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Two MacArthur Foundation Chairs Awarded to Female SSHA Faculty

November 9, 2020
Two female faculty members of UC Merced’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (SSHA) have been named the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation chairs, making four prestigious chairs in the campus’ 15-year history. Professors Nancy Burke and Whitney Pirtle have been recognized as...

Sliding on Waves of Atoms: Lab Is First to Observe Ripples and Friction on 2D Materials

November 5, 2020
Mechanical Engineering Professor Mehmet Baykara’s latest discovery in two-dimensional (2D) materials will have implications for future space missions, as well as nanotechnology on Earth. Since the Nobel prize-winning discovery of 2D materials in 2004, scientists have believed the crystalline...

New Precision Ag Project Would Help Farmers Measure Plant Moisture

November 2, 2020
One of the biggest challenges in managing crops, especially in large fields, is knowing how much water each section of a field needs. Determining that accurately is a cumbersome process that requires people to hand-pluck individual leaves from plants, put them in pressure chambers and apply air...

Researchers Seek to Understand Messy Proteins that are Critical to Cellular Function

October 27, 2020
Biophysical chemistry Professor Shahar Sukenik and the graduate students in his lab are trying to make sense out of what might seem to some to be chaos. They aim to better understand how a series of floppy, malleable proteins function — or malfunction — inside cells. The work has earned Sukenik a $...

Grad Services Bolstered to Better Support Students Remotely

October 26, 2020
UC Merced’s Graduate Division provides many programs throughout the year to ensure students succeed academically, including faculty and peer mentoring programs, free tutoring, and social and well-being activities to help foster a sense of belonging and community. Given the unprecedented...

Public Health Professors Study COVID-19 Impact on Rural, Latinx Health

October 22, 2020
The coronavirus has impacted everyone in different ways and three public health professors are examining specifically how rural, Latinx communities in California have been affected in a new study funded by the University of California Office of the President. California deemed agriculture an...

Virtual Summer Academy, Other Sessions, Reached Students Around the Country

October 21, 2020
Students and faculty worked with a record number of schoolchildren from Merced, the Bay Area and southern California all the way to Washington, D.C., enriching their learning and increasing their interest in science, technology, engineering and math. About 1,550 K-12 students, teachers and...

Statewide Coalition Forming to Bring COVID Awareness to At-Risk Communities

October 20, 2020
A new coalition of universities and community partners across the state — including UC Merced —aims to address the COVID-19 pandemic in communities that are disproportionally affected. A $4.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s Community Engagement Alliance Against COVID-19...

Hard Shells and Electrosensory Gels: Lab Makes Surprising Discovery

October 19, 2020
Molecular biology Professor Chris Amemiya and his former graduate student Molly Phillips have made a discovery that upends traditional ideas about a structural polysaccharide called chitin that is found in some fish. Over the course of their studies, they collected evidence that chitin — which...

New UC President Drake Praises Merced for Research, Diversity, Student Success

October 19, 2020
In just 15 years since its founding, UC President Michael V. Drake, M.D., said UC Merced has come to embody the best of what the University of California has to offer when it comes to research excellence, social mobility and diversity.   Drake chose UC Merced as the first campus he would visit...

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