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Congrats to CogSci graduates!

May 19, 2025
Congratulations to all CogSci graduates! On Friday May 16, we celebrated the achievements of a half-dozen junior cognitive-scientists who were awarded their PhDs during UC Merced's Graduate Commencement. And then on Sunday May 18, dozens of CogSci majors and minors walked the stage during...

CogSci major wins campus research award

March 20, 2025
Cognitive Science undergraduate student Maya Manesh has been awarded the Carter Joseph Abrescy and Larry Kranich Library Award for Student Research Excellence. Awarded annually by the UC Merced Library, the award "recognizes students who demonstrate effective use of UC Merced library and...

Students organize successful "Brain Waves" symposium

March 15, 2025
More than seventy-five undergraduate students, graduate students, and professors attended the first annual Brain Waves Research Symposium and Conference on March 1. The event was organized by UC Merced's Cognitive Science Student Association, a student-run campus club...

Why the Battle Against Cancer Needs Awesome Video Games

January 23, 2025
  Read UC Merced's Newroom Story HERE.

Are there equitable pathways to college for the Central Valley's students? CIS Prof. Aguirre-Muñoz has the data

November 20, 2024
Prof. Zenaida Aguirre-Muñoz has released a progress update from the first phase of "Advancing Educational Opportunity in the Central Valley Project," a research initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Do high school students in the Central Valley, especially students...

Study: People Facing Life-or-Death Choice Put Too Much Trust in AI

September 4, 2024
In simulated life-or-death decisions, about two-thirds of people in a UC Merced study allowed a robot to change their minds when it disagreed with them -- an alarming display of excessive trust in artificial intelligence, researchers said. Human subjects allowed robots to sway their judgment...

Prof. Morten Christiansen (Cornell & Aarhus) receives Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award from Cognitive & Information Sciences Department

August 20, 2024
The Cognitive & Information Sciences Department at the University of California, Merced, is pleased to announce that the 15th recipient of the Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award is Professor Morten Christiansen (Cornell University & Aarhus University). Professor Christiansen has...

Cognitive Science for the Common Good Workshop on Genocide

May 20, 2024
Understanding Genocide: Neural, Psychological and Political Science Perspectives Interdisciplinary Online Workshop | 5.17.24 The Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences recently organized an online workshop, “Understanding Genocide: Neural, Psychological and Political...

CIS Ph.D. Student Zunaira Iqbal Named ARCS Scholar for Research on Neuroscience of Bilingualism

November 13, 2023
Four UC Merced graduate students can focus fully on their research and academic studies this year thanks to a generous gift from the Northern California Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation. ARCS, a national organization established and operated entirely by...

Professor Paul Smaldino's First Book Released by Princeton University Press

November 6, 2023
Cognitive and Information Sciences Professor Paul Smaldino has written a new textbook, "Modeling Social Behavior," a textbook that will educate generations of students who want to better understand social and cultural dynamics. Read more about the book.

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