School of Natural Sciences

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One Key to Climate Change Could Be Stuck in a Shark’s Tooth

Most people wouldn’t think sharks can teach researchers about the planet’s distant past and its more immediate future.

UC Merced paleoecologist Professor Sora Kim isn’t most people.

There’s a connection between data in fossilized shark teeth and climate change, and thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation, she aims to use that information to better understand climate change.

Grad Student Represents Valley at Global Food Security Symposium

Graduate student Vicky Espinoza shared the plight of some San Joaquin Valley families with a wide audience this spring in her role as a Next Generation delegate to this year’s Chicago Council on Global Affairs Global Food Security Symposium, entitled “From Scarcity to Security: Managing Water for a Nutritious Food Future.”

UC Merced Researchers Help Uncover Soil Biodiversity

A rigorous, first-of-its-kind global study provides new insights into the natural history of soil biodiversity and shows that changes in soil pH during soil development is a major driver of most of that biodiversity.

Commencement Behind the Scenes: A True Team Effort

It’s before dawn on a Saturday morning in mid-May — not a time anyone would expect the UC Merced campus to be busy. But it is.

This is Spring Commencement, and there is much work to do.

Parking and transportation staff are placing signage and temporary fencing. In the kitchens, dozens of dining and catering workers are preparing breakfast for thousands of people, including the police officers and transportation employees who will spend the morning guiding traffic, answering questions and maintaining order.

Grad Students Vie for Spot in UC Grad Slam Finals

UC Merced’s Graduate Division will host its Grad Slam competition on April 18 with graduate scholars presenting on topics ranging from Valley Fever immune response and antibiotic resistance to computer vision and mathematical methods for thermal collection. This year’s competition started in March with 30 graduate students in the qualifying round, from which the judges narrowed the field to the top 12.

The campus’s 2019 Grad Slam semi-finalists are:

First Partner, Lieutenant Governor to Speak at Spring Commencement

Two of the state’s leading political figures will make their return to UC Merced to serve as keynote speakers at the university’s 14th commencement exercises in May.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California’s First Partner, and Eleni Kounalakis, the state’s first female Lieutenant Governor, will address more than 1,300 graduates and their families over two ceremonies May 18-19. The Class of 2019 will be the largest in UC Merced’s history.

Graduate Students Make a Case for Research at Capitol

Two UC Merced Ph.D. students took to the State Capitol yesterday with representatives from the other UC campuses to advocate for the importance of the research being done across California.

NSF-Funded Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines Profiled at National Conference

The Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM) was recently highlighted in a video at the Biophysical Society (BPS) Annual Meeting in Baltimore. The conference brings together more than 6,000 attendees from all over the world.

Engineering Grad Programs Ranked Among Best in the Nation

UC Merced’s graduate programs in engineering had a strong showing in U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 edition of Best Graduate Schools, released today.

Overall, UC Merced’s School of Engineering is ranked No. 134 in the nation, after debuting at No. 140 in 2015.

New Project Aims to Predict People Likely to use Firearms in Suicides

The majority of people who die by suicide do so with firearms, and there were more firearm suicides in America in 2017 than there were homicides committed by any method. Combined.

Those shocking numbers from the FBI and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention are the impetus for two UC Merced professors from very different disciplines to join forces to try and predict who is most likely to commit suicide using a gun.