessing small-scale Asian farmers’ attitudes, knowledge and perceptions about the use of pesticide.

“Studies have shown that farmers who use pesticides are more likely to have poor health outcomes,” she said. “While there is an abundance of literature about pesticide use and exposure, there is relatively less known about small-scale farmers in rural areas and the effects of pesticide use on these populations. My research is central to addressing this gap.”

Thao is working with Hmong agricultural workers in Fresno now but will soon expand her research to Merced, which has the state’s third-largest Hmong population in the state behind Sacramento and Fresno (2010 Census).

She is examining the farmers’ health needs, how they navigate the resources they receive and who is helping them to navigate the system.

She collaborates with the Hmong Farmers Association and UC Davis Extension Cooperative Unit in Fresno, and she has made connections with Hmong community leaders in Fresno and Merced.

“I have to look to other research that’s closely related to my community in order to draw conclusions. This research will be a good foundation since there is no baseline,” Thao said. “It’s exciting and challenging at the same time.”

She brings a community health perspective to her public health research with previous experience working on issues like reproductive health and diabetes.

Thao earned a bachelor’s degree in health science with a minor in gerontology and Master of Public Health with a concentration in community health promotion from Fresno State. Prior to joining UC Merced as a doctoral student in 2016, she worked as a lecturer at Fresno State.

Receiving the Central Valley Graduate Fellowship has helped her focus 100 percent on her research.

“It lets me work two times faster and focus on my research with no other distractions,” she said. “I don’t know where my research will land. But this will help me build the foundation to learn more about concrete health outcomes.”

Each fellow received $2,000 for participating in the week-long program and may receive an additional $1,000 if a grant is submitted within 12 months of program completion.

As the youngest university ever to receive Carnegie R2 classification, the UC Merced academic community is focused on advancing the work of its faculty, something important to School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts Interim Dean Jeff Gilger, who was a driving force in getting the program off the ground.

Gilger collaborated with many colleagues to make the program a reality. Key partners include: Vice Chancellor of Research Sam Traina, School of Natural Sciences Dean Elizabeth Dumont, School of Engineering Dean Mark Matsumoto, Graduate Division Dean Marjorie Zatz, Health Sciences Research Institute Director Deborah Wiebe, Research Development Director Melinda Laroco Boehm and Research Development Officer Kelly Bolcavage.

“This campus collaboration started this past summer when we all agreed that there was a need to facilitate the success of faculty,” Gilger said. “We then created this program for our campus, as well as a presubmission/resubmission external review program for grant writers at any stage of their career. It was a great pleasure to see the schools, divisions and institutes work so well together.”

The program was facilitated by John Crockett, senior director of sponsored research project development and management at San Diego State University. Over the course of the week, Crockett showed fellows proven tools to help them communicate their goals and secure funding for their research. The program focuses on mentoring early-career faculty and new investigators in skills that range from corresponding with grant officers, to finding funding opportunities, developing successful proposals, interacting with the media and more.

“Beyond providing valuable training in applying for extramural grants, the FSI-EFF program taught me strategies to more effectively communicate my research to audiences outside of my field,” said fellow Denise Payan, a professor in the Department of Public Health.

Those interested in applying for the next Faculty Success Initiative-Extramural Funding Fellowship can expect applications to be available by late fall.

Sanchez began drumming at age 5 and studied classical piano at Mexico’s National Conservatory. In 1993, he moved to Boston and studied at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, graduating Magna Cum Laude in jazz studies.

Growing up in Mexico City, Sanchez absorbed the bounty of Latin music styles available there in addition to the rock music he loved. While studying at Berklee, Sanchez recalled that he learned even more styles out of necessity.

“I had to work as much as I could,” he told Berklee Today. “The peso had fallen to half its value against the dollar, so it was very expensive for me to attend Berklee. I was playing anything in those years: reggae, soca, salsa, and with wedding bands.”

