Graduate Students

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Research Paper Explores how the Type of Renewable Energy Affects the Needs for Energy Storage

As more renewable energy projects take hold in California, there is more need for effective ways to store that energy.

A paper published by a UC Merced research team examines how the need for storage can vary for different combinations of renewable resources.

Student Researchers Working with National Lab on Mercury Remediation

At UC Merced, mercury is a regional challenge that student and faculty researchers have been tackling for several years. Mercury was used to extract gold during the Gold Rush in California, and the element was also mined at the New Almaden site, at one time the second-largest mercury mine in the world near today’s Silicon Valley.

Research Week Highlights Solutions to Urgent Environmental Issues

It's time for the campus and the community to celebrate UC Merced’s high-level research during Research Week, March 6 through 10.

The annual research showcase, hosted by the Office of Research and Economic Development, kicks off with a Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI) event titled “Climate, Environment and Health: Impacting the San Joaquin Valley and Beyond.”

Record Number of Students Apply to UC Merced

UC Merced once again broke a record for the number of first-year applications the university received, continuing to show impressive growth even as the national trend shows a decline in the number of students enrolling in higher education.

More than 26,000 prospective first-year, or freshmen, students applied for admission to the university. And nearly 4,000 students applied to transfer to UC Merced. Most of the applicants are from California.

CIS Ph.D. Student Gains Confidence at NIH Internship

Cognitive and Information Sciences (CIS) Ph.D. student Ben Nguyen spent last summer working as a data analyst at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Alumna Credits UC Merced for Inspiring Her Interest in Cancer Research

After transferring from a Sacramento community college to UC Merced in 2007, Maxine Umeh-Garcia was unsure of her future career. She admits she hadn’t looked at the majors the newest UC offered before applying and imagined she’d teach high school math.

She met with her academic advisor and learned the campus offered an applied mathematics major, not pure mathematics. They discussed other options and came to a stalemate.

Alumni Success Celebrated at Inaugural Math Event

The Department of Applied Mathematics, the Applied Mathematics Graduate Program and the student chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) celebrated their many successful alumni recently by holding their inaugural Distinguished Alumni event and giving the Outstanding Graduate Alumni Award to Nitesh Kumar, who graduated with his Ph.D. in 2013.

Award Supports Study of Fish Embryos to Understand Process that Affects Birth Defects

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has given Professor Stephanie Woo the CAREER award to help her delve into congenital birth defects by looking at the embryonic cells of zebrafish.

Woo is the 32nd researcher from UC Merced to earn a CAREER award.

Solar Projects Yielding Exciting Potential for Dairies, Other Industries

A company started by UC Merced founding faculty member Roland Winston - and staffed by alumni - is looking for partners for some exciting solar projects. And the government could cover the costs.

Winston Cone Optics seeks to develop pilot projects that use solar energy to heat water, evaporate waste and remove salt from wastewater.

Findlater First at UC Merced to Join DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas that is contributing to irreversible climate change. Scientists know how to capture CO2, and they know how to transform it into useful molecules and materials.

But that transformation is neither energy nor cost-effective.

Through a prestigious grant from the Department of Energy (DOE), a diverse group of scientists, including a chemist from UC Merced, plan to address that problem by coupling two chemistries which are known to work independently, but don't work well together.