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SSHA Research and Scholarship News – March and April 2024 Edition

In The News

 
There Might Actually Be Some Science Behind Eldest Daughter Syndrome
 
When times are tough and mothers are stressed in pregnancy, it’s in the mother’s adaptive best interest for her daughter to socially mature at a quicker pace, said Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, one of the co-authors of the study and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Merced. “It gives mom a ‘helper-at-the-nest’ sooner, aiding the women in keeping the latter offspring alive in difficult environments,” she said.
 
Read more here.
 
Ancient Diets and Lost Artifacts: Unveiling Upper Mustang's Buried Secrets
 
Researchers unveiled groundbreaking findings from a 15-year study in Upper Mustang, where ancient populations thrived on diets rich in proteins and carbohydrates long before the advent of modern civilization. Led by Professor Mark Aldenderfer of the University of California, Merced, the team’s research paints a vivid picture of life in what was once an ancient forbidden kingdom, nestled on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The studies reveal a history of minimal violence, complex cultural exchanges, and a well-preserved legacy hidden within man-made caves and cliffside habitats.
 
Read more here.
 
Hundreds to take part at UC Merced Human Rights film festival
 
A cultural film festival is taking place at UC Merced with the mission of uniting the community.
 
Read more here.
 
Most Valley voters skipped the primary election. Experts say why - and what it means for November
 
Nate Monroe, political science professor at UC Merced, said voters broadly fit into three categories: 1). Those who vote out of a sense of duty in every election; 2). Those who vote during an election to express a certain opinion or 3). Those who vote with the belief their participation may be pivotal to deciding an election outcome.
 
Monroe said many of the 28.9% of voters who did turn out for the March 5 primary probably fit into the first category. For the other two categories, there may not have been much motivation to vote in the primary.
 
Read more here.
 
7 Women Honored for Impact on UC Merced Community
 
Seven extraordinary women from UC Merced were honored Monday at the Womyn's Luncheon, an event hosted by the Division of Equity, Justice, & Inclusive Excellence. The event, held during Women's History Month, acknowledged the honorees' profound impact on UC Merced and their dedication to their work.
 
Read more here.
 
Dietary Choices Linked to Higher Rates of Preeclampsia Among Latinas
 
When it comes to diet, the right messaging and recommendations are vital to helping pregnant Latinas make informed decisions, said A. Susana Ramírez, a UC Merced associate professor of public health communication. Ramírez has studied why healthy-eating messages, while well intended, have not been successful in Hispanic communities. She found the messaging led some Latinos to believe Mexican food is unhealthier than American food.
 
Ramírez said we need to think about promoting diets relevant for a particular population. “We understand now that diet is enormously important for health, and so to the extent that any nutrition counseling is culturally consonant, that will improve health overall.”
 
Read more here.
 
Youth Grapple with Interpreting the Unspoken for Their Immigrant Families
 
UC Merced researchers are shedding light on a little-explored aspect of cross-cultural communication that involves no spoken words but sometimes can cause confusion and anguish for children acting as interpreters for older family members.
 
Read more here.
 
CRES Earns Mellon Grant for Student-led Activities
 
UC Merced's Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) is among 95 programs recognized and supported by the Mellon Foundation in an initiative called Affirming Multivocal Humanities. CRES will use a $100,000 grant from the foundation to kick-start several student-led activities designed to raise awareness about race, ethnicity and social justice both in the campus community and in the surrounding Merced area.
 
Read more here.
 
Carnegie to host free viewing of farmworker histories film
 
UC Merced professor Yehuda Sharim's film entitled "El Ojo Comienza en la Mano" (2022), which he calls a tribute to campesino (farmworker) histories in rural California told through the art of local farmworker and painter Rubén Sanchéz, has been featured at film festivals across the globe.
 
Read more here.
 
Sharim Film 'Flora' to Premiere at Philadelphia Festival
 
"Flora," the latest film by Yehuda Sharim, will have its world premiere later this spring at a festival in Philadelphia, according to the UC Merced global arts professor.
 
Read more here.
 
Analysis: Private equity finds its next bet: college admissions
 
“A private equity buyout of the ACT sets off a lot of alarm bells for me,” Charlie Eaton, an associate professor of sociology and cofounder of the Higher Education, Race, and the Economy (HERE) Lab at the University of California, Merced, told CNN.

“There’s a reason why we typically have nonprofits deliver public goods like college admissions exams. People need to be able to trust that there’s a fair evaluation process so nothing gets distorted.”
 
Read more here.
 
Grawemeyer education winner focuses on the racial inequality of college funding cuts
 
The 2024 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education was won by Laura Hamilton and Kelly Nielsen for their book, "Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Public Universities." Laura Hamilton is a professor and chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Merced.
 
Read and listen to the interview here.
 
Connecting Farmworkers to Healthcare in California's Rural North
 
A study from UC Merced last year found that nearly half of all farmworkers in California lacked health insurance at some point over the previous 12 months. The study also found that just 43% of farmworkers had visited a doctor’s office while only 35% had been to a dentist. Other studies have found a stark disparity in access to mental health and other behavioral services for farmworkers in particular.
 
Read more here.
 
Shakespeare in Yosemite Goes Big for Magical 'Midsummer'
 
There's nothing small about this year's Shakespeare in Yosemite production. It boasts the largest cast in the program's seven-year history and, for the first time, features a full band to deliver the score and propel the musical numbers. The headcount for park staff in the cast is an all-time high.
 
Read more here.
 
The ACT's private equity takeover and the future of testing
 
Charlie Eaton, a sociology professor at the University of California, Merced and the author of Bankers in the Ivory Tower, said the Nexus acquisition and ACT’s interest in alternative degree pathways is concerning in part because the credential space is ripe for exploitation. He noted that the rise of exploitative for-profit colleges and online program managers—which are now in the crosshairs of regulators for misleading tuition and loan agreements—were both bolstered by private equity.
 
Read more here.
 
Dietary choices are linked to higher rates of preeclampsia among Latinas
 
When it comes to diet, the right messaging and recommendations are vital to helping pregnant Latinas make informed decisions, said A. Susana Ramírez, an associate professor of public health communication at the University of California-Merced.
 
Ramírez has conducted studies on why healthy-eating messages, while well intended, have not been successful in Hispanic communities. She found that the messaging has led some Latinos to believe that Mexican food is unhealthier than American food.

Ramírez said we need to think about promoting diets that are relevant for a particular population. “We understand now that diet is enormously important for health, and so to the extent that any nutrition counseling is culturally consonant, that will improve health overall,” Ramírez said.
 
Read more here.
 
UC Merced Professor Curates a California Woman's 7 Decades of Artistic Accomplishment
 
An exhibit curated by a UC Merced professor reintroduces the seven-decade career of an American artist of Japanese descent who defied systemic racism and created a body of artwork true to her unique vision, even as the mainstream arts community kept her at arm's length.
 
Read more here.

Publications

    • “La poesía popular en la historia de la literatura hispanounidense,” Crónica de la lengua española 2022-2023, edited by Santiago Muñoz Machado, Espasa, 2023, pp. 892-900.
    • “Taboo or Not Taboo: Violence, Abuse, and the Search for Memory and Healing in Margarita Cota-Cárdenas’ Santuarios del corazón.” La Plonqui: Essays on Margarita Cota-Cárdenas’ Life, Fiction, and Poetry, edited by Jesús Rosales, and Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez, University of Arizona Press, 2023, pp. 75-92.
    • “An Epic of Sorts: Gaspar de Villagrá and His Impossible Epic of the New Mexico.” The Epic World, edited by Pamela Lothspeich, Routledge, 2024, pp.356-368.

Grant Awards

  • Professor Bristin Jones received a grant from the Modern Language Association titled “Spanish and Environmental Humanities: Improving Recruitment and Retention at UC Merced”.
  • Professor Briana Ballis received a grant with the University of Wisconsin, Madison titled “The Effects of Special Education on Crime”.
  • Professor Maria-Elena Young received a grant with the University of Hawaii at Manoa titled “Understanding Mis- and Disinformation About Health Care Access and Their Impacts on Decision-Making Among Latino Immigrants”.
  • Professor Rachel Ryskin received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled “CAREER: Tracking correlation or inferring causation: How human language processing adapts to the environment”.
  • Professor Laura Hamilton received a grant from the College Futures Foundation titled “Wealth-Based Financial Aid”.
  • Professor Cataline Amuedo-Dorantes received a grant from the William T. Grant Foundation titled “Assessing the Effectiveness of School District Safe-Zone Policies in Narrowing Achievement Gaps among Minority Students: Evidence from California”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – January and February 2024 Edition

In The News

New areas of study available at UC Merced, officials say
 
UC Merced officials say there are some new areas of study for students in the coming year of 2024, including Chemical Engineering, Data Science and Computing, Public health, Aero-Space Engineering, American politics, and International Relations.
 
Read more here.
 
Bill Ackman's battle with the Ivy League is about more than DEI: Gen Z are graduating without the right behavioral and emotional skills for the workplace
 
Charlie Eaton, a sociology professor at UC Merced and the author of Bankers in the Ivory Tower, says that while former business leaders hold few presidencies, they nonetheless wield outsize influence—reflected in the number of executives who sit on university boards and in the growing clout of the schools.
 
Read more here.
 
Writing by hand may increase brain connectivity more than typing, study finds
 
It’s also hard to know whether or how the brain activity in the new study might translate into real-life improvements in learning or memory, said Ramesh Balasubramaniam, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Merced, who wasn’t involved in the research.
 
Read more here.
 
This AI learnt language by seeing the world through a baby's eyes
 
The study is “a fascinating approach” to understanding early language acquisition in children, says Heather Bortfeld, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, Merced.
 
Read more here.
 
Key business world priorities aren't on the table as DC's immigration debate comes to a head
 
"It's become a huge issue and you already have a slowing or ceasing of semiconductor facility build-outs," notes Greg Wright, a professor of economics at the University of California Merced who is focused on the labor market impacts of globalization and immigration.
 
"The only short- or medium-term solution is immigration," he added, noting that training efforts to have American workers fill many of these specialized jobs will take years to bear significant fruit.
 
Read more here.
 
Black Alliance at UC Merced Growing, Serving and Advocating
 
An organization that was created in a time of tragedy and crisis has been a force for good for UC Merced's Black community.
The Black Alliance was formed after interdisciplinary humanities Professor Maria Martin brought together Black staff and faculty in the wake of the May 2020 death of George Floyd, who was killed by police in Minneapolis.
 
"I wanted to provide a supportive space for people to express themselves," Martin said. "I was really feeling the heaviness of that period."
Since then, according to the organization's website, the Alliance has "sought to connect, serve, and advocate for Black individuals on and off campus."
 
Read more here.
 
Journal Published UC Merced Public Health Professor's Study on Violence and Suicidal Behavior
 
A study conducted by Professor Sidra Goldman-Mellor found that people injured through violent acts have a substantially higher risk to die by or attempt suicide.
 
Read more here.
 
Wang Curates New Traveling Exhibition of Three Trailblazing Japanese American Women
 
A new art exhibition curated by Professor ShiPu Wang is reintroducing the diverse art of three California painters to a national audience by bringing representative works from each together for the first time. "Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo" will travel to five museums across the country, including a nine-month display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
 
Read more here.
 
Key business world priorities aren't on the table as DC's immigration debate comes to a head
 
"It's become a huge issue and you already have a slowing or ceasing of semiconductor facility build-outs," notes Greg Wright, a professor of economics at the University of California Merced who is focused on the labor market impacts of globalization and immigration.
 
"The only short- or medium-term solution is immigration," he added, noting that training efforts to have American workers fill many of these specialized jobs will take years to bear significant fruit.
 
Read more here.
 
Harvard remains the nation's richest school as college endowments keep growing
 
Harvard University's endowment grew to more than $49.5 billion last year, making it once again the nation's wealthiest college.
“Whether the criticism is coming from the left or the right, there’s not a lot of people to stand up and defend the leaders of Ivy League institutions, and I think that’s in part because they’re not using their endowments to serve most Americans,” said Charlie Eaton, author of “Bankers in the Ivory Tower, The Troubling Rise of Financiers in U.S. Higher Education.”
 
Read more remarks from Professor Eaton on college endowments and investments through the link here.
 
UC Faculty, Friends Impress At Global Arts Concert
 
The UC Merced Global Arts Studies Program presented its sixth annual Global Arts in Concert last week at the Merced Multicultural Arts Center in downtown Merced.
 
The show was extraordinary and enjoyed by the many who were lucky enough to attend.
 
The concert featured vocalist Cheryl Lockett — a local music entertainer, recording artist, and instructor. Lockett performed the music of Heitor Villa Lobos, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Henry Mancini, Billie Eilish, Monteverdi, and more.
 
Read more here.
 
Grant Supports UC Merced Effort to Improve College Readiness in Valley
 
A significant grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will advance UC Merced's efforts to create a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of college readiness among high-school students in the San Joaquin Valley, particularly those from underrepresented and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds.
 
Read more here.
 
Human Rights Film Festival Shows the Faces of Injustice
 
The festival is scheduled for March 1-8. Events will be held on campus and at Mainzer, the classic downtown Merced theater converted into an upscale event space. There is no admission charge for festival events, and the entire community is invited.
 
Read more here.

Publications

  • UC Merced economists Rowena Gray and Greg Wright jointly published a paper in the Journal of International Economics on the impact of international trade shocks from containerization during the 1960s and 1970s on worker incomes and housing costs. Increased trade had a net positive impact but did generate winners and losers due to the longevity of housing as well as its sticky supply. The largest gains accrued to residents of labor markets that simultaneously experienced a relatively large export shock, had a relatively low housing supply elasticity, and had a relatively high home-ownership rate. Read the article here.