For more than 20 years, Sanchez has been one of the world’s most sought-after jazz drummers. In addition to his collaboration with Metheny, he also has recorded and performed with Chick Corea and other prominent artists.

His popularity soared in 2014 when he scored the percussion-driven soundtrack for filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Birdman,” which won four Oscars and earned Sanchez a Grammy.

Sanchez has close to a dozen recordings as a leader and solo artist. On his 2019 release, “Lines in the Sand” with Migration, Sanchez pays tribute to the journey of immigrants and calls out the injustices they face.

According to an NPR review of the album, Sanchez “was incensed by the scenes of family separation at the border, yet he avoids expressions of anger or outrage. Instead, these fluid, fast-changing pieces focus on the life-altering journeys themselves, evoking the spirit and determination necessary to make them.”

Sanchez’s personal story was shaped by immigration. His grandfather, as a young man, migrated to California to pick oranges, Sanchez said in an interview with WBGO’s The Checkout.

One day, the grandfather fell from a tree and broke his back. He was sent back to Mexico, where a doctor tried an experimental procedure to fuse his spine. During months of recovery, he read poetry, literature and plays and he was inspired to pursue the arts. Sanchez’s grandfather, Ignacio Lopez Tarso, became one of the most famous actors of Mexico’s Golden Age of cinema.

If not for his grandfather’s fall from the orange tree, Sanchez said he would not have become the artist he is. “I would’ve been a completely different person.”

Vergara said the inspiration behind Sanchez’s music is certain to appeal to a wide audience.

“Given the critical moment we live in now and our local demographic, the themes explored by Antonio Sanchez and Migration couldn't be more fitting,” said Vergara, who studied with Sanchez at Berklee.

The appearance by Antonio Sanchez and Migration is part of the Arts UC Merced Presents performance series and is supported by the UC Merced Chancellor’s Office and the Center for the Humanities.

Walle made the discovery by chance while doing graduate work at UC Berkeley a decade ago. His study of the ability of babies to remember emotional messages happened to include a measure of the babies’ vocabularies.

“It turned out that the only thing that was significant from that whole study had nothing to do with kids remembering emotional messages and it had everything to do with the finding that walking infants had larger vocabularies than crawling infants,” he said. “It was a finding that just didn’t exist in the literature.”

The vocabulary boost was particularly noticeable in children with two to four weeks of walking experience.

“It wasn’t just a matter that these kids were older. It was that these kids had begun walking,” he said. “Walking seemed to give them an added boost to their vocabulary development.”

Walle’s work will be explored in the sixth episode of “Babies” called “First Steps.” It also features one of the Merced-area families who have participated in his ongoing studies.

Viewers will watch Penelope, the daughter of political science Professor Matt Hibbing and his wife, Jessica Mohatt, expand her vocabulary during a visit to Merced’s Applegate Zoo.

Mohatt, an environmental engineer in Merced, points to various animals and names them. While looking at ducks, a tiny recording device in a vest worn by the walking Penelope catches her saying “duh - duh” and then following her mom’s prompt to say the full “duck.”

“It’s so much fun to see them grow and learn, especially in the moment when you see the instant feedback from them,” Mohatt said. “I was asking Penelope to repeat what I was saying, and ‘duck’ was the one that finally landed for her.”

The reason for the tie between walking and vocabulary is the subject of continuing research by Walle and his partners.

“Why is walking related with language development? That’s a question we’ve now been focusing on for the past decade,” he said.

Having his work shared with a wide audience via “Babies,” he said, is humbling.

“I’m appreciative to have the opportunity to share the science behind what we know about how kids develop,” he said. “This tells us a lot about not just how an individual child might develop, but how we as a species are developing and how we function.”

Ramirez Loyola, a first-generation student and DACA recipient, earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at UC Riverside in 2016 and a master’s degree in psychological sciences from UC Merced in 2018.

Her doctoral research broadly focuses on understanding resilience processes in the daily lives of young adults.

