UC Merced’s Grad Slam champion is ready to take on the rest of CA’s best
It’s been more than a month since Tahirah Williams claimed the title of UC Merced’s 2026 Grad Slam champion.
Now she’s ready to compete against the other UC campus winners at the systemwide competition in Sacramento on Wednesday.
Grad Slam is a fast‑paced competition that challenges scholars to explain their research in an engaging presentation for a general audience. You can think of it as a higher-education “Shark Tank” pitch.
Back in March, Williams impressed the judges and an audience with her three-minute talk, “More Than Slime: When Mucus Meets the Valley Fever Invader” at UC Merced’s Dr. Vikram and Priya Lakireddy Grand Ballroom.
The fourth-year quantitative and systems biology PhD candidate from Jamaica said her biggest battle that day was nerves.
“I definitely felt the nerves, the anxiety, and my heart pounding,” she told UC Merced’s Brenda Ortiz.
She’s had some time to practice for the UC systemwide competition.
Williams got $5,000 for winning the UC Merced Grad Slam event, and has a chance at even more Wednesday. Last year’s systemwide winner took home $7,000.
Here are the other finalists:
- Christian Gerard Capuno, UCLA
- Maya McElfish, UC Santa Cruz
- Cameron Geller, UC Irvine
- Brandon Courteau, UC San Francisco
- Jack Goon, UC Davis
- Carla Bassil, UC Berkeley
- David Nikom, UC Riverside
- Kaylee Laub, UC Santa Barbara
- Joanna Eckhardt, UC San Diego
Williams hopes to become the second UC systemwide winner from UC Merced. UC Merced’s Shayna Bennett won the event in 2021.
The UC Grad Slam finals will be livestreamed starting at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Viewers can cast a vote for the People’s Choice Award.
