Energy & Environment

UC Merced Aerial Picture
Professor and Environmental Champion Bales Retires, But Research and Advocacy Continue
November 10, 2025
Professors Roger Bales and Martha Conklin arrived in Merced in 2003, the first non-administrative faculty members at UC Merced. They came with a vision: to create a research university that would serve California’s future. Now, after more... Read More
UC Merced Earns Perfect Score, Ranks 7th in Nation on Princeton Review’s ‘Top 50 Green Colleges’ List
November 9, 2025
UC Merced was recognized again as a national leader in sustainability, earning a perfect Green Rating score and ranking No. 7 in the nation on The Princeton Review’s 2025 list of Top 50 Green Colleges. The ranking highlights universities... Read More
UC Merced Joins Program Promoting Bees Around Campus
October 29, 2025
UC Merced has long been a place where students can thrive. Now the university has been recognized for its commitment to increase the abundance of native and other pollinators. The campus has become an affiliate of the Bee Campus USA... Read More
Multinational Effort to Map South Africa’s Biodiversity from the Air Earns NASA Award
October 15, 2025
BioSCape, a multinational research project co-led by UC Merced, the University at Buffalo and the University of Cape Town, which monitored Earth’s biodiversity from the air, has received a Group Achievement Award as part of the 2024-25... Read More
Wildfire Disasters Surged in the Past 10 Years, Study Shows
October 2, 2025
Nearly half of the world’s worst wildfire disasters have occurred in just the past decade, new research from UC Merced’s Fire Resilience Center shows. A study published Thursday in the journal Science reveals that 43 percent of... Read More
Forest Carbon: Store it or Burn it? Actually, Both is Best
September 25, 2025
Storing carbon in forests is an essential, nature-based buffer against climate change. Yet forests packed with too many trees increase the threat of severe wildfires, which are becoming all too common in warmer, drier conditions. A team of... Read More
AI-Powered Irrigation System Offers Opportunities for Communications as well as Farming
September 24, 2025
An almond orchard in Parlier provides a look into the future of farming. Researchers at UC Merced and the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources installed an irrigation system powered by artificial intelligence to... Read More
From Soil to Climate Solutions: Berhe Leads Sierra Nevada Research Institute into its Next Chapter
September 11, 2025
When Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe arrived at UC Merced in 2009, she and her husband, Professor Teamrat Ghezzehei, were leaving major research institutions to join a brand-new campus in California’s Central Valley. It was a leap of faith... Read More
Research into Hidden Chemistry Shaping Future Air Quality Earns Zhang an NSF Award
September 8, 2025
As nations cut emissions that once fueled urban smog, scientists are discovering unexpected chemistry taking place in the atmosphere. UC Merced Professor Xuan Zhang is leading a project to uncover how these chemical shifts could affect the... Read More
Hellman Fellowships Welcome Three New Members from UC Merced
September 4, 2025
As the Hellman Fellowships celebrate their 30th year, three more researchers, one from each of UC Merced’s schools, have joined the prestigious ranks of recipients. Electrical engineering Professor Qian Wang, sociology Professor Meredith... Read More