Alzheimer’s disease affects people all over the world and Kumaran Akilan’s family is no different.

As the first-year student from Cupertino waits to see if his grandfather’s mild cognitive impairment is indeed Alzheimer’s, Akilan has been busy deciphering a new way to diagnose the disease — with a smartphone.

With the help of a friend, Akilan recently developed a computer-vision algorithm that extracts the retinal vessel system and determines abnormalities that can help detect the presence of Alzheimer’s.

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.

For the first time, UC Merced’s doctoral programs in the sciences have been ranked among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 edition of Best Graduate Schools.

In a major advance in astronomy, scientists announced last month that they had observed two neutron stars colliding, a never-before-seen cosmic event that made headlines the world over — and two UC Merced computer scientists were instrumental in making it happen.

Computer enthusiasts from all areas of study gathered at UC Merced earlier this month for the second annual