School of Engineering

Professor Martha Conklin started her career at UC Merced at the Castle Research Facility, and it began with a frightening surprise.

“I had a baby rattlesnake in my office,” she said. “The whole building was snake-infested before UC Merced moved in. But it's a small thing — there were a lot of things to work out back then.”

Four UC Merced researchers will share in the new California Climate Action Seed Grants and Matching Grants, which are the result of an historic partnership between the University of California and the state of California.

The University today announced it is awarding over $80 million in climate action grants to spur implementation of solutions that directly address state climate priorities.

For UC Merced students working to maintain the campus's Experimental Smart Farm this summer, the day's tasks can range from the high-tech to the grubby.

Kat Corti and Austin Mercado, both fourth-year students come fall, are spending their summer tending the farm and preparing it for what's next. Also working at the farm this summer is Adam Mercado, Austin's twin brother.

Two of mechanical engineering Professor Ricardo de Castro 's Ph.D. students recently earned awards for their research on electric vehicles.

Dilawer Ali, whose work centers on the electrification of tractors, won the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) award for the best student poster presentation in California during the 2023 Agricultural Equipment Technology Conference (AETC23).

After seven months of working for hours each weekend to design, build and fly a drone, it all came down to a nervous moment for UC Merced students taking part in a worldwide competition.

Their drone had to be suspended between two poles and held together while weight was placed inside it.

"We were a little bit nervous," said team member Alex Minton. "We didn't have the best luck with our prototypes."

But the team's drone held up, though there was some concerning creaking at one point, the team members said.

Merced, California, and Kyoto, Japan, are nearly 5,500 miles apart, but their research universities' shared goals to improve society is bringing them together. A new agreement between institutions of higher education in both cities will foster collaboration among researchers and an exchange of students.

The USDA-funded Secure Water Future (SWF) team at UC Merced believes that to fully understand water, you must do more than just study this vital resource. You must immerse yourself in it - sometimes, literally.

A recent trip to Utah that culminated in rafting The Gates of Lodore on the Green River allowed student participants to both learn about and experience water, in all its forms. This was the second year for this trip, and thanks to this winter's heavy and lengthy snowfall, students got to see the solid form of water, as well.

New students or those who have not yet chosen their majors will have an array of options before them.

Five new majors and several new emphases, ranging across all three schools, are all coming online in 2024 and are recruiting students now.

New bachelor’s of science degrees:

• chemical engineering
• data science and computing
• public health

New bachelor’s of arts degrees:

• data science and analytics
• environmental humanities

New emphases:

In the mechanical engineering major:

Professor Ahmed Sabbir Arif has received a CAREER award for his research into non-acoustic, image-based speech input on mobile devices.

He is the 35th researcher from UC Merced to earn a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Each year, faculty members are specially recognized by their peers in the Academic Senate for a variety of accomplishments.

This year’s Academic Senate awards honor faculty from across the three schools for their outstanding teaching, research, impacts on their fields and mentorship, as well as their dedication to diversity and scholarly public service in the 2022-23 academic year.