Earlier this month, Ambarish Varadan competed in UC Merced’s Grad Slam finals and seized the title of Campus Champion.
This was the second time the Quantitative and Systems Biology (QSB) Ph.D. candidate from Fremont vied for the top prize. Last year, he placed second among the top 10 contenders.
UC Merced Foundation Board Trustee Robert Bernstein, M.D., and his wife, Diplomat Jane Binger, Ed.D., have made generous donations to support Grad Slam.
Varadan earned the $5,000 grand prize and the opportunity to represent UC Merced at the University of California Grad Slam competition Friday. Second place and $2,000 was awarded to Cognitive and Information Sciences graduate student Alejandra Santoyo. Applied Mathematics graduate student Cayce Fylling and Chemistry and Biochemistry Pravien Rajaram tied for third place and each won $1,000.
“I’m honored to represent UC Merced at the UC finals this year,” he said. “It has and continues to be a great learning experience for me. I'm used to reading about the latest work being conducted in my specific field of study. But participating in Grad Slam gave me the opportunity to learn about different, exciting areas of research being conducted in different departments at UC Merced.”
When he started his graduate studies at UC Merced in 2018, he spent his first year rotating through School of Natural Sciences labs.
“It was a great opportunity because not only was I exposed to different areas of research, but I also got to know a lot of my graduate student cohort, senior students and faculty,” Varadan said.