Grant Awards

  • Professor Maria-Elena Young of Public Health with the Kern County Community College District titled “Development of Local-Level Indicators of the Immigration Socio-Political Context and Health in the San Joaquin Valley”.
  • Professor Christian Fons-Rosen of Economics and Business Management received a grant from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression titled “Are Researchers Penalized for Free Speech?”.
  • Professor Emily Johnston of Global Arts, Media, and Writing Studies received a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation titled “Developing A Pedagogical Theory of Resilience for Writing Studies”.
  • Professor Briana Ballis of Economics and Business Management received a grant from the Spencer Foundation titled “The Effects of Special Education on Crime”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – End of 2023 Edition

In The News

  • California Forces Migrant Farmworker Students to Move Every Year: “We Need to Survive”
According to Ed Flores, faculty director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, the 50-year-old housing qualifications for migrants are outdated. They were set up for a vastly different migrant population, one primarily made up of men who were single or whose families remained in Mexico. To qualify for the housing, most farmworkers living at the centers must move at least 50 miles away when they shut down during the winter and early spring. The distance rule was established to ensure those living in migrant housing were truly migratory.
Most of the state’s farmworkers no longer migrate. About 92% were settled during fiscal years 2019-2020, up from 57% in 1989-1990, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. The reduction reflects governmental and demographic changes. Flores said women with families, like Perez-Guzman, are now also part of the farm labor work force.
 
Read more here.
 
  • UC Merced Sociologists Revealed the Limits of Moral Emotion
You know that warm, uplifting feeling you get when you see someone going out of their way to help others? Sociologists call this feeling “moral elevation,” a unique emotion linked with trust, compassion and helpfulness. But how much moral elevation would you feel if the kindly person were a member of a group you view as enemies?
 
Not much, according to recent findings from UC Merced researchers who used the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and Back the Blue counter-protests to tap into people’s emotional reactions to a highly divisive conflict. They conducted online experiments while the protests were at their peak and found overwhelming evidence that conservatives felt moral elevation when watching a video montage of fiery pro-police demonstrations, while progressives felt the same way when watching a closely parallel video of the BLM protests. These emotional experiences were strongly linked with desires to increase police funding among conservatives, or to decrease police funding among progressives.
 
“Although moral emotions can fuel terrible conflict when people are led to view their side as righteous, the same power can bring people together if they understand cooperation to be the moral way forward,” said Colin Holbrook, a UC Merced professor and the study’s lead researcher.
 
 
  • Visiting the ER for This Reason Increases Your Risk for Early Death
According to a 2022 study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, if you've been to the ER with an injury and you are inebriated or have alcohol use disorder (AUD), you might be looking at an early death. In fact, you are five times more at risk of dying in the next 12 months when compared with the rest of the population. The researchers looked at data from 2009 to 2012 of California locals aged 10 and older who visited the ER – around 10 million ER visits — and found that out of the 262,222 people who were intoxicated or had AUD, 13,175 (5%) died within the next year.
 
As Sidra Goldman-Mellor, lead researcher and assistant professor in the department of public health at the University of California in Merced, told Everyday Health, "For every 100 injured patients who were intoxicated or had alcohol use disorder who came to the emergency department, 5 of them died within the next year, versus 1 out of 100 in the comparison population."
 
Read more here.
 
  • Cognitive Science Professor’s First Book Released by Princeton University Press
Cognitive Science Professor Paul Smaldino has astronomically high hopes for his new book. “I hope literally everyone reads this book,” Smaldino said. “Modeling Social Behavior” is a textbook, so it probably won’t make the New York Times bestseller list any time soon, but it is definitely going to educate generations of students who want to better understand social and cultural dynamics.
 
Read more here.

Op-Eds

Grant Awards

  • Professor Sapana Doshi of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation titled “Affirming Multivocal Humanities, The Mellon Foundation”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – September and October 2023 Edition

In The News

 

Martin-Rodriguez Recognized for Eminent Scholarship
 
Founding faculty member and distinguished literature Professor Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez is being honored for his contributions to Chicano/Latino studies with the Don Luis Leal award, considered the most important in the area of literary studies.
 
Martín-Rodríguez is the youngest scholar to receive the award, the first of his generation and the only one of the six awardees who is not Latinx; he is Spanish.
 
Read more here.
 
Zulema Valdez Appointed Associate Vice Chancellor for EJIE
 
Zulema Valdez has been selected as UC Merced’s associate vice chancellor for Equity, Justice and Inclusive Excellence (EJIE).
 
In making the announcement, Vice Chancellor and Chief Diversity Officer Delia Saenz said, "Professor Valdez brings substantial leadership experience to this new role in that she served as associate vice provost for five years, spearheading faculty development and diversity programs. In that role, she was instrumental in enhancing equitable recruitment and retention practices for faculty. Among her many initiatives were faculty training on implicit bias, successful early career faculty development, and workshops focused on diversity contributions in hiring and promotion. She will amplify efforts in these arenas and more as a member of the EJIE team."
 
Read more here.
 
Combating Racist Tropes and Trauma Surrounding Blacks in the Water
 
According to Kevin Dawson, associate professor of history at UC Merced and scholar on the history of aquatics in the African Diaspora, swimming and a relationship with the water was a strong current through enslaved Africans’ way of life: “When white people from the American north and Europe sailed into slave-holding regions, many were surprised—even overwhelmed—by the degree to which life among enslaved Africans was steeped in maritime activity. Fleets of enslaved fishermen in African-style dugouts parted to make way for ships entering seaports, sailing past enslaved boys and girls swimming, as one observer described it, like ‘Tritons and Mermaids in the water.’
 
Read more here.
 
New Major Trains Students to Tell Planet’s Urgent Stories
 
Students who are interested in creatively conveying the urgency of environmental issues can make that mission the focus of their studies when the new environmental humanities (EH) major begins at UC Merced in fall 2024.
 
“What do students have to say about the environment and how can they contribute to the global conversation and the huge global crisis we're facing?” Assistant Teaching Professor Bristin Jones asked. “We need all players on board. It's not enough to just have the engineers and the scientists. We need great communicators to help solve the planet’s most pressing challenges.”
Graduates of this career-oriented program will understand environmental science and tell persuasive stories about the research and data that urge action.
 
Read more here.
 
Three Hellman Fellows Awarded at UC Merced
 
Three UC Merced researchers were recently awarded Hellman fellowships, which provide early career funding to faculty members. The fellowships will allow Computer science and engineering Professor Shijia Pan, economics Professor Briana Ballis and environmental engineering Professor Xuan Zhang to take the next steps in their work.
 
           Read more here.
 
Nicosia Shakes on Black Women’s Activist Theater
 
Nicosia Shakes is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. She specializes in African Diasporic theatre, performance, popular culture, gender, sexuality, and activism.
In episode 156 of Imagine Otherwise, host Cathy Hannabach interviews Shakes, whose creative and scholarly work celebrates the intertwining of political activism and performance across the African diaspora.
 
Nicosia’s play Afiba and Her Daughters, which offers an intergenerational narrative of Jamaican herstory, premiered at the Rites and Reason Theatre in Providence.
 
Nicosia’s new book Women’s Activist Theatre in Jamaica and South Africa: Gender, Race, and Performance Space analyzes the work of four contemporary women-led theater groups and projects with a focus on how their activist productions take on gender injustice, racism, gang and state violence, and economic inequality.
 
Read more here.
 
Aguirre-Muñoz Brings Biliteracy Education Resources to Livingston
 
Cognitive Science Professor Zenaida Aguirre-Muñoz has a passion for biliteracy that has driven her to improve the quality of learning in both English and Spanish at schools in Texas and Central California.
 
A $3 million National Professional Development grant from the U.S. Department of Education funded her work in the small Merced County city of Livingston. This summer, she worked with Livingston Unified School District teachers interested in developing their biliteracy knowledge and teaching practices.
 
"A lot of the smaller school districts in rural areas don't have the same opportunities as larger school districts when it comes to professional development," said Aguirre-Muñoz. "So I wanted to make sure that I targeted school districts that fit that background."
 
Read more here.
 
UC Merced Launches First Writing Studies Major Cohort
 
Writing is still the most important, and most-used, form of communication in the world.
 
"Writing is crucial in that it's both a product and a process. It's in the fabric of what we do," said Paul Gibbons, teaching professor of writing studies at UC Merced. "Writing is a way of doing things in the world, of asking for things. It's still a major coin of the realm."
 
Recognizing writing's vital role, the university added a writing studies major, which began with its first cohort this fall. Previously, the campus offered a minor in writing studies.
 
Read more here.
 
Film, Poetry, Philosophy the Subjects of Three Foundry Pieces by Humanities Community
 
The new issue of Foundry, a digital platform similar to a magazine, assembled by the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), features works by three members of the UC Merced campus community: Global Arts Studies Professor Yehuda Sharim, Managing Director of the Center for The Humanities Christina Lux, and graduate student Alex Dayer on UC-wide efforts led by UC Merced philosophy Professor Carolyn Dicey Jennings to diversify career pathways for philosophy graduate students and make curricular changes.
 
Read more here.
 
Opinion: Our failed immigration policy is causing child labor epidemic in the U.S.
 
Stephanie L. Canizales is an assistant professor of sociology at UC Merced and the author of the forthcoming book “Sin Padres, Ni Papeles.”
 
Click here to read the opinion piece she wrote below for the New York Times about the impact of immigration policy on child labor.
 
Sociologist Tanya Maria Golash-Boza on the Gentrification of D.C.
 
Tanya Maria Golash–Boza’s fascinating new book, Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial Wealth Gap, offers an unflinching critique of the urban disinvestment policies that have destroyed both lives and communities in the nation’s capital.
 
Golash-Boza, a sociologist and professor at the University of California, Merced, pulls no punches in her analysis of gentrification. During a TEDxUCMerced event several years ago, she declared: “There’s one reason home values go up in neighborhoods when White people move in: racism.”
 
Read more here.
 
FDA Faces Pressure to Act Nationwide on Red Dye in Food
 
There’s new pressure on the Food and Drug Administration to take action on the synthetic food coloring, red No. 3, after California passed a law to ban it last week.
 
When California’s Environmental Protection Agency reviewed the body of evidence on synthetic dyes, they found evidence the dyes consumed in food can negatively impact children’s behavior. Out of about 25 studies, more than half identified a positive association between artificial food coloring intake and behavioral outcomes.
 
They also reviewed dietary survey data and found a higher intake of synthetic dyes in lower income communities. “We also found Black Americans tended to have higher intake,” says Asa Bradman, a public health scientist at the University of California, Merced, who helped with the state’s analysis.
 
“I tend to err on the side of precaution,” Bradman says. “I think there is good reason to remove [red No. 3] from the food supply.”
 
Take a Tour of the Maya Underground - If You Dare
 
Xibalba (chee-bal-ba), meaning “place of fear,” was significant in ancient Maya culture. The Popol Vuh, the book of creation of the Q’eqchi’ people, described it as a court existing below the Earth’s surface, where the Maya death gods reigned supreme, and a crossroads of the living and the dead. According to Holley Moyes, a professor of archaeology at University of California, Merced and National Geographic Explorer, historians are still speculating on why ancient civilizations saw caves as portals to the underworld.
 
“We do know that as early on as the Neanderthals, people were buried in the dark zones of caves in what we speculate might be some sort of bear-related cult,” says Moyes. “Think about it. What do bears do in winter? Hibernate in caves. They appear to be dead. Then they wake up and go about their business, so possibly ancient people saw this as a type of resurrection.”
 
Read more here.
 
Labor, Community-based Groups Key to Addressing Climate Change, Study Shows
 
A new study by sociology Professor Paul Almeida and colleagues in the Nature Portfolio’s journal npj Climate Action indicates labor unions and community-based groups have the best chance of getting people to act. They can also help overcome some impediments to action, such as misinformation, apathy, awareness, climate denialism among elected officials, lack of resources among vulnerable populations and and an over-emphasis on technology-based solutions without public input.
 
Read more here.

Publications

  • Dr. Iris Ruiz recently published a chapter in _Systems Shift: Creating and Navigating Change in Rhetoric and Composition Administration_ titled,  “Help I Posted”: Race, Power, Disciplinary Shifts, and the #WPAListserv-FeministRevolution, It is a co-authored chapter about how various scholars within the field of Writing Studies navigated the online space of the Writing Program Administration Listserv. Link to open-access here.

Grant Awards

  • Professor Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook of Psychological Sciences received a grant from the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development titled “Circadian Rhythms in Human Milk Cortisol: An Examination of Maternal and Environmental Regulators”.
  • Professor Anna Song of Psychological Sciences received a grant with UC San Francisco titled “Improving pharmacy-based tobacco cessation services in California's Central Valley”.
  • Professor Colin Holbrook of Cognitive and Information Sciences received a grant Air Force Office of Scientific Research titled “Instrumentation to Investigate Relation-based Trust in Anthropomorphic Robots”.
  • Professor Mai-Linh Hong of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, and Professor Ma Vang of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies received a grant titled “Asylum for the Arts and Center for the Refugee Poetics: A Collaborative Festival”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – July and August 2023 Edition

In The News

Hot Workplaces Have a Hidden Cost: 20,000 Job Injuries a Year in CA
 
A February study on California farmworker health and safety by the UC Merced Community and Labor Center found that only a third of farm laborers could recognize the symptoms of a heat-related illness.

Only half of the roughly 1,500 farmworkers surveyed said their employers always provide shade mandated by California law when it hits 80 degrees, while a quarter said their employers never or rarely provide the required shade.

Alice Berliner, worker health and safety program director at the community and labor center, said it’s clear some workers aren’t getting safety information or training in Spanish when they need it.

