Materials & Matter

Stretchy Material That Gets Stronger When Hit Has Exciting Potential

May 8, 2024

A flexible material that gets stronger the more it is hit and conducts electricity is shown.

Much of the work Yue (Jessica) Wang does at UC Merced sounds like science fiction: She creates flexible material that gets stronger the more you hit it. And it conducts electricity. Science, yes. Fiction, no. This work is happening. It was featured in a presentation materials scientist Di Wu...

Celebrate National Engineers Week with the Nine UC Engineering Schools and Programs

Founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) in 1951, National Engineers Week is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing...

Chemist Becomes Campus’ Second Cottrell Scholar

Theoretical chemist Professor Aurora Pribram-Jones has been named a Cottrell Scholar, winning one of only 24 of the prestigious $100,000 grants for her proposal entitled “Reframing...

McCloskey Earns a Place Among Fellows in Prestigious Bioengineering Organization

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has elected founding faculty member Professor Kara McCloskey into its College of Fellows for outstanding contributions to...

Physicist’s Exploration of 2D Materials Earns a CAREER Award

Professor David Strubbe has become the eighth faculty member of the 21-member Department of Physics to receive a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award for his research into improving the...

Hirst Selected for Prestigious Fellowship in the American Physical Society

Physics Professor Linda Hirst has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) by the APS Council of Representatives at its most recent meeting. This is the second consecutive year...

Professors Sarah Loebman, left, and Anna Nierenberg, right

Space Telescope Time and Data Analysis Boosting Astrophysics Studies This Fall

Dark matter and the life cycles of star clusters will come into focus as UC Merced’s astrophysicists get resources from the two space telescopes soon to be exploring the universe. NASA...

From left, professors Linda Hirst, Chris Amemiya and Valerie Leppert.

Researchers Unraveling Mysteries of Electrosensory Gel in Sharks, Skates

Cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and skates have a sixth sense, but it’s not ESP — it’s electrosense. Such fishes use hundreds or thousands of specialized organs to sense prey...

Professor Joel Spencer (far right) and members of his lab at UC Merced.

Spencer Lab Publishes New Technique for Live Imaging

Some scientific discoveries are a happy accident (think: penicillin). Others have been there all along, they just take a keen eye to notice, which was recently the case in Professor Joel Spencer...

Five Years in, CCBM Looking to Expand Research and Student Opportunities

From graduate student Jose Zamora’s perspective, the CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM) has been a spectacular success. “There is so much value to being part...

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