Vice Provost for Academic Personnel: Teenie Matlock
Teenie Matlock is the McClatchy Chair in Communications, Professor of Cognitive Science, and Founding Faculty, at the University of California, Merced, where she currently serves as Vice Provost for Academic Personnel. She received her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from UC Santa Cruz, lectured at UC Berkeley, and did postdoctoral research at Stanford University. She has also worked as a research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute and at IBM Research.
A cognitive scientist and linguist by training, Dr. Matlock's research focuses on the semantics of everyday language. Some of her work investigates how metaphors are used “in the wild”, for instance, in discourse about climate change, technology, illness, time, and mathematics. Other work examines how subtle alterations in grammatical content of political messages can affect voter attitude. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, and has been awarded about $3M in collaborative research funding.
Matlock was Associate Editor for Cognitive Linguistics, and has served on the editorial boards of many journals, including Cognitive Science, Environmental Communication, and Metaphor & Symbol. She was a member of governing board of the Cognitive Science Society and a standing member of NIH’s Language and Communication Study Section. She has received awards for excellence in teaching and mentoring.
VP-AP Teenie Matlock’s CV
Associate Vice Provost for the Faculty: Zulema Valdez
Zulema Valdez is professor of sociology at UC Merced.
Grounded in theories of intersectionality, areas of research and teaching expertise include the study of immigrant entrepreneurship, undocumented students in higher education, and health disparities and food access in low-resource immigrant and ethnic minority communities.
Professor Valdez has received fellowship and grant support from the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Her work has been published in many academic journals and edited volumes. She is the author of two books, The New Entrepreneurs: How Race, Class and Gender Shape American Enterprise (Stanford, 2011) and Entrepreneurs and the Search for the American Dream (Routledge, 2015). In her efforts to advance social justice and engage with the larger community, she volunteers as facilitator for the Insight Garden Program at Chowchilla Women’s Prison and serves on the advisory board for the American Bar Foundation’s Network for Justice research initiative, “The Future of Latinos in the United States: Law, Opportunity, and Mobility.” Valdez holds a PhD in Sociology from UCLA.
Valdez is currently developing a new area of research on the “future-present” of climate change.
Associate VPF Zulema Valdez's CV
Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Personnel: Kelly Anders
Kelly Anders is the Assistant Vice Provost of Academic Personnel at UC Merced. Kelly has over 15 years of experience in the area of academic personnel. She advises the administration, deans, department chairs, staff and academics on all matters related to academic personnel policies, collective bargaining agreements, procedures, and practices, including advancements, leaves of absence, compensation, and a wide scope of other issues. Kelly also provides leadership and analytical support for development and integration of multiple information technology solutions for academic personnel processes. Kelly completed graduate work at Augsburg University and has published several articles on leadership.