 
 
UC Merced Review Shows Heat Increases Pregnancy Complications
 
Professor Sandie Ha took a look at 70 studies, and in her recent review, she found preterm births increase by 16% during a heatwave. She also found that the risk for a stillbirth is 46% higher in dangerous heat.
 
 
Matlock Retires After Stellar UC Career
 
In the early days of building UC Merced, founding faculty member Teenie Matlock took on lots of tasks that were well outside her job description. Over the years, she expanded her service to the campus and UC in many ways, from designing and developing courses and majors to co-authoring foundational policies to spearheading new programs to serving in leadership roles.
 
Matlock has been a recognized campus cornerstone — founding faculty member, lead architect and founding chair of what has become an internationally known Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, the first McClatchy Chair in Communications, recipient of awards for teaching and mentoring, and Vice Provost for Academic Personnel.
 
 
113 degrees at work, failing AC at home: Farmworkers can’t escape life-threatening heat
 
Ana Padilla, executive director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, said she worries about the long-term health effects of persistent heat illness, lack of clean water and and unstable access to air conditioning.
 
“Something that we need to acknowledge as a problem is that there are some farmworkers who just don’t have access to cooling down,” Padilla said.
 
 
You Need a Hobby. Here’s How to Find One That’s Right for You.
 
“Mentally, if you’re doing an activity that just absorbs your attention ... it’s getting you out of your headspace,” said Matthew Zawadzki, an associate professor of health psychology at UC Merced who has studied the effects of hobbies. “You’re not ruminating and worrying about what’s happening. You’re invested in the moment, and so that restoration from the relaxation has big effects.”
 
He also said that hobbies are nature’s way of fighting back against one of our more prevalent emotional states: anxiousness.
A hobby can have social benefits too. “We often do leisure with people,” Zawadzki said, “and so it’s a way to connect socially with others around things that we both like. And you wind up not just doing an activity, but sharing yourself too.”
 
 
NHI Grant to Study Immigration Policy Impact on Mental Health and Access to Health Care for Latinos in Rural Communities
 
A team of UC Merced researchers, led by public health Professor Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young, that has been awarded an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
 
The $3 million grant will fund Young's ambitious, five-year research project to understand how immigration policy influences health care access and the well-being of Latinos in rural California and Arizona counties, including Merced, Tulare, Imperial, Monterey and Napa.
 
 
Music on Our Minds
 
“Music on our minds”, a news piece in the journal Currant Biology, featured a special issue of Developmental Science on music and development co-edited by Professor Heather Bortfeld of Psychological Sciences.

Essays and Book Chapters

an edited collection of transdisciplinary essays that has been published on the Third Text Forum (available online, open access) called Living Archives: Re/Animating the Subjects of History.
 
The collection includes an Introduction by Sanjukta Sunderason (University of
Amsterdam) and Aditi Chandra (University of California, Merced) called “Living Archives and Decolonial Potentialities: Re/animating the Subjects of History”
Available here in two parts.
 
The collection includes 11 essay-length explorations on the concept of living archives, in inter-disciplinary and intermedial ways, spanning visual art, architectural monuments, music, dance, documentary filmmaking, film institutions, as well as discourses on freedom, decolonization, historical and memory practices, as well as archival methodologies. Three essays in this collection are by UC Merced faculty. These are:
 
1. Yehuda Sharim, "The Unfilmed: Repositories of Divinity from the Edges of America"
2. Lorena Alvarado, "The Place Where the Records are Kept: Singing Voice as Archive"
3. Aditi Chandra, "Monuments as Body Archives"

Publications

Elected Fellows

  • Professor Martin Hagger of Psychological Sciences has been elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Society of Health Psychology (APA Division 38). Fellow status is an honor bestowed upon APA members who have shown evidence of outstanding contributions or performance in the field of psychology. Fellow status requires that a person's work has had a significant impact on the field of psychology. Dr. Hagger's Fellowship was awarded for distinction in research.

Workshops

  • Professor Carolyn Dicey Jennings of Philosophy organized Philosophy Works 2023, a workshop funded by UCHRI hosting philosophy faculty from across the UC system to determine how best to support students seeking non-academic careers. See the blog post here.

Grant and Fellowship Awards

  • Professor Christian Fons-Rosen of Economics and Business Management received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled “HNDS-R: Connectivity, Gender Inclusiveness, and the Permeability of Basic Science”.
  • Professor Esra Kose of Economics and Business Management received a grant with UC Davis titled “Investments, Life Events, and Health Within and Across Generations”.
  • Professor Maria-Elena Young of Public Health received a grant with UC Berkeley titled “Advancing health equity by alleviating poverty: A multi-level, evidence-based pilot trial to increase take-up of the Earned Income Tax Credit”.
  • Professor Stephanie Canizales of Sociology received a grant with the University of Wisconsin, Madison titled “National Research Center on Poverty and Economic Mobility”.
  • Professor Heather Bortfeld of Psychological Sciences received a grant with the University of Maryland titled “A mechanistic understanding of treatment-related outcomes of sleep disordered breathing using functional near infrared spectroscopy”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – May and June 2023 Edition

In The News

  • A Turn of the Page - Gregg Camfield

    At the end of May, Camfield will step down from the university’s No. 2 job after serving in the position for five years. After a sabbatical, he will return to campus to the position he first held as a professor of 19th century literature.

    Read more
    uc-merced.foleon.com

  • BLM Protests: Coalition Affiliation + Moral Elevation

    New research investigates how coalitional affiliation influences emotional responses to intergroup disagreements. UC Merced professor Colin Holbrook describes the 2020 demonstrations against racial discrimination in police.

    Read more
    list23.com

  • Fellowship Will Allow Professor to Continue Telling Stories

    Professor of Literatures, Languages and Cultures Mai-Linh K. Hong has been awarded a 2023 ACLS Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • UC Merced Adding New Majors, Campus-Wide Honors Program

    UC Merced is adding five new majors, 14 new emphases and a campus-wide honors program.

    Read more
    abc30.com

  • Older Californians Dying of Malnutrition Has Accelerated

    “You might be admitted with diabetes but at the same time you’re also malnourished, and so the malnourishment adds to your problems,” said Professor Paul Brown.

    Read more
    rethinking65.com

  • A Push for Farmworker Protection

    With a new bill, SB 227, California could set up a more permanent “safety net” for farmworkers, 75 percent of whom are undocumented, according to the UC Merced Community and Labor Center.

    Read more
    modernfarmer.com

  • Promises Made After Planada Flood Need to Kept

    A UC Merced report estimated the predominantly Latino farmworker community needs $20.3 million in state relief. A 58-year resident is calling on state leaders to honor the promises they made after surveying the damage.

    Read more
    calmatters.org

  • Campus Adds New Areas of Studies for Students to Choose From

    New students or those who have not yet chosen their majors will have an array of options before them. Five new majors and several new emphases, ranging across all three schools, are all coming online in 2024 and are recruiting students now.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Book Chapters

    • “Juan Felipe Herrera’s Illustrated Books for Young Readers: Chicano Children’s Literature con cilantro.” Juan Felipe Herrera: Migrant, Activist, Poet Laureate, edited by Francisco A. Lomelí, and Osiris A.
    • “The Reading Process: An Intertextual Approach.” Horizons of Phenomenology: Essays on the State of the Field and Its Applications. edited by Jeffrey Yoshimi, Philip Walsh, and Patrick Londen, Springer, 2023, pp. 265-284.
    •  “Historia (y pre-historia) de la Nueva México: Gaspar de Villagrá, legista, historiador, soldado y poeta.” Crónicas y testimonios de la presencia hispana en los actuales Estados Unidos (siglos XVI y XVII), edited by Francisco Castilla Urbano, Los Libros de la Catarata (Spain), 2023, pp. 245-259.

Grant and Fellowship Awards

  • Professor Sabrina Smith of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies received a grant from UC Mexus titled “Research Institute on African-Descended People in Mexico”.
  • Professor Nancy Burke of Public Health received a grant with UC San Francisco titled “Getting INFORMED and Living Well: A Demonstration Project to Facilitate Pandemic Recovery among Asian Americans in California”.

Awards and Recognitions

  • 2023 Senate Award Recipients:
DR. MEAGHAN ALTMAN, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, HUMANITIES AND ARTS
Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching by a Non-Senate Faculty Member
In recognition of excellence in teaching at the undergraduate level.
 
DR. RACHEL RYSKIN, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, HUMANITIES AND ARTS
Distinguished Early Career Research
In recognition of research and/or other creative activities that have had a major impact on the field, either through a sustained record of contributions or through a specific, highly influential contribution.
 
DR. MARTIN HAGGER, SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, HUMANITIES AND ARTS
Distinction in Research
In recognition of research and/or other creative activities that have had a major impact on the field, either through a sustained record of contributions or through a specific, highly influential contribution.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – March and April 2023 Edition

In The News

  • How Universities Became Giant Piggy Banks for Billionaires

    Professor Charles Eaton's book "Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education," is referenced in Business Insider article looking at university endowments.

    Read more
    www.businessinsider.com

  • Japanese American Artists Recall the Trauma of Wartime

    Professor ShiPu Wang joins Ueno in the episode “Reflection and Reconciliation: Legacies of the Japanese American Incarceration and the Arts,” to contextualize the various oral history recordings excerpted in the show.

    Read more
    www.smithsonianmag.com

  • Disappearing in Indian Country

    Professor Blythe George co-wrote a 2020 report with the Yurok Tribe in collaboration with the nonprofit Sovereign Bodies Institute. She describes the historical mistreatment of Tribal women and their alarming, continued disappearances and deaths.

    Read more
    www.latimes.com

  • Infant Formula Shortages Forced Less Healthy Feeding

    Professor Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook and grad student Jessica Marino wrote a research brief for The Conversation about the effects of the infant formula shortage during the 2020 pandemic and the adverse impact in feeding alternatives.

    Read more
    theconversation.com

  • Merced College Production of 'The Sound of Music' Opens

    Professor Justin Hicks will play the role of Capt. Georg von Trapp. The role of Mother Abbess will be played by lecturer Jenni Samuelson. Both Hicks' and Samuelson's children will be starring in the play alongside their parents as well.

    Read more
    news.yahoo.com

  • Female Researchers Receive Awards for Their Exemplary Work

    During Women's History Month, we celebrate and reflect upon the achievements of women at UC Merced and beyond. 2023 is already shaping up to be a stellar year for female faculty members on campus.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Extra Pay Could Lure Experienced Teachers to Poorer Schools

    Andrew Johnston, an economist at UC Merced, said the research makes clear that an effective teacher can have a profound impact on all students. He shares his perspective on the subject with CalMatters.

    Read more
    calmatters.org

  • Rate of Older Californians Dying of Malnutrition Accelerated

    “You might be admitted with diabetes but at the same time you’re also malnourished, and so the malnourishment adds to your problems,” said Professor Paul Brown.

    Read more
    californiahealthline.org

  • Happy Ending for Romeo and Juliet?

    UC Merced’s Shakespeare in Yosemite described the reimagined Romeo and Juliet as a 90-minute performance with live music – adapted to address issues relevant to Earth Day and Yosemite.

    Read more
    www.yourcentralvalley.com

  • Twitter Hate Speech Surged with Musk, Study Shows

    Professor Paul Smaldino and colleagues collected data that showed daily use of hate speech by those who previously posted hateful tweets nearly doubled after Musk finalized the sale. And the overall volume of hate speech also doubled sitewide.

    Read more
    news.yahoo.com

  • How to Find Your New Favorite Hobby

    In this TIME article, health psychology Professor Matthew Zawadzki, who has researched the connection between leisure and well-being, suggests asking yourself how you want an activity to make you feel.

    Read more
    time.com

  • Group Conflict Inspires People to Feel Morally Elevated – for Their Side – Study Shows

    A group of researchers led by UC Merced Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences Professor Colin Holbrook recently released results of a study on attitudes and biases and how they shape experiences of moral elevation during group conflict.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Publications and Articles

  • Professor Alexandra Main of Psychological Sciences published an article (lead author former graduate student Janice Disla, co-author former grad student Tammy Yung) along with UCM collaborators Deb Wiebe and Linda Cameron in the Journal of Family Psychology. This article found that parents' affective responses to adolescent disclosures in the context of type 1 diabetes management predicts the timing of future disclosures.

Books

Grant Awards

  • Professor Camila Alvarez of Sociology received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled “Development of Inclusive STEM Curriculum Using Data Science Innovations of W.E.B. Du Bois to Promote Diversity in Science”.
  • Professor Paul Smaldino of Cognitive and Information Sciences received a grant with the University of Utah titled “Collaborative Research: Building the Group Identity Concept from the Ground Up”.
  • Professor Camila Alvarez of Sociology received a grant with UC Davis titled “Toxic Air Pollutants in California Environmental Justice Communities”.
  • Professor Briana Ballis of Economics and Business Management received a grant from the Russel Sage Foundation titled “Immigrant Peers and the Short-Run Academic and Long-Run Outcomes of US-Born Students”.

Awards

  • Professor Jennifer Howell of Psychological Sciences was awarded an Early Career award from the Social Personality and Health Network. She will give an invtied award address at the annual meeting of the group in February 2024.
  • Professor Virginia Adán-Lifante of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures received a MLA Bibliography Fellowship Award for contributions to the MLA International Bibliography.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – January and February 2023 Edition

In The News

  • UC Awards $16.4 Million in Grants to Address Climate

    UC Merced faculty members from each of the campus’s three schools have been chosen as principal investigators on some of the 21 exciting new projects that are being funded through UC’s Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI).

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • What Do Elite Colleges Do With All That Endowment Money?

    “With endowments continuing to boom after four decades at our wealthiest schools, we should expect them to enroll more students from more walks of life,” said Professor Charlie Eaton.

