Campus

The University of California, Merced, continues its historic climb in the venerable US News & World Report rankings of U.S. universities, with the 2022 list released this morning.

UC Merced remains in the top 100, rising to 93rd among national universities — up 72 spots over four years. The campus is 38th among public universities and 18th among R2 universities.

Civil engineering usually brings to mind bridges and skyscrapers, but at UC Merced the engineering program extends far beyond that.  

This fall, UC Merced is launching a new civil engineering major that will sit within the existing civil and environmental engineering major. The program is available to first-year students and will focus on modern civil engineering concepts with an emphasis on sustainability.

UC Merced’s superb sustainability and environmental reputation continue to be a powerhouse, with The Princeton Review placing the campus among only three UCs on its ‘2022 Green Honor Roll.’ The campus also remains on the Times Higher Education Young University Rankings at No.3.

While the campus remained quieter than usual this summer, a group of new graduate students began their UC Merced journey earlier than the rest of their cohort.

Since opening its doors in August 2005, the UC Merced Library has served as the hub of the campus. That all changed when the coronavirus pandemic hit and the building was forced to close in March 2020. Now, the library is gearing up to reopen its doors on Aug. 16 and welcome back members of the university and community.

The University of California Office of the President awarded three out of only seven UC-Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Initiative grants to UC Merced faculty members.

The initiative has fostered faculty partnerships with HBCUs to support enhanced diversity and representation of Black scholarship in graduate education and the professoriate since 2017.

Quantitative Systems Biology Graduate Program alumni Kinsey Brock and Robert Boria were awarded Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB) from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Boria and Brock — both former members of paleoecology Professor Jessica Blois’ research group — graduated in May with doctoral degrees and are headed to top universities to continue their important research.

Every time you surf the web, check your credit card balance, or even sign up for a class at UC Merced, you’re using a relational database.

Relational databases are basically the back end of operating software, aggregating information and culling results based on your search or query. Improving the speed of these results, known as query optimization, is the focus of computer science and engineering Professor Florin Rusu and his third-year graduate students Yesdaulet Izenov and Asoke Datta.

As part of its commitment to inclusive excellence in graduate research and education, UC Merced has awarded its new Chancellor’s Fellowship for Inclusive Excellence to four incoming Ph.D. students from the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts whose studies will contribute to the representation of Black scholars in academia and beyond.

While many are preparing to head off to college after an unprecedented year, a handful of students are already on UC Merced’s campus and working away in research labs. They’re part of the inaugural FACTS Bridge Program, a way for first-year and transfer students to get a head start on research and more.