Her advisor, Professor Deborah Wiebe, said one area of Ramirez Loyola’s research has focused on the role of positive and negative emotions in how young adults manage the chronic stress of living with type 1 diabetes.

“Her master’s thesis demonstrated that being able to regulate positive emotions in daily life is an important part of withstanding the ongoing stress and hassle of managing this serious disease,” Wiebe said. “Maria’s work is making an important contribution to the field. For example, she was invited to give an oral presentation of her thesis research at the national meetings of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and she received meritorious abstract awards from the society at large and from the Diabetes Special Interest Group.”

Another branch of Ramirez Loyola’s research focuses on understanding how ethnic/racial identity may function as a source of resilience in the associations between perceived ethnic/racial discrimination — a chronic psychosocial stressor — and the health of Latino young adults.

“I think of resilience as our ability to bend but not break in the face of stress. It’s something that can help us survive and even thrive when we face adverse or stressful situations in our everyday lives,” she said. “I’m trying to understand why some people are better equipped than others to handle stressful experiences that may undermine their health and well-being during this critical developmental period.”

After the 2016 presidential election, Ramirez Loyola read reports and heard anecdotes that suggested there was an increase in ethnic/racial discrimination experiences among Latinos in particular.

“Experiencing discrimination can potentially be really stressful and bad for one’s health. So, I became interested in identifying and understanding potential resiliency processes among Latino youth that can help them cope effectively,” she said. “It is a timely issue and something I’m personally concerned about. It is great way to bridge what I was already doing with what is happening right now in the world.”

Arias was born in Guatemala in 1950, and his early life was marked by the overthrow of democracy in 1954 and the ensuing military dictatorships and civil rebellions. He began his academic career as a scholar of Central American literature but, over the years, his focus shifted in important ways.

“For example, the absence of any recognition of Central America in what we now call Latinx literature led me to explore the cultural production of a group I call ‘Central American-Americans,’” he said.

In the 1990s, controversy arose over testimony from Nobel Peace Prize recipient Rigoberta Menchu, with some challenging the Guatemalan activist’s veracity. In his 2000 work “The Rigoberta Menchu Controversy,” Arias assembled documents and accounts giving perspective to the debate and the surrounding “culture wars” of the era.

This experience, he recalled, “led me to shift my focus toward indigenous studies. This initiative became linked to the increasing visibility of Native American and indigenous studies in the U.S. and other parts of the world, which eventually led to the foundation of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA).”

This work led the State University of New York Press to invite Arias to be editor of its Trans-Indigenous Decolonial Critiques Series in 2017.

Last fall, Arias was named Visiting Research Scholar in the Program in Latin American Studies at Princeton University. His other honors include being named the Tomas Rivera Regents Professor in Spanish Language and Literature at The University of Texas at Austin in 2013 and a distinguished visiting professor at several universities across the United States and in New Zealand, Spain, Mexico and Brazil.

Arturo has received important awards for his narrative fiction, among them the Casa de las Americas Award for his novel “Itzam Na” (1982), the Anna Seghers Scholarship for “Jaguar en llamas” (1990), and the Miguel Angel Asturias National Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature (2008) in Guatemala.

Arias’ other published works include “Taking their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America” (2007); “Critical Edition of Miguel Angel Asturias’s ‘Mulata’” (2000); “The Identity of the Word: Guatemalan Literature in Light of the New Century” (1998); and “Ceremonial Gestures: Central American Fiction 1960-1990” (1998).

Arias joins the 95th class of fellows to be recognized by the foundation. The honorees were chosen through a peer-review process from among almost 3,000 applicants.

“It’s exceptionally encouraging to be able to share such positive news at this terribly challenging time,” foundation President Edward Hirsch said in a statement. “The artists, writers, scholars and scientific researchers supported by the fellowship will help us understand and learn from what we are enduring individually and collectively, and it is an honor for the foundation to help them do their essential work.”

Since its establishment in 1925, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has granted more than $375 million in fellowships to over 18,000 individuals. Created by Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son, the foundation has sought to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.”