    Read more
    www.marketplace.org

  • Why Politics Makes Us Depressed - And What We Can Do

    Professor Christopher Ojeda joined The McCourtney Institute show to talk about the relationship between depression and democracy. Ojeda is the author of the forthcoming book The Sad Citizen: How Politics Makes Us Depressed.

    Read more
    democracyworks.simplecast.com

  • Engaging the Black Community Inside, Outside UC Merced

    Professor Maria Martin embraces the responsibility of helping students shed hidebound beliefs and allow lessons of the past to illuminate their perspective on today’s racial and cultural struggles.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • CIS Professor Named 'Rising Star'

    Cognitive and Information Sciences (CIS) Professor Lace Padilla has been named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science(APS) for her groundbreaking research on how people make decisions using data visualizations.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • US Economy 'More Than Fine' Without Your Student Debt

    Professor Charles Eaton's study concluded that canceling $50,000 in student debt per borrower would grant over $4,000 to households in the lowest-income groups — money that could stimulate the economy if not used for monthly payments.

    Read more
    www.businessinsider.com

  • Farmworker Health Study by UC Merced Shows Adversities

    UC Merced says they hope the research and findings of the study will help improve the quality of work environments in agriculture, like expanding access to health care, economic and safety net and protecting workers rights.

    Read more
    www.msn.com

  • California Farmworkers Cope with Many Challenges

    A major UC Merced study and survey detail the harsh conditions many of California’s farmworkers experience at home and work. The issues are under a spotlight following the recent mass shootings at two mushroom farms.

    Read more
    calmatters.org

  • Mass Shooting Throws Spotlight on CA Farmworker Conditions

    A new study from UC Merced is the largest ever conducted on the health and wellbeing of the nation's most disadvantaged workforce and highlights the challenging conditions for California farmworkers.

    Read more
    www.cbsnews.com

  • Matlock Receives International Cognitive Science Prize

    Teenie Matlock, Cognitive and Information Sciences professor and the McClatchy Chair in Communications, has been awarded the fourth Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Zatz Named 2022 AAAS Fellow

    Special Assistant to the Chancellor and sociology Professor Marjorie Zatz has been elected to the 2022 class of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), adding to the list of previous UC Merced recipients.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Eaton's Research on Student Debt Highlighted

    Sociology Professor Charlie Eaton's study of the relationships between financialization and growing inequalities in higher education across the U.S. was cited in a recent New York Review of Books article.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Childhood Exposure to Weed Killer May Have Long-Term Effect

    Children who are exposed to glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide worldwide, may suffer from liver inflammation and metabolic disorder in early adulthood, according to a new study by a team that includes Professor Asa Bradman.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • 'Resistencia Colectiva al Neoliberalismo'

    Sociology Professor Paul Almeida and Sacramento State Professor Amalia Pérez Martín (UC Merced '22) published a new book in Spanish titled " Resistencia Colectiva al Neoliberalismo," translated to "Collective Resistance to Neoliberalism."

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • 'Award-winning Films Connecting ‘Unseen’ Communities Around the World'

    Global Arts Studies Professor Yehuda Sharim’s film “El Ojo Comienza en la Mano,” a documentary about a Central Valley farm worker who never gave up his love of painting, has been garnering awards and nominations around the world since it came out in 2022. Read more: news.ucmerced.edu

Publications and Film

  • Professor Katie Brokaw of Literatures, Languages, & Cultures has a new film. In Professor Brokaw’s words: “Release of film of Love's Labor's Lost, documenting the 2022 production of Shakespeare in Yosemite's Love's Labor's Lost, which I co-adapted and co-directed, and which features the talents of many UC Merced students both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.”
  • Professor Matthew Zawadzki of Psychological Sciences published an article with his recently graduated student Larisa Gavrilova in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine. This article examines how different emotions relate to ambulatory blood pressure - a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It found that anxiety predicted higher blood pressure levels, but anger and sadness did not, thus pointing to a potential target for an intervention. Results did not vary depending on the race of participants.
  • Professor Matthew Zawadzki of Psychological Sciences published an article in the Perspectives on Psychological Science that developed innovate ways to operationalize stress using ambulatory methodologies, like ecological momentary assessment. This paper was a collaboration with researchers at Penn State University.

Books

Grant Awards and Gifts

  • Professor Anna Epperson of Psychological Sciences received a grant from the University of California Office of the President titled “Social Networks and Health among Indigenous Californians Research Collaborative”.
  • Professor Heather Bortfeld of Psychological Sciences received a grant from the Merced County Department of Public Health titled “Behavioral Health Mentored Internship Program”.
  • Professor Mariaelena Gonzalez of Public Health received a grant with California State University, Fresno titled “Building a tobacco control pipeline for Mexican-American first generation college students”.
  • Professor Irene Yen of Public Health received a grant with UC Irvine titled “Strengthening Policy and Translational Research to Advance Health Equity in California”.
  • Professor Sabrina Smith of History and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies received a grant with UC Irvine titled “Routes of Enslavement in the Americas”.
  • Professor Lace Padilla of Cognitive and Information Sciences received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled “CAREER: Resolving Uncertainty Visualization- Reasoning Errors with Mental Model Design and Training”.
  • Professor Sidra Goldman-Mellor received a grant with Michigan State University titled “Pregnancy-associated mortality and morbidity due to drug use, self-harm, and violence: Changes during the COVID-19 pandemic”.

Awards

  • Economics and Business Management Professor Justin Hicks was awarded the Fall 2022 Faculty Staff Award for supporting student well-being.

Appointments and Fellowships

  • Cognitive and Information Sciences Professor Teenie Matlock has joined UC Santa Cruz as Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Indigenous Relations. Read more here.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – End of 2022 Edition

In The News

  • Gov. Gavin Newsom Visits UC Merced Political Science Class

    Gov. Gavin Newsom made an appearance on campus at UC Merced Monday afternoon. He did a lecture with political science students in political science professor Nathan Monroe and Assembly member Adam Gray's class.

    Read more
    www.msn.com

  • How Student-Loan Debt, or Not Having It, Shapes Lives

    “Student debt is a new stratification system,” says Professor Charlie Eaton. “It confers a set of advantages at the end of college for people who are debt-free over people with student debt.”

    Read more
    www.wsj.com

  • Merced Premieres Professor’s Films as Their International Acclaim Grows

    “Film festivals across the world continue to reach out to film maker and Professor Yehuda Sharim to invite him to screen his latest films “El Ojo Comienza En La Mano” and “Letters2Maybe”.

    Read more

  • Professors to Share Their Research Through Comics at Event

    “The Center for the Humanities is hosting in-person and virtual events to give some insight into how professors share their research through comics.”

    Read more

Publications

  • Dr. Matthew Zawadzki of Psychological Sciences published an article in the Journal of Positive Psychology examining how engagement in everyday activities may reduce negative emotions in everyday (and reduce long-term risk for depression) life among caregivers for patients with dementia. This project was a collaboration with researchers at UCSD. Read the article here.

Grant Awards and Gifts

  • Dr. Paul Brown of Public Health and Dr. Jeffrey Butler of Economics received a grant from the California Department of Public Health titled “CHSI Behavioral Economics and Health Economics”. The grant was jointly awarded to Dr. Jeffrey Butler and Dr. Paul Brown. The $1.6 million project is looking at ways to integrate Behavioral Economics and Health Economics into Public Health decision making at the state and local levels, in part through having a better understanding of the role that cultural forces play in guiding responses to public health interventions.
    • “Fresno Housing and Health Study” from Chan Zuckerberg LLC.
    • “Collaborative community networks to optimize implementation of low barrier COVID-19 testing efforts among diverse Latinx populations in Northern California” with UC San Francisco.
  • Dr. Deborah Wiebe of Psychological Sciences received a grant with Vanderbilt University titled “Adapting FAMS to Optimize CGM Use among Emerging Adults with Type 1 Diabetes”.
  • Dr. Yehuda Sharim of Global Arts, Media & Writing Studies received a gift from the Luce Foundations for his work.

Interviews

Awards

  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychological Sciences was awarded a Clarivate™ Highly Cited Researcher Award for the third straight year. The award identifies the world’s most influential researchers - the select few who have been most frequently cited by their peers over the last decade. In 2022, fewer than 7,000, or about 0.1%, of the world's researchers, in 21 research fields and across multiple fields, have earned this exclusive distinction. The award represents exceptional research influence, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science™.  At UC Merced, only two faculty were awarded the award this year, and Dr. Hagger is the only researcher in SSHA to receive this award. See Highly Cited Researchers here.

Appointments

  • Dr. Matthew Zawadzki of Psychological Sciences has been appointed a Consulting Editor for Health Psychology for the next Editorial term (2023-2028). Health Psychology is a journal published by the American Psychological Association (APA) and Society for Health Psychology. Health Psychology is the flagship journal for the Society (APA, Division 38) and is the premier scientific journal addressing the complex and multidimensional influences on the human experience in physical health research. Adhering to the highest standards of peer-review, the journal’s mission is to advance basic to translational science, policy, and practice to significantly impact population health. The journal actively encourages submissions that address psychological, behavioral, biobehavioral and sociocultural dimensions of the diversity of human experience, and which reflect a strong commitment to inclusive excellence to facilitate the goal of optimal health for all. Consulting Editors (CEs) are critical to upholding the scientific rigor of the journal, and contribute reviews and advice on submissions to the journal.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – October and November 2022

In The News

  • Elections and Social Movements in Latin America

    Paul Almeida (UC Merced) and Jorge Cadena Roa (UNAM) served as coordinators for Issue No. 122 of the Revista Mexicana de Politíca Exterior on Elections and Social Movements in Latin America.

    Read more
    alianzamx.universityofcalif...

  • Great Resignation: Where are Americans Quitting Most?

    Professor Rowena Gray says the pandemic plays a role, in that employees perfected remote work and, "along with a tight job market, has led to many employees resisting going back to being in-person on a full-time basis."

    Read more
    augustafreepress.com

  • Analyzing Robert Saleh's Vow for Revenge

    Professor Teenie Matlock, who works on the everyday use of language - both literal and implied - analyzes the explosive and provocative words coach Robert Saleh chose in an interview earlier this week.

    Read more
    www.nj.com

  • Pressure to Extend Unemployment for Undocumented

    Undocumented people form 1.1 million of the state’s 17.1 million workers – approximately 1 in 16 workers – according to a report from the UC Merced Community and Labor Center - and collectively contribute $3.7 billion in state and local tax revenues.

    Read more
    www.msn.com

  • Professor Contributes to Grim Report on Global Health

    The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change warns that global health is at the mercy of fossil fuels. An accompanying policy brief states that an estimated 32,000 people in the U.S. died due to air pollution in 2020.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Professor Eaton Makes Case for Student Loan Forgiveness

    Sociology Professor Charlie Eaton was a recent guest on the "Dr. Phil" talk show, where he discussed President Joe Biden's plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Publications

  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychological Sciences published an article in Annals of Behavioral Medicine on a randomized controlled trial of an intervention to promote COVID-19 prevention behaviors using imagery, persuasive communication, and planning. This was with collaborators from Griffith University and University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Read the article here.
  • Dr. Heather Bortfeld of Psychological Sciences published an article on fNIRS applications in the domain of human brain function. Appears in flagship journal for Society for Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (SfNIRS) and provides a comprehensive overview. Read the article here.

Grant Awards and Gifts

  • Dr. Blythe George of Sociology received a grant with the University of Michigan titled “How Many Times Could They Have Been Made Safe? Understanding the Overlap Between MMIWG2 and Prisoner Reentry”.
  • Dr. Anne Zanzucchi of Global Arts, Media and Writing Studies received a grant with UC Davis titled “Gates - General Operating Support for Wheelhouse”.
  • Dr. Robin DeLugan of Anthropology and Heritage Studies, and Dr. Anne Zanzucchi of Global Arts, Media and Writing Studies, as co-PIs received three additional years of funding from the Henry Luce Foundation for the initiative "Developing Resilient and Integrative Humanities Research with San Joaquin Valley Communities". This will bring the total investment of the Luce Foundation for this initiative to one million dollars.

Appointments

  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychological Sciences was appointed to the Editorial Board of Motivation Science for 2023-2028.
  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychological Sciences was appointed Consulting Editor for Health Psychology for 2023-2028.

UCTV

  • Check out new content on the UCTV Channel Critically Human, sponsored by the Center for the Humanities:

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – August and September 2022

In The News

  • States With the Highest Job Resignation Rates

    Economics Professor Rowena Gray was featured in WalletHub's recent study about states with the highest job resignation rates. (California came in at No. 38.)

    Read more
    wallethub.com

  • Extreme Heat Makes Pregnancy More Dangerous

    Public Health Professor Sandie Ha analyzed 70 studies on the influence of heat on pregnancy outcomes and found that estimates suggest a 16% higher risk of preterm birth during heat wave days compared to non-heatwave days.

    Read more
    impakter.com

  • Report: Yurok Tribe's Missing and Murdered Indigenous People

    Professor Blythe George, a Yurok citizen, published a 120-page foundational document covering numerous scenarios involving missing persons and murder cases, ranging from child runaways to the extemporaneous location of human remains.

    Read more
    wildrivers.lostcoastoutpost...

  • College Campuses See Growing Reparations Movement

    “Universities typically dramatically overstate the limitations on what they can use their endowments for,” said Charlie Eaton, professor of sociology at UC Merced, and author of “Bankers in the Ivory Tower.”

    Read more
    www.wbal.com

  • Professor's New Film Featuring Campesino Artist Premiers

    The new film by filmmaker Yehuda Sharim, "El Ojo Comienza En La Mano" ("The Eye Begins in the Hand"), features the life work of Central Valley artist and muralist Rubén A. Sánchez.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Why Californians with Student Loans Will Gain Massively

    About 92% of California borrowers will be eligible for the new loan forgiveness, according to Charlie Eaton, a UC Merced associate professor of sociology and student loan expert.

