Academics

As the number of cases of COVID-19 surge again globally as a result of the delta variant, world leaders are searching for ways to make more informed decisions on how to contain the pandemic. Researchers at UC Merced and Michigan State University (MSU) know what can provide early signs of the virus and help with critical decisions — sewage.

Shortly before the fall semester kicked off in person, 11 students were wrapping up their first summer on campus as part of the FACTS summer bridge program.

FACTS stands for San Joaquin Valley Food and Agriculture Cyberinformatics Tools and Science. The six-week summer course, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture, introduces students to the world of research in agricultural science and technology.

The University of California, Merced, continues its historic climb in the venerable US News & World Report rankings of U.S. universities, with the 2022 list released this morning.

UC Merced remains in the top 100, rising to 93rd among national universities — up 72 spots over four years. The campus is 38th among public universities and 18th among R2 universities.

Civil engineering usually brings to mind bridges and skyscrapers, but at UC Merced the engineering program extends far beyond that.  

This fall, UC Merced is launching a new civil engineering major that will sit within the existing civil and environmental engineering major. The program is available to first-year students and will focus on modern civil engineering concepts with an emphasis on sustainability.

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’s lab.

An observation Spencer made during his postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University laid the groundwork for his most recent publication in PLoS ONE titled “Intravital Fluorescence Microscopy with Negative Contrast.”

More than a few students have probably asked themselves why they have to take calculus — the course is notoriously difficult for some.

“People haven’t been taught math the way it should be,” Department of Applied Mathematics Professor Mayya Tokman said. “Math is practical. It’s there to solve problems and answer questions. But somehow, we lost that, and math is now taught as an abstract.”

Quantitative Systems Biology Graduate Program alumni Kinsey Brock and Robert Boria were awarded Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB) from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Boria and Brock — both former members of paleoecology Professor Jessica Blois’ research group — graduated in May with doctoral degrees and are headed to top universities to continue their important research.

Every time you surf the web, check your credit card balance, or even sign up for a class at UC Merced, you’re using a relational database.

Relational databases are basically the back end of operating software, aggregating information and culling results based on your search or query. Improving the speed of these results, known as query optimization, is the focus of computer science and engineering Professor Florin Rusu and his third-year graduate students Yesdaulet Izenov and Asoke Datta.

As part of its commitment to inclusive excellence in graduate research and education, UC Merced has awarded its new Chancellor’s Fellowship for Inclusive Excellence to four incoming Ph.D. students from the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts whose studies will contribute to the representation of Black scholars in academia and beyond.

While many are preparing to head off to college after an unprecedented year, a handful of students are already on UC Merced’s campus and working away in research labs. They’re part of the inaugural FACTS Bridge Program, a way for first-year and transfer students to get a head start on research and more.