Faculty

Mechanical thinning of overstocked forests, prescribed burning and managed wildfire now being carried out to enhance fire protection of California's forests provide many benefits, or ecosystem services, that people depend on.

Mechanical engineering Professor Ashlie Martini has been awarded the Monya Lane and Robert Bryant Presidential Chair in Excellence in Engineering. She is one of two women to be appointed to endowed chairs in the School of Engineering this year.

Lane and Bryant, retired engineers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, established the endowment in 2019. Martini will serve as the inaugural chair holder.

Engineering Professor Sarah Kurtz has been awarded the Reno Ferrero Family Chair in Electrical Engineering, making her the second woman to hold an endowed chair in the School of Engineering.

"I am truly honored to have been chosen for this chair, not only because of the donor and his achievements, that because this is going to greatly further the electrical engineering program at UC Merced," Kurtz said.

The state budget passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom promises tens of millions of dollars for UC Merced to build the next generation of world-class programs and facilities.

The budget appropriates new funding for campus expansion, climate-related initiatives, the university's Community and Labor Center and a potential housing partnership.

UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow Hannah Palmer, Ph.D., was named as the 2022-23 Congressional Science Fellow by the Geological Society of America (GSA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and will spend a year in Washington, D.C., working for a member of Congress or a congressional committee beginning in September 2022.

Green energy solutions are critical to meet current and future power demands, and while solar and wind power are great, they are also site-specific and intermittent.

Distinguished Professor Roland Winston was among the first eight faculty members at UC Merced in 2003, two years before the campus opened. When he retires July 1, at age 86, he will be the first of those eight to leave — but his work on solar energy applications will continue.

It's not hyperbolic to say Winston is a really big deal in the worlds of physics and solar energy.

The biannual School of Engineering showcase event, Innovate to Grow (I2G), continued in-person and virtually this spring. The event highlighted innovative engineering design projects that were developed by undergraduates in partnership with 36 industry and nonprofit clients.

The event began with a poster and prototype session that included 66 teams and 330 students showcasing their projects in the Joseph E. Gallo Recreation & Wellness Center.

Ph.D. student Sarah Downs was awarded the prestigious Department of Defense (DOD) Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) scholarship.

The Department of Defense is committed to developing a highly skilled STEM workforce and is the largest employer of federal scientists and engineers, with nearly 150,000 civilian STEM employees working across the DOD.

An international team of researchers, including Professor Clarissa Nobile from UC Merced, has discovered which component in mucus prevents a fungus most humans carry from turning destructive.

This research lays the foundation for a new class of antifungal medicines.