    Read more
    www.sandiegouniontribune.com

Publications

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Jessica Trounstine of Political Science received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation titled “Redlined Forever: How Politics Shapes Neighborhoods and Neighborhoods Shape Politics”.
  • Dr. Anna Song of Psychological Sciences received a grant from the UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program titled “Poly-use of cigarettes, E-Cigarettes, and Marijuana in Rural California: Implications for Cessation.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – June and July 2022

Endowed Chair Feature

Dr. Heather Bortfeld

Emmett, Bernice and Carlston Cunningham Chair in Cognitive Development
 
The Cunningham Chair was established through the generosity of the Cunningham family, whose aim was to advance research, teaching, and public service in the field of cognitive development with a focus on learning disabilities. The Chair is currently held by Heather Bortfeld, Professor and Chair of Psychological Sciences, and Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences. In her research, Professor Bortfeld focuses on speech processing and language learning in both typically developing infants and young children, and in infants and children who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Given the pervasiveness of developmental disabilities among the deaf population, Professor Bortfeld has expanded her research to include efforts to improve accessibility to programs that support these children. She is also investigating environmental and other factors associated with postnatal hearing loss.
 
Professor Bortfeld received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at State University of New York, Stony Brook, and trained as a postdoctoral fellow in Cognitive Science at Brown University where she was supported by a National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health. She arrived at UC Merced in 2015 after serving on the faculty at Texas A&M University and the University of Connecticut. She has been a pioneer in the development of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a non-invasive, optical imaging technique that allows researchers to measure changes in brain activation in populations not easily imaged using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), such as infants and young children. In addition to promoting fNIRS to the broader developmental research community, she has trained otolaryngologists, audiologists, and speech-language pathologists to use fNIRS as a tool for assessing brain responsivity and plasticity in both pre- and postlingually deafened cochlear implant users. Because cochlear implant users are not able to be near the magnetic field generated by MRI, fNIRS provides an important alternative for imaging this population.
 
With the support of the Cunningham Chair, Professor Bortfeld’s work has further broadened to include issues surrounding early language deprivation—whether in the form of sign or speech—among different populations of deaf and hard-of-hearing children. For example, many insurance providers deny implantation to deaf children with additional developmental impairments because they are limited in their ability to acquire verbal communication. Professor Bortfeld and collaborators took advantage of differing insurance coverage restrictions to compare developmental outcomes in these children following cochlear implantation or continued hearing aid use. The results, recently published in the journal Pediatrics, demonstrated that cochlear implantation benefits children with deafness and developmental delays well beyond business-as-usual hearing aid use. This finding, which demonstrates that cognitive and adaptive skills should not be used as a “litmus test” for pediatric cochlear implantation, has health policy implications for private insurers and for large, statewide, publicly administered programs alike. In other work, Professor Bortfeld and colleagues have established that early language deprivation is a key source of developmental delay and cognitive deficits in deaf individuals.
Support from the Cunningham Chair allows Professor Bortfeld to pursue investigations on early childhood detection of other learning disabilities, as well as on therapies and other forms of intervention that can help these children thrive. Indeed, together with the other faculty in the Child and Family Development Group at UC Merced, Professor Bortfeld works to connect families in low-income and linguistically diverse communities with community resources. Collectively, research from this group is helping identify the factors that impact health and well-being, educational success, and individual cognitive and emotional development of infants, children, and adolescents in the Merced community and beyond.
Please see below for select research from Dr. Heather Bortfeld:
 
 
 

In The News

  • Biden's 3 Choices on Student Loans

    “Every dollar of student debt cancellation counts, but bigger is better for advancing racial equity and economic security,” Charlie Eaton, an assistant professor at UC Merced, and four other scholars write.

    Read more
    www.msn.com

  • Community and Labor Center Receives Historic Award

    The UC Merced Community and Labor Center (CLC) has received a historic multimillion-dollar award to continue its mission of conducting research and educating the public about low-wage work, immigrant and workers' rights, among other issues.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • NEH Grant Awarded to UC Merced for Library Archive

    The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a $750,000 grant to the UC Merced Library in partnership with the Center for the Humanities to establish a research archive documenting the Sierra Nevada and Central Valley.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Opinion | The Government Gave Out Bad Loans.

    Charlie Eaton, Amber Villalobos and Mr. Eaton, Ms. Villalobos and Mr. Wherry are sociologists who study higher education and student debt. The wrote this collaborative piece for the NYT about student loan debt.

    Read more
    www.nytimes.com

  • Wartime Letters Talk Uplifts Voices of Soldiers, Families

    New York Times bestselling author Andrew Carroll was in Merced as part of a series of events that included a performance of his play “If All the Sky Were Paper” by the Global Arts Studies Program.

    Read more
    mercedcountytimes.com

  • UC Merced Children's Opera Returns with Outdoor Performances

    UC Merced Children's Opera is returning to in-person performances with its new opera "How to be a Superhero."

    Read more
    www.yourcentralvalley.com

  • UC Merced Putting on Play done by Award-Winning Playwright

    Students from UC Merced’s Global Arts and Studies Program 141A performed “If All the Sky Were Paper” by award-winning historian, author and playwright Andrew Carroll.

    Read more from abc30 and the Merced County Times (article 1, article 2).

  • Baby Formula Shortages and COVID-19 Led to Risky Feeding

    The UC Merced Lactation Attachment Technology and Child Health (LATCH) Lab finds a majority of parents struggling to find baby formula have resorted to dangerous feeding practices for their infants.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Overworked California firefighters struggle with PTSD,...

    One reason that mental health data is hard to come by for California’s wildland firefighters is they have “a work culture in which people are being paid to be tough and show no weakness,” said Professor Sidra Goldman-Mellor.

    Read more
    www.pressdemocrat.com

Publications

  • Dr. Sarah Depaoli of Psychological Sciences examined the implementation of Bayesian estimation in the context of latent categorical variables. Specifically, the influence of prior specification was assessed for latent class models. This works highlights when Bayesian methods can solve common problems that arise, as well as when these methods should be avoided. Depaoli, S. (2022). The specification and impact of prior distributions for categorical latent variable models. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 29, 350-365.

2022 Senate Award Recipients

Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching by a Senate Faculty Member
In recognition of excellence in teaching at the undergraduate level.
Distinguished Scholarly Public Service
In recognition of energetic and creative application of professional expertise and scholarship to benefit the local, regional, national, or international community.
Contributions to Diversity
In recognition of extraordinary contribution to diversity in research, teaching, and/or service.

2022 Non-Senate Academics Council Award Recipients

  • Dr. Jason Emory has been selected as this year's recipient for the NSAC Award for Excellence in Service for his outstanding volunteer work with his students and the Restorative Justice League in Merced.
  • Dr. Daniel Mello was selected as this year's recipient for the NSAC Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Awards and Recognitions

  • Dr. Holley Moyes of Anthropology and Heritage Studies was recognized by DivCo for significant contributions to shared governance as UGC chair/rep.
    • C. Wright Mills Award finalist from the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
    • 2022 American Sociological Association Sociology of Education Section Pierre Bourdieu Award for Outstanding Book.
    • 2022 American Sociological Association Organizations, Occupations, and Work Max Weber Award for Distinguished Scholarship Honorable Mention.
  • Dr. Manuel Martín-Rodríguez of Literatures and Languages was appointed as Corresponding Member to Spain's Real Academia Española. This is the oldest institution in the Spanish-speaking world (founded in 1713) devoted to the study and preservation of the Spanish language. Dr. Manuel Martín-Rodríguez was recognized because of his linguistic knowledge, literary merit, and other favorable qualifications.

Grant and Fellowship Awards and Gifts

  • Dr. Ketki Sheth of Economics and Business Management received an award from UC Berkeley titled “African Researcher Fellowships and Research on Costing”.
  • Dr. Nancy Burke of Public Health received a grant with UCLA titled “Share, Trust, Organize, Partner: The COVID-19 California Alliance (STOP COVID-19 CA) Phase 3”.
  • Dr. Paul Brown of Public Health received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation titled “Expanding health coverage for Farmworkers in California”.
  • Dr. Matthew Zawadzki of Psychological Sciences received a grant the Merced County Department of Public Health titled “Longitudinal Breastfeeding Study”.
  • Dr. Daisy Reyes of Sociology received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled “How College-Graduate Latinx Millennials Are Faring After the COVID-19 Pandemic”.
  • Dr. Nancy Burke of Public Health received a grant from the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment titled “Assessment of Hmong farmers, farmworkers and their shamans' knowledge of health risk related to pesticide exposure and pesticide-related illnesses”.
  • Dr. Thelma Hurd of Public Health received a grant from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information titled “Growing Valley Health Leaders”.
  • Dr. Blythe George of Sociology received a grant from the State of California Department of Justice titled “MMIW Ramos Research Partnership”.
  • Dr. Anne Zanzucchi of Global Arts, Media and Writing Studies received a gift from the Luce Foundation for the project “Stronger Together, Community-Engaged Research in the San Joaquin Valley”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – May 2022

Endowed Chair Feature

 
Foundation Board of Trustees Presidential Chair of Political Science
 
Trounstine earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego in 2004 and now serves as the Foundation Board of Trustees Presidential Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Merced. Before joining UC Merced in 2009, Trounstine served as an Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Policy at Princeton University. She is the author of Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities (Cambridge University Press), winner of the Best Book in the Field from the Urban Affairs Association, the J. David Greenstone Prize, and the Best Book on Race, Ethnicity, and Urban Politics from the American Political Science Association. She is also the author of the award winning book, Political Monopolies in American Cities: The Rise and Fall of Bosses and Reformers (University of Chicago Press), along with dozens of articles and book chapters. She was selected as a 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. Trounstine’s work studies representation and inequality in American democracy using varied quantitative and qualitative methods. She consults for various governments and community organizations; and serves on numerous editorial and foundation boards. As the 4th political scientists hired at UC Merced, Trounstine has played a crucial role in helping to build the university.

In The News

  • How the War in Ukraine Compares to Other Refugee Crises

    Data analyzed by a team of researchers led by political science Professor Andrew Shaver were shared with The Economist to compare past refugee crises with the conflict in Ukraine.

    Read more
    www.economist.com

  • California Explores Unemployment For Undocumented Workers

    “We estimate that 1 in 16 wage earners in California is undocumented,” said Profess Edward Flores, co-director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center. At the pandemic’s height, about 176,000 undocumented people were unemployed.

    Read more
    www.sfchronicle.com

  • Sticker Shock: Inflation in United States Jumped 8.5%

    Economics Professor Andrew Johnston says the expectation is that inflation will likely get worse before it gets better. He adds that expectations for a recession in the next few years have also increased.

    Read more
    abc30.com

  • Shakespeare in Yosemite's 'Love's Labor's Lost'

    Yosemite National Park is once again serving as the backdrop for a loose adaptation of one of Shakespeare's comedies. Shakespeare in Yosemite's "Love's Labor's Lost" will finally hit the stage at the Curry Village Amphitheater later this month.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Questions of Safety, Cultural Misappropriation

    A study by Professor Anna Epperson and a colleague from Stanford focused on Natural American Spirit (NAS) cigarettes and the imagery used on their packages. According to the study, the false representation impacted smoking habits of Native Americans

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Cash for Farmworkers?

    Researchers at the UC Merced Community and Labor Center released a report last month making a case for why California should provide unemployment benefits to undocumented workers.

    Read more
    calmatters.org

  • Political Science Professor Named 2022 Carnegie Fellow

    The Carnegie Corporation of New York announced that Department of Political Science Chair and Professor Jessica Trounstine has been named to the 2022 Class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Sharim to Serve as Artist-in-Residence at Virginia Tech, JGU in Germany

    Professor Yehuda Sharim will share his experiences in cinema and community engagement with students at universities across the country and globe.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Community and Labor Center Receives Historic $6.5 Million Award

    The UC Merced Community and Labor Center (CLC) has received a historic multimillion-dollar award to continue its mission of conducting research and educating the public about low-wage work, immigrant and workers’ rights, workplace health and safety, among other issues.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Publications

  • Dr. Haifeng Huang of Political Science has a forthcoming paper in Perspectives on Politics titled "In Government We Trust: Implicit Political Trust and Regime Support in China" (with Chanita Intawan and Steve Nicholson).
  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychology published an article in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (IF = 4.376) reporting 12 experiment showing that perceptions of auditory loudness is bidiractionally linked to feelings of interpersonal closeness (e.g., warmth, comfort, inclusion). This article was with his former doctoral student, Deming Wang (James Cook University, Singapore). Wang, D., Ziano, I., Hagger, M. S., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2022). Loudness perceptions influence feelings of interpersonal closeness and protect against detrimental psychological effects of social exclusion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 48(4), 566-581. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211015896
  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychology published an article in Behavior Research and Therapy (IF = 4.473) reviewing the contribution of psycholological theory to predict, understand, and change COVID-19 preventive behaviors (e.g., vaccination, physical distancing, face-mask wearing). Published with collaborator, HSRI member Kyra Hamilton. Hagger, M. S., & Hamilton, K. (2022). Social cognition theories and behavior change in COVID-19: A conceptual review. Behavior Research and Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2022.104095
  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychology was invited to submit an article to Annual Review of Psychology (IF = 24.14) on Psychological Determinants of Health Behaviors for Volume 76 of the journal in 2023-2024. Annual Review of Psychology is a leading review journal in psychology in publication since 1950, and covers the significant developments in the field of psychology. It is part of the Annual Reviews series dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society. https://www.annualreviews.org/journal/psych
  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychology published an article in BMC Women's Health () on the perceived determinants of physical activity among women with prior severe preeclampsia. The article is part of a large-scale collaborative physical activity promotion project with partners from Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Kókai, L. L., van der Bijl, M. F., Hagger, M. S., Ó Ceallaigh, D. T., Rohde, K. I. M., van Kippersluis, H., van Lennep, J. E. R., & Wijtzes, A. I. (2022). Perceived determinants of physical activity among women with prior severe preeclampsia: A qualitative assessment. BMC Women's Health, 22, 133. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-022-01692-3

US News and World Reports

  • Updated rankings for grad programs (collapsing across public and private schools):
    • Psychology: 88/331 schools (≈26th percentile)
    • Political Science: 63/120 schools (≈52nd percentile)

Awards and Fellowships

  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychology was made Fellow of the Society for Behavioral Medicine at the recent Annual Scientific Sessions of the Society in Baltimore, Maryland, April 6-9. Fellow status is a distinction conferred by SBM on full members in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement of the science and practice of behavioral medicine. https://www.sbm.org/membership/fellows
  • Dr. Sidra Goldman-Mellor of Public Health was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research in Oslo, Norway, for seven months in 2023. Her Fulbright project is entitled "Investigating violence exposure and suicide risk using population-based register data from Norway."

