Patty Guerra

In the United States, 20 percent of the population is Latino. By 2050, it’s expected that one in three people will identify as Latino. But less than 7 percent of doctors come from a similar background.

Dr. Michael Galvez, a board-certified pediatric hand surgeon at Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera County, is on a mission to change that number. In 2022, he cofounded National Latino Physician Day, which is aimed at raising awareness and is part of an effort to increase the minority health care workforce.

Three professors are joining UC Merced’s Agricultural Experiment Station this fall, bringing more expertise and resources to the 3-year-old research center.

A team of UC Merced researchers has shown that tiny artificial cells can accurately keep time, mimicking the daily rhythms found in living organisms. Their findings shed light on how biological clocks stay on schedule despite the inherent molecular noise inside cells.

The region has nearly 170 newly certified community health workers after the first cohort completed a specialized training program at UC Merced.

This summer, 2024 UC Merced graduate Tatiana Howell is set to begin working as a wealth management analyst with Goldman Sachs. She got the job through tenacity, a strong work ethic and participation in an innovative program that prepared her and other students to work in the financial sector.

The UC Investments Academy educates, motivates and professionally trains students for careers in investing and finance, at no cost.

Pictures accompanying Professor John Abatzoglou's presentation on the 2025 fire season were blurry. That was intentional, he said, because so much about wildfire is unpredictable.

"There's a lot that we know, and a lot we don't know," he said.

What will California's fire season look like in 2025?

A panel of UC Merced experts, joined by the founder of a public safety information nonprofit organization, will conduct an in-depth discussion of the risks, repercussions and forecasts, and what communities can do to be prepared.

The Fire Resilience Seminar and 2025 Wildfire Outlook will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. April 17 in the UC Merced Conference Center. It is free and open to the public.

A multimillion-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health will fund research at UC Merced that could help cancer patients and others live longer, healthier lives.

The $3.5 million, five-year grant will fund bioengineering Professor Joel Spencer's lab, which is investigating the thymus, a key organ in the human immune system.

A new program aimed at training people to be community health workers has already gotten an important boost: a grant to cover scholarships for some attendees.

If it seems anxiety around elections is at an all-time high, then political groups have done their jobs.

"It's very conscious, it's very calculated," said UC Merced political science Professor Anil Menon, displaying a pile of negative campaign mailers during a panel discussion on campus Wednesday.