Grant Awards

  • Ana Padilla, Executive Director of UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center, received a grant from the James Irvine Foundation titled “Central Valley Worker Collaborative”.
  • Dr. Anna Song of Psychology received a grant from the UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program titled “Training the Next Generation of Tobacco Control Advocates in the San Joaquin Valley”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – April 2022

Endowed Chair Feature

 
Tony Coelho Endowed Chair of Public Policy
 
Dr. Nathan Monroe is Professor of Political Science and Tony Coelho Endowed Chair of Public Policy. In 2021, he helped establish and became the founding director of the Center for Analytic Political Engagement (CAPE). Much of his teaching and research focuses on legislative process--especially agenda setting--at the state, federal, and international level. His research has appeared in the leading journals and book presses in political science, as well as a number of interdisciplinary journals. He is regularly quoted by state, local and national media sources for his expertise on various legislative topics. Dr. Monroe teaches a broad range of courses on American politics at the undergraduate and graduate level, including Congressional Politics, Presidential Politics, Politics and Film, The Politics of Reform, American Political Institutions, and Research Design in Political Science. He has also developed a unique course, with California Assembly Member Adam Gray, that simulates a legislative session of the California State Senate. His graduate students have taken tenure-track faculty positions at major research universities including Binghamton University and the University of Pittsburgh.

In The News

  • 2022's States Where Employers Are Struggling the Most

    Professor Rowena Gray contributes as Ask an Expert on the current labor market and economic impact.

    Read more
    wallethub.com

  • Deliberate Ignorance: Why People Choose Not to Know

    Professor Jennifer Howell tells Sunday Morning people choose ignorance for different reasons, but many times it's to preserve a sense of security and happiness, with both good and bad consequences.

    Read more
    www.rnz.co.nz

  • $1.4M Grant Awarded to Snuff Out Smoking

    UC Merced and Stanislaus State have been awarded a $1.4 million Smoke and Vape Free Scholars Initiative Program Award collaborative grant from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP).

    Read more
    abc30.com

  • Covert and Overt Political Signaling Online

    Professor Paul Smaldino developed the theory of covert signaling, which allows people to communicate with people who share their political identity without risking pile-ons from those who disagree.

    Read more
    phys.org

  • UC Merced Hosts Roundtable to Discuss Labor Issues

    State labor officials met with Central Valley community advocates Tuesday to discuss labor rights issues, including workplace health and safety, during a round table hosted by the UC Merced Community and Labor Center.

    Read more
    www.kvpr.org

Publications

  • Dr. Susana Ramírez of Public Health has a new publication in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics titled “The Racialized Marketing of Unhealthy Foods and Beverages: Perspectives and Potential Remedies”, 50(1), 52-59. “We propose a framework for racialized marketing, describing how the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to Black and Latino consumers results from the intersection of a business model in which profits come primarily from marketing an unhealthy mix of products, standard targeted marketing strategies, and societal forces of structural racism, and contributes to health disparities. The paper is part of a special issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics focused on Health Law and Anti-Racism.”

Interviews

The Benefits of a Faculty Learning Community (1:30 – 2:45 P.M., April 15, 2022)

  • Featured SSHA Faculty:
Dr. Elaine Denny (SSHA/Political Science)
Dr. Maria-Elena Young (SSHA/Public Health)
 
Register here

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Nancy Burke of Public Health received a grant with UCLA titled “Community-Engagement Research Alliance Against COVID-19 in Disproportionately Affected Communities (CEAL)”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – March 2022

Endowed Chair Feature

 
Presidential Chair in the Humanities
 
Ignacio López-Calvo is Presidential Chair in the Humanities, Director of the Center for the Humanities, and Professor of Literature at the University of California, Merced. He is the author of more than one hundred articles and book chapters, as well as nine single-authored books and seventeen essay collections. He is the co-executive director of the academic journal Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, the Palgrave-Macmillan Book Series “Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia,” and the Anthem Press book series “Anthem Studies in Latin American Literature and Culture Series.” His latest books are:
 
The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, Performance (forthcoming); Saudades of Japan and Brazil: Contested Modernities in Lusophone Nikkei Cultural Production (2019); Dragons in the Land of the Condor: Tusán Literature and Knowledge in Peru (2014); The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru (2013); and Latino Los Angeles in Film and Fiction: The Cultural Production of Social Anxiety (2011).

In The News

  • Love is in the Air and in the National Park this Spring. This year’s production of Shakespeare in Yosemite was a new take on one of Shakespeare’s oldest comedies with an environmental justice message. Read more
  • 'Gimme Shelter': A rich Silicon Valley town's bid to...

    Professor Jessica Trounstine was recently a guest speaker on the podcast “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast" about how the city of Woodside tried to use mountian lions to prevent affordable housing development.

    Read more
    www.latimes.com

Publications

Podcasts

Spring Author Series

SSHA Faculty featured in the UC Merced Library’s Spring Faculty Author Series:
 
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences
 
Associate Professor of History

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Ed Flores of Sociology received a grant from the Public Health Institute titled “California Occupational Safety and Health Surveillance”.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – February 2022

Fellowships

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Matthew Zawadzki of Psychology received a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute titled “Leisure as a Protective Factor against Everyday Risk for Cardiovascular disease”.

In The News

  • A Taste for Sweet - An Anthropologist Explains the Craving

    Professor Stephen Wooding studies the evolution of taste perception.Wooding provides insights into how our species’ evolutionary history can provide important clues about why it’s so hard to say no to sweet.

    Read more
    theconversation.com

  • 'Letters2Maybe' Explores Immigrants Struggle

    "Letters2Maybe," the latest film by Professor Yehuda Sharim with UC Merced's Department of Global Arts Studies, premiers next week at the New Jersey International Film Festival and a second time at the Houston Iranian Film Festival.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Books and Publications

Service

  • Dr. Susana Ramírez of Public Health began a 2-year term as Associate Editor for the Journal of Health Communication. Part of Taylor & Francis, the Journal of Health Communication is the leading journal covering the full breadth of a field that focuses on the communication of health information globally.

Documentaries

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – January 2022

Awards

  • Dr. Martin Hagger of Psychology received the Highly Cited Researchers Award from Clarivate Web of Science for 2021. The award is for exceptional levels of citations of publications and awardees are in the top 1% of researchers globally in terms of citations.

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Daisy Reyes of Sociology received a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation titled “How College-Graduate Latinx Millennials Are Faring After the COVID-19 Pandemic”.
  • Dr. Susana Ramírez of Public Health received a grant from the California Department of Public Health titled “Understanding Barriers to COVID-19 and Flu Vaccination and Empowering Influential Messengers to Increase Vaccination Rates among Latinos in California’s San Joaquin Valley”.
  • Dr. Susana Ramírez of Public Health received a grant from Kaiser Permanente Division of Research titled “The Diabetes Research for Equity through Advanced Multilevel Science Center for Diabetes Translational Research (DREAMS-CDTR).
  • Ana Padilla from the Community and Labor Center received a grant from the Kern County Community College District titled “Kern Regional Workforce Coalition”.

In The News

  • Elite Private Colleges Get Richer While Others Fall Behind

    Professor Charles Eaton wrote an analysis for the Washington Post based on his research into why elite colleges are gaining wealth while most other colleges fell behind.

    Read more
    www.washingtonpost.com

  • The Failure of Financialized Higher Ed

    Professor Charles Eaton and colleagues are referenced in an article about "financialization of higher education, where external financial interests have more influence and say on universities than staff or faculty.

    Read more
    prospect.org

  • Shakespeare in Yosemite Film "Imogen in the Wild"

    Collaboration between UC Merced students, professional artists, National Park Service staff and Merced community members, Shakespeare in Yosemite's first feature-length film, " Imogen in the Wild," celebrated its debut on YouTube.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Smaldino Studies Change in Psychologists' Beliefs

    Cognitive and Information Sciences Professor Paul Smaldino is part of a team of researchers whose study titled " Psychologists update their beliefs about effect sizes after replication studies" was recently published in Nature Human Behaviour.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Survey: Fresno Voters Concerned with Pandemic, Spending

    A representative sample survey of Fresno voters, now in its second year, is giving area policymakers insight into the opinions and concerns of the people they represent.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Articles and Publications

  • Jose Ramirez (English, '20), Mahealani Larosa (English, '22), and Emma Greenleaf (History, '20) wrote essays about digital performances in spring 2020, which were recently published in the academic journal Shakespeare Bulletin. They are the first undergraduate students to be published in this prestigious academic journal, the leading journal for the study of Shakespeare in performance.

Service

  • Dr. Christina Torres-Rouff of Anthropology & Heritage Studies was elected to the Directorate that leads the Sociedad Chilena de Arqueologia.
  • Prof. Kathleen Hull of Anthropology & Heritage Studies begins a 3-year term as Editor of the journal California Archaeology beginning January 2022.  Part of Taylor & Francis Group, California Archaeology publishes original papers on the archaeology of Alta California, Baja California, and adjoining regions that treat theory, method, and/or empirical findings.

Film

  • Shakespeare in Yosemite's first feature-length film, Imogen in the Wild, was released in November. The film, shot on campus and in Yosemite, addresses environmental justice and was a collaboration with several UC Merced students as well as professional actors. It stars English major Sofia Andom as Imogen and features the music of English majors Rena Johnson and Cat Flores. English majors Will Darpinian, Brandon Cooper, and Rilee Hoch worked as film editors, and several other students and SSHA alumni acted in the film or worked behind the scenes. Professors Brokaw and Prescott co-adapted the screenplay from Shakespeare's play Cymbeline, and Brokaw directed. See more here.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – December 2021

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Sidra Goldman-Mellor of Public Health received a grant with Michigan State University titled “Pregnancy-associated mortality and morbidity due to drugs, self-harm, and violence in the United States”.
  • Dr. Susana Ramírez of Public Health received a grant from the California Department of Public Health titled “Understanding Barriers to COVID-19 and Flu Vaccination and Empowering Influential Messages to Increase Vaccination Rates among Latinos in California’s San Joaquin Valley”.

In The News

“All three GOP Fresno County supervisors have links to man who drew district maps they favor”
Dr. Jessica Trounstine of Political Science.
 
“Valley officials witness historic signing of $1.2T infrastructure package at White House”
Dr. Justin Cook of Economics and Business Management.
 
“Amazon to pay $500,000 penalty for failing to notify California workers of COVID cases”
Dr. Edward Flores of Sociology.
 
“Ag workers lag furthest behind in vaccinations”
Dr. Edward Flores of Sociology.
 
“A Veneer of Objectivity”
Dr. Daniel Hicks of Cognitive and Informational Sciences.
 
“Interaction of Faces, Postures and Scenes Affect Emotion Perception”
View the slideshow here.
Dr. Eric Walle of Psychology.
 
“Many Immigrants Perceive Racial Discrimination at Work, Health Care”
UC Merced News English, Spanish
Dr. Maria-Elena Young of Public Health and doctoral student Sharon Tafolla.
 
“Smaldino Studies Change in Psychologists’ Beliefs in New Study”
Dr. Paul Smaldino of Cognitive and Information Sciences.
 
“Honduras Elects First Female President; Study Shows How Protests Can Affect Change”
Dr. Paul Almeida of Sociology.

Articles and Publications

    • “Text-Based / Concept-Driven.” For Shakespeare / Text: Arden Critical Intersections. Edited by Claire Bourne. Bloomsbury, 2021.
    • “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Adapting Shakespeare for the Environment.” (With Paul Prescott) For The Arden Research Companion to Shakespeare and Adaptation. Edited by Diana Henderson and Stephen O’Neill. Bloomsbury, 2022.

Service

  • Dr. Jessica Trounstine of Political Science has been appointed to serve as a member of California's Advisory Committee for the Statewide Housing Plan. In this role she advises the Department of Housing and Community Development on California's housing needs and effective policy solutions.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – November 2021

Awards

  • Global Arts, Media, and Writing Studies Professor David Kaminsky’s book “Social Partner Dance: Body, Sound, and Space” won the Kealiinohomoku Award of the Dance, Movement, and Gesture’s section at the Society for Ethnomusicology’s annual meeting. This award recognizes an outstanding piece of ethnomusicological work (broadly defined) that substantially engages the topics of dance, movement, and/or gesture.

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Zenaida Aguirre-Muñoz of Cognitive Science received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education titled: “Growing en comunidad: Teacher and Family Language and Biliteracy Professional Development Project”.

In The News

  • Community and Labor Center Accurately Forecasts Voter Preferences

    UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center accurately forecasted voter preferences in Fresno within 1 percentage point for the gubernatorial recall election help September 14.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • UC Merced Names First Endowed Chair in Medical Education

    Distinguished UC Merced Director of Medical Education and public health Professor Dr. Thelma Hurd has been appointed the inaugural Thondapu Family Endowed Chair in Medical Education.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Researching Latina Teen Mothers' Mental Health

    A team from the Department of Psychological Sciences conducted a study that looked at the associations between the quality and quantity of Latina adolescent mothers' sleep and mental health.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • HSRI Gets $1.2 Million Grant to Study Vehicle Emissions

    A $1.2 million grant has been awarded to study the effects of vehicle emissions on public health and the environment. The Lead Investigator on the project is Public Health Professor Asa Bradman.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Brain Study 'Turns Off the Brake' to Understand Sympathy

    A new study by faculty members and students in UC Merced's Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences takes a closer look at the sympathy people have for one another.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Characterizing Cancer as a 'War' Assumes it can be Won

    Professor Teenie Matlock explains how metaphors are 'deeply entrenched' in our communications. "Metaphors ... give us a useful tool to think about new domains, challenging domains, to connect with other people."

    Read more
    www.usatoday.com

  • NCPC Hosting Free Webinar on Policy and the Media

    UC Merced's Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center (NCPC, directed by Dr. Anna Song of Psychological Sciences) and the American Heart Association are hosting a free webinar to provide insight on generating media coverage and helping change public perceptions on a variety of issues in the Central Valley.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • California Low-wage Workers No Longer Have COVID Paid Leave

    The Delta variant, which has led to an uptick in breakthrough infections, has had a “disproportionate effect across the state,” said Ana Padilla, executive director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center.

    Read more
    www.sacbee.com

  • U.S. Will Develop a Federal Heat Standard

    To do this, OSHA has to increase its capacity to enforce the rules, said Ana Padilla, executive director of the Community and Labor Center — including hiring more staff to avoid redirecting resources from one enforcement mechanism to the other.

    Read more
    www.pbs.org

  • Research from UC Merced Focuses on Latina Teen Mothers

    New research from UC Merced highlights the mental health crisis many teen mothers face throughout the Central Valley. Professor Alexandra Main spearheaded the study, which began in 2017.

    Read more
    abc30.com

  • Sharim’s “Central Valley Portraits” Exhibit Showcased Online

    After a two-month run at the Merced Multicultural Arts Center, UC Merced Professor Yehuda Sharim’s exhibit is now available for viewing across the globe.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Interviews

Books and Publications

    • Escobar, Maria, and Tanya Golash-Boza. "Constructing Citizenship,“Legality,” and “Illegality” in Comparative Perspectives." In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 2021.
    • Golash-Boza, Tanya, and Hyunsu Oh. "Crime and Neighborhood Change in the Nation’s Capital: From Disinvestment to Gentrification." Crime & Delinquency (2021): 00111287211005394.
    • Ceciliano-Navarro, Yajaira, and Tanya Maria Golash-Boza. "“Trauma Makes You Grow Up Quicker”: The Financial & Emotional Burdens of Deportation & Incarceration." Daedalus 150, no. 2 (2021): 165-179.
    • Ceciliano‐Navarro, Yajaira, and Tanya Golash‐Boza. "Social, Human and Positive Psychological Capital in the Labour Market Re‐integration of People Deported to the Dominican Republic." International Migration 59, no. 2 (2021): 221-238.

Guest Editor

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – October 2021

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Irene Yen of Public Health received a grant from the Sierra Health Foundation titled: “Fresno Housing and Health: Local Organizing Committee”.
  • Dr. Rachel Ryskin of Cognitive and Information Sciences received a grant from the NIH titled: “Prediction in Language across the Lifespan”.

In The News

  • 2021's States with the Most and Least Student Debt

    Professor Charlie Eaton is featured by WalletHub in an Ask the Experts segment regarding student debt in America.

    Read more
    wallethub.com

  • UC Merced Community and Labor Center
The Community and Labor Center at UC Merced released findings from a recent survey by the Fresno County Civic Engagement Table that asked the 1,500 voters in Fresno City Council districts what their priority issues were and if they planned to vote in the gubernatorial recall election. The findings were highlighted in the articles below:
 
 
‘Game-changer’ Agreement with Union for Fresno Projects
 
A UC Merced Community and Labor Center policy brief estimating the effects of a Fresno Project Labor Agreement (PLA) policy on jobs and wages was cited by The Fresno Bee in a story about the Fresno City Council’s passage of a PLA agreement.
 
 
California Bill Could Alter Amazon Labor Practices
 
Professor Edward Flores was quoted in a New York Times story on California legislative bill AB 701, which would create standards around warehouse workplace health and safety.
 
 
  • Research Shows Sleep and Social Support Are Vital to Latina Teen Mothers’ Mental Health
Psychology Professors Alexandra Main, Eric Walle, Rose Scott, and students Shun Ting Yung and Yaoyu Chen, published a study in Frontiers in Psychology, in which they found that teen mothers who reported poorer sleep had higher depressive and anxiety symptoms. The effects of poor sleep on the mothers’ mental health were buffered by social support from peers.
 
Read more here in English and Spanish from UC Merced News.

Fellowships

  • In 2021, Prof. Blythe George of Sociology was awarded a Circle 3 Intergenerational Indigenous Women’s Fellowship from the Spirit Aligned Leadership Program. Through this opportunity, she is facilitating an intergenerational knowledge transfer project between herself and Judge Abby Abinanti, the Chief Justice of the Yurok Tribal Court and the first tribal woman to be a member of the California State Bar. Together, Prof. George and the Yurok Tribal Court have founded the Yurok Data Repository and Modeling Center. Under Prof. George’s leadership, this center centralizes the Court’s ongoing research efforts on criminal justice and policing reform and is the first tribally-housed justice policy research center in the nation. You can learn more here and here.

Books and Publications

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – September 2021

Grant and Fellowship Awards

  • Dr. Paul Almeida of Sociology received a grant from the Sierra Health Foundation titled: “Fresno Speaks 2021”.
  • Dr. Lace Padilla of Cognitive and Information Sciences received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled: “EAGER: SAI: Facilitating Restoration of Natural Infrastructure Using Uncertainty Communication”. Dr. Padilla also received a grant from Sandia National Laboratories titled: “Visual Cognition in Support of Transmission Reliability”.
  • Dr. Holley Moyes of Anthropology and Heritage Studies received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled: “MRI: Acquisition of Hovermap Rapid Data Capture and 3D Imaging of GPS-Denied Spaces”.
  • Dr. Jayson Beaster-Jones of Global Arts, Media and Writing Studies received a grant from California Humanities titled “Gateway to Merced”.
  • Dr. Asa Bradman of Public Health received a grant from the State of California Attorney General titled: “San Joaquin Valley Center for Community Air Assessment and Injustice Reduction (SJV CC-AIR)”.

In The News

  • Prehistoric People May Have Created ‘Proto-Cinema'

    Professor Holley Moyes, an expert on subterranean rituals, talks about ancient cave wall art and the data collected and observed by researchers in northern Spain’s Atxurra Cave.

    Read more
    thefrontierpost.com

  • UC Merced Faculty Land Three UC-HBCU Grants, Most in System

    The University of California Office of the President awarded three out of only seven UC-Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Initiative grants to UC Merced faculty members. Literature Professor Nigel Hatton was awarded one of the grants for his research project titled: “Increasing African-American Graduate Enrollment in the Humanities at UC Merced”.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Awards

  • Falandays Wins Marr Prize for Phenomenon of Meaning Research

    Cognitive and Information Sciences Ph.D. student Ben Falandays was recently awarded the Marr Prize for Best Student Paper at the Cognitive Science Society's annual conference.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

Publications

Television

  • Professor Nicola Lercari’s Work at Bodie Featured on NatGeo. Anthropology and Heritage Studies Professor Nicola Lercari’s work at Bodie State Historic Park in California has been featured on National Geographic's "Drain The Oceans" - The Wild West episode. The trailer can be viewed here, while the full episode is available on demand here.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – August 2021

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Jessica Trounstine of Political Science received a grant from the Association of Bay Area Governments titled: “Measuring Racial and Socio-Economic Housing Inequality”.
  • Dr. Nigel Hatton of Literature and Languages received a research grant from the UC-HBCU Initiative.
  • Dr. Rose Scott of Psychology received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled: “Collaborative Research: Trust Across Diverse Contexts in Early Childhood”. This project will be conducted at UC Merced, as well as in collaboration with Yuyan Luo at the University of Missouri Columbia and Lori Markson at Washington University in St. Louis. This research investigates the development of different forms of trust in early childhood, with an emphasis on how socioeconomic factors and children's racial backgrounds and experiences impact children's decisions about who to trust at different ages.
  • Dr. Sidra Goldman-Mellor of Public Health received a grant with Michigan State University from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development titled: “Pregnancy-associated mortality and morbidity due to drugs, self-harm, and violence in the United States”. This research will advance clinical and public health knowledge regarding the incidence of and trends and disparities in mortality and morbidity during pregnancy and the first year postpartum due to drug use, self-harm, and violence. Our research will also change clinical practice by finding ways to identify women — in hospital-based settings — at high risk for future morbidity and mortality due to drug use, self-harm, and violence, and lay the foundation for developing preventive strategies. The evidence from the proposed research will extend the current knowledge about maternal morbidity and mortality to encompass non-obstetric causes that are of substantial and growing importance.

In The News

  • 100 Sociology Undergraduate Students Trained in Survey Research. Sociology Professor Paul Almeida, along with colleagues from universities in Honduras, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, trained more than 100 sociology undergraduate students to conduct research about social movements and civic engagement in Central America. Read more
  • Study: Conservatives' Distrust of Science Guides Actions

    Professor Colin Holbrook and colleagues conducted a study which found that Republicans' and independents' inclinations to embrace protective behaviors were overruled by distrust in science and in liberal or moderate information sources.

    Read more
    phys.org

  • Meet Zandile Ndhlovu, South Africa's 'Black Mermaid'. Professor Kevin Dawson says a learned fear of water, which Ndhlovu had to overcome, extends past South Africa's shores. Read more
     
  • Three-Day Caravan Focused On Farmworker Rights.UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center is partnering on the outreach efforts to inform farm workers of their rights at work. Read more
  • Opinion: Normal May Be a Long Way Off for Immunocompromised

    Professor Andrea Polonijo says "normal may be a long way off for about 10 million immunocompromised Americans who face unprecedented health risk and uncertainty when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness" in a recently published opinion piece.

    Read more
    www.sandiegouniontribune.com

  • Those Not Vaccinated: No time or 'enormously selfish'?

    UC Merced Community and Labor Center Executive Director Ana Padilla said there still needs to be better access to the vaccine — and good information about it — for people like agricultural workers, who are now working the busiest time of the year.

    Read more
    www.latimes.com

  • How One Worker Protected Himself from COVID-19

    An analysis of health data by UC Merced revealed essential workers across 10 industries in the state experienced a 30 percent increase in deaths between March and December 2020

    Read more
    blackvoicenews.com

  • "Central Valley Portraits" Exhibit Showcases Everyday Life

    Professor Yehuda Sharim's exhibition "Central Valley Portraits" looks to give people a closeup look at these trying times as they're experienced in Merced.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • A Study Suggests an Instructive Way to Talk to Little Crawlers. Research by Dr. Eric Walle of Psychology and graduate student Lukas Lopez was featured in The Hechinger Report in an article titled: “PROOF POINTS: A Study suggests an instructive way to talk to little crawlers”. Read more

Awards

  • Ketika Garg Wins UC Guru Gobind Singh Fellowship

    Cognitive and Information Sciences graduate student Ketika Garg is the recipient of the 2021-2022 UC Guru Gobind Singh Fellowship.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Christa Fraser of the Merritt Writing Program was selected to receive a non-senate academics council excellence award for outstanding service.

Publications

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – July 2021

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Paul Brown of Public Health received a grant from the County of Mariposa titled: “Epidemiology Surveillance – COVID Response”.
  • Dr. Zenaida Aguirre-Muñoz of Cognitive and Information Sciences received a grant with Texas Technical University titled: “Growing Stems Consortium: Training the Next Generation of Engineers for the DOE/NNSA Workforce”.
  • Dr. Stephanie Canizales of Sociology received a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation titled: “Unaccompanied immigrant youths’ undocumented labor migration, transnational financial responsibilities, and prospected for mobility”.

In The News

  • How Much Americans Would Get From Student Debt Forgiveness

    A brief analyzed how $50,000 of student debt forgiveness would impact household wealth. Professor Laura Hamilton argues that wealth captures a more complete picture of borrowers' financial status and better accounts for racial disparities.

    Read more
    www.nbcwashington.com

  • Humans Might be Making Genetic Evolution Obsolete

    Professor Paul Smaldino says "people have been working for a long time to describe how evolutionary biology interacts with culture. Their big argument is that culture is the next evolutionary transition state."

    Read more
    www.livescience.com

  • Black Women Owe 22% More in Student Debt than White Women

    Professor Laura Hamilton states, “Black women are much more likely to attend college than Black men and they are subject to significant racial wealth gap disparities, which means that they need to pull out more money to attend college."

    Read more
    www.cnbc.com

  • How the Virus Unraveled Hispanic American Families

    “Everybody knows someone who has died, or multiple people who have died, and everyone is figuring out how to compensate for the roles and duties that are no longer being done by those people,” said Professor Zulema Valdez. “The hardship is extreme.”

    Read more
    www.nytimes.com

  • Will Fresno farmworkers get universal basic income?

    UC Merced Community and Labor Center figures were cited in Cal Matters coverage of local efforts to improve California farmworkers' access to a Universal Basic Income pilot program, and to create Supplemental Guaranteed Income for them.

    Read more
    calmatters.org

  • Archiving National Agony: Sharim's Short Film Featured

    Professor Yehuda Sharim is having his short film "Red Line Lullaby" featured in the International Video Poetry Film Festival in Athens. The work has been selected to be part of the Video Poetry Zone 2021 category.

    Read more
    news.ucmerced.edu

  • Humans are Evolving Faster Than Ever

    “This theory has been a long time coming” said Professor Paul Smaldino, who was not affiliated with this study. “People have been working for a long time to describe how evolutionary biology interacts with culture.”

    Read more
    then24.com

  • UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center was one of several partners involved in an initiative to get vital information directly to agricultural workers. A mobile caravan made multiple stops around the Central Valley to provide information to farmworkers about their labor rights and COVID-19. You can read more here: https://bit.ly/2SVNB5W

Awards

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – June 2021

Acknowledgements

  • UC Merced’s Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology has been ranked #8 by Study.com.

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Ricardo Cisneros of Public Health received a grant with UC Davis titled: “Participatory Assessment of Health Equity Impacts through the Implementation of the Community Air Monitoring and Management”.
  • Dean Dr. Jeff Gilger of Psychology received a grant with UC Irvine titled: “Living Through Upheaval: The University of California Humanities Initiative”.
  • Dr. Arturo Arias of Literature & Languages: English & Spanish received a grant with UC Santa Barbara titled: “The Global Latinidades Project: Globalizing Latinx Studies for the Next Millennium”.

In The News

During the first 10 months of the coronavirus pandemic, California saw a 30% increase in the deaths of essential workers in 10 industries, according to a new study by UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center. Reported in CapRadio.
 
CA workers accounted for 12,500 of 14,370 additional deaths compared to the previous year – or 87% of additional deaths in 2020, according to an analysis of state public health data by the UC Merced Community and Labor Center. Reported in the Fresno Bee.
 
Ana Padilla, the executive director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, said that the Central Valley had consistently been one of California’s hardest-hit regions. Reported in The New York Times.
 
Some farmworkers in Central California still have not received vaccinations in though they were prioritized months ago to receive the shots, said Ana Padilla, executive director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center. Reported in the Los Angeles Times.
 
Featuring Dr. Nancy Burke of Public Health and reported in UC Merced News.
 
Featuring Dr. Asa Bradman of Public Health and reported in UC Merced News.
 
Featuring Dr. Yehuda Sharim of Global Arts, Media & Writing Studies and reported in UC Merced News.
 
Featuring Dr. Nancy Burke of Public Health and reported in YourCentralValley.
 
Featuring Dr. Mariaelena Gonzalez of Public Health and reported in UC Merced News.
 
Community and Labor Center Executive Director Ana Padilla spoke with the LA Times about the state’s proposed $300,000 fines and the need for greater measures to prevent workplace health and safety non-compliance. Reported in the Los Angeles Times.
 
Featuring Dr. Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook of Psychology and reported in UC Merced News.
 

Books, Essays, and Publications

Comics

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – May 2021

Acknowledgements and Awards

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Sidra Goldman-Mellor of Public Health was awarded a grant with UC Berkeley titled: “California Policy Lab: Data-Driven Solutions to California’s Most Complex Issues”.

In The News

  • Interdisciplinary Humanities graduate student Iván Soto was on the front page of the Imperial Valley Press newspaper as a 2021 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow.
  • Professors Paul Prescott and Katie Brokaw of Literature, Languages and Cultures organized a Shakespeare and Climate Emergency Conference jointly with Globe Theater. Read more here.

Presentations

Publications

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – April 2021

Acknowledgements and Awards

  • Dr. Jan Wallander of Psychology was awarded the Chancellor’s John J. Conger Lectureship and Visiting Professorship by the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver.
  • Interdisciplinary Humanities graduate student Iván Soto was awarded the 2021 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship.

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Nancy Burke of Public Health was awarded a grant with UC San Francisco titled: “Getting Asian Americans INFORMED to facilitate COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination”.
  • Dr. Asa Bradman of Public Health was awarded a grant with University Corporation at Monterey Bay titled: “Science teaching through the arts: Bringing state-of-the-art environmental health education to youth in agricultural communities”.

In The News

  • Dr. Charlie Eaton of Sociology and a colleague helped draft an open letter asking Mr. Biden to "right a series of wrongs" by using executive action to cancel student debt.

Publications

  • Dr. Irenee Beattie of Sociology and Ph.D. student Melissa Quesada published a research brief on racialized and gendered patterns in earning a teaching credential.

Film, Podcasts and Radio

  • To benefit the people of Texas, so recently impacted by freezing temperatures and a lack of power and fresh water, Global Arts Studies Professor Yehuda Sharim held a talk and a screening of two of his films. The virtual event was titled “People. Film. Hope.”
  • Dr. Jessica Trounstine of Political Science was a featured guest on Not Another Politics Podcast through the University of Chicago. The podcast can be listened to here for Apple and Spotify.
  • Mexico’s National Public Radio featured a book by Dr. Paul Almeida of Sociology titled: “Movimientos sociales: La estructura de la acción colectiva”. The feature can be listened to here.

Affinity Groups, Panels, Presentations, and Projects

  • After the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Dr. Maria Martin of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies started an affinity group for Black faculty, staff, students, and community members on campus at UCM designed to fight anti-Blackness and advocate for the concerns of the Black campus (and off campus) community with the chancellor and provost. The inaugural February Speaker Series was recently completed.
  • Dr. Edward Flores of Sociology was on a panel with KSEE 24 that discussed Cesar Chavez’ legacy and Jill Biden’s visit to Delano.
  • Dr. Maria Martin of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies put together a potentially first of its kind panel for the Fulbright organization. It centered perspectives on race, equity, and access from three Black women Fulbrighters.  It can be seen here and here.
  • Dr. Maria Martin of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies has been on a team with two NGOs, an Oxford researcher, and a clinical psychologist to complete a project under the COVID Rapid Response Grant that they won through the US Dept. of State.  The project brought therapy to vulnerable youth in an orphanage in Ibadan, Nigeria to address the mental health challenges brought on by the disruption of their lives by COVID. It has had a wonderful impact. They trained the orphanage staff on mental health awareness and provided youth with support and coping mechanisms. Some social media posts on it are here and here.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – March 2021

Acknowledgements and Awards

  • Dr. Deb Wiebe of Psychology has been selected by the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Child and Family Health SIG to receive its 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to Child and Family Health.

In The News

  • Dr. Charlie Eaton of Sociology co-authored a letter to connect academic research on racial and class inequalities to activism surrounding student debt and to push back on the idea that student-debt cancellation would disproportionately benefit the well-off. Read the full article here.

Collaboratives and Publications

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – February 2021

Acknowledgements and Awards

  • Dr. Jessica Trounstine of Political Science, along with graduate students Eddie Lucero, Ricardo Robles, and Ada Johnson-Kanu, has been named as a research partner with The Association of Bay Area Governments to collaborate on the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing program.  The award is facilitated through STIR Labs and will provide research funding for all three graduate student researchers.

In The News

Articles, Books, and Publications

  • Dr. Haifeng Huang of Political Science, along with Ph.D. student Nick Cruz, had a paper titled ”Propaganda, Presumed Influence, and Collective Protest” accepted for publication in Political Behavior.

Guest Editors

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Nancy Burke of Public Health was awarded a grant with UCLA titled: “STOP COVID-19 CA”.
  • Dr. Maria-Elena Young of Public Health was awarded a grant with Drexel University titled: “Multiple-levels of Influence on Access to Care for Latino Youth and Families”.
  • UC Merced Community and Labor Center Executive Director Ana Padilla was awarded a grant from the California Endowment titled: “Analyzing the Impact of COVID-19 on the Central Valley”.
  • Dr. Charlie Eaton of Sociology was awarded a grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation titled: “Online Predation and Race and Student Debt”.
  • Humanities Professor Arturo Arias, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Endowed Chair, is a co-PI on a University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grant titled “The Global Latinidades Project”. Scholars will take Latinx studies beyond North America to examine the global reach and impact of Latinx people in Africa, Asia and Europe, as well as Central and South America. Spiritual and cultural transformations, along with human rights and political struggles in worldwide Latinx communities, will also be explored. These discoveries will inform new and existing Latinx studies courses, publications and community partnerships which will be featured in an important international conference.
  • School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts Dean Jeffrey Gilger is a co-PI on the Living Through Upheaval project which is sponsored by a University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grant. The Living Through Upheaval project is a humanities initiative that includes research intended to address momentous changes facing human existence and culture, such as how people understand what constitutes contemporary modes of truth; the social and environmental impacts of massive demographic shifts; and, as artificial intelligence and robotics evolve, how the distinctively “human” features of human beings change. This project supports the Centers for the Humanities on all UC campuses.

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – December 2020

Acknowledgements and Awards

  • Dr. Virginia M. Adán-Lifante was recognized by the Modern Language Association for substantial contribution to the Spanish literature and teaching of language sections of the Modern Language Association’s International Bibliography database during the past academic year.
  • Congratulations to Dr. Irenee Beattie of Sociology, Ph.D. student Melissa Quesada, Dr. Whitney Pirtle of Sociology, undergraduate student Tatiana Howell, and SSHA’s Research Administrator Tuccoa Polk as UC Merced 2020-2021 Black Research Fellowship recipients. See more about the UC Merced Black Research Fellowship and a brief description of each of the projects here.

Articles and Publications

  • Dr. Meredith Van Natta of Sociology published an essay with colleagues from Duke University about how the Department of Homeland Security's latest plan to expand DNA collection for immigration enforcement lacks transparency and genetic data protections.
  • Dr. Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook of Psychology and incoming graduate student Jessica Marino have a new study suggesting that the breastmilk of mothers who have recovered from COVID-19 contains strong antibodies to the virus.

Films

Grant Awards

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – November 2020

Articles and Publications

  • Dr. Nicola Lercari of Anthropology and Heritage Studies has a new publication in Advances in Archaeological Practice stemming from community-engaged work on California cultural heritage in the Eastern Sierra Nevada (site of Bodie, CA).

Editorial and Curating Activities

  • Dr. Eric Walle of Psychology recently served as guest editor of a special section of the journal Emotion Review that focused on emotional development. The issue brings together international leaders in the study of emotion and emotional development, consisting of 4 target articles, 8 commentaries, and 4 author responses.

Grant Awards

  • Dr. Mariaelena Gonzalez of Public Health received a new grant award from The University of California Office of The President titled “Intersectionality of Religion and Immigration with Smoking among Arab Americans in California’s SJV”.

Interviews

SSHA Research and Scholarship News – October 2020

Articles, Podcasts, and Publications

  • UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center (CLC), in partnership with leading civic and community organizations, implemented a representative survey in the city of Fresno in August and September with nearly 2,400 registered voters (led by Dr. Paul Almeida of Sociology). The survey focused on needs assessment and the major social issues of 2020 and is called FRESNO SPEAKS. It is likely one of the largest representative samples of the city in the past five years. Initial findings have attracted the attention of major news outlets in the Central Valley and beyond, including ABC News, the Fresno Bee, and the LA Times.

Grant Awards:

  • Dr. Rowena Gray of Economics and Business Management received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Dr. Gray is Co-PI on the NSF grant in the Economics Program, working on the project "Historical Housing Data" with Allison Shertzer (Co-PI, Pittsburgh) and Ronan C. Lyons (Collaborator, Trinity College Dublin). They received $607,000 for 2020-2022 to build a new picture of historical living standards through improved measurement of housing prices and rents, using historical newspaper advertisements and the latest real estate economics techniques.

    SSHA Research and Scholarship News – September 2020

    Articles and Publications

    • Dr. Colin Holbrook’s recent research that explored the relationship between political orientation and precautionary responses to the COVID-19 pandemic was discussed in the New York Times.

    Books

    • “The Handbook of Behavior Change”, a major edited book, co-edited by Dr. Martin S. Hagger and Dr. Linda Cameron (Professors of Health Psychology), was launched this month. This Handbook is a one-of-a-kind edited work outlining the theory, research, and practical guidelines on how to change behavior authored by world-leading experts in the field. This is particularly relevant to current world and California-relevant issues such as minimizing coronavirus transmission in the current pandemic, reducing the risk of devastating wildfires, and promoting better healthcare for underserved communities.
    • Professor Michael Spivey of Cognitive and Information Sciences published a book with MIT Press, titled “Who You Are: The Science of Connectedness”. This book describes scientific evidence showing that you are more than a brain, more than a brain-and-body, and more than all your assumptions about who you are. Rather than peeling layers away to reveal the inner you, Spivey traces who you are outward. It is available in hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook formats.

    Grant Awards:

    • Dr. Lace Padilla of Cognitive and Information Sciences received a grant from the National Science Foundation titled: “Visualizing Epidemical Uncertainty for Personal Risk Assessment”.
    • Dr. Anna Epperson of Psychology received a grant from the Food and Drug Administration titled: “RTI International's National American Indian Campaign Evaluation (NAICE) Project“.
    • Dr. Colin Holbrook of Cognitive and Information Sciences received a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research titled: “Trust in Machine Agents Under Realistic Threat”. This human-robot interaction research will be conducted here at UC Merced as well as in collaboration with co-PI Alan Wagner at Penn State, and will use convergent online, laboratory, and VR methods to explore determinants of over- and under-reliance in physical robots or software agents under contexts of life-or-death decision-making.
    • Dr. Matthew Zawadzki of Psychology received a grant from the California Department of Public Health for a project with the Merced County Department of Public Health titled: “Longitudinal Breastfeeding Study”.

     

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