The undergraduate engineering curriculum at UC Merced offers students professional experience by participating in the senior capstone project, the Innovation Design Clinic (IDC). The IDC culminates in the Innovate to Grow event on Friday, May 17, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in an annual showcase of student talent and ingenuity, highlighting the culture of entrepreneurship in UC Merced’s School of Engineering .

Two UC Merced Ph.D. students took to the State Capitol yesterday with representatives from the other UC campuses to advocate for the importance of the research being done across California.

Climate change is having a profound effect on the millions of migrating birds that rely on annual stops along the Pacific Flyway as they head from Alaska to Patagonia each year.

They are finding less food, saltier water and fewer places to breed and rest on their long journeys, according to a new paper in Nature’s Scientific Reports.

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.

It’s estimated that a leaf-cutter ant colony can strip an average tree of its foliage in a day, and that more than 17 percent of leaf production by plants surrounding a colony goes straight into their giant, fungus-growing nests.

It’s no wonder these ants are considered the smallest recyclers on the planet and are referred to as "ecosystem engineers" by scientists because of the effects they have on the environment around them.

Climate change and wildfire make a combustible mix with deadly and costly consequences.

Scientists have been trying to understand that link for many years, studying the effects of climate and wildfire interactions in the Sierra Nevada.

UC Merced Professor LeRoy Westerling and University of New Mexico Professor Matthew Hurteau and colleagues have analyzed data via simulations of Sierra wildfires, and what they found was surprising.

A $4.6 million grant to UCs Merced and Irvine will help researchers develop new tools and methods for better managing the state’s forests, shrub lands and grasslands.

Imagine a cell phone you can fold up and carry in your wallet. When you drop it, nothing cracks or breaks, or if it does, it repairs itself. And when it’s time for an upgrade, the old phone will biodegrade instead of taking up space in a landfill.

Maybe you’d rather wear your laptop or tablet in the fibers of your clothes, or wear a monitor that provides constant data about your health but feels no different than your own skin.

UC Merced researchers have evidence that California’s forests are especially vulnerable to multi-year droughts because their health depends on water stored several feet below ground.

Growing up in San Juan Bautista, Vanessa Andrade loved hanging out with her father and his collection of cars and tractors.

She spent hours in the “barn” or shop, helping change the oil in cars, playing with tools and tinkering with her grandfather’s old Allis-Chalmers tractor. So perhaps it’s no surprise that this UC Merced senior — and Chancellor’s Scholar — found her academic calling in mechanical engineering.

On Dec. 15, Andrade will participate in the university’s fall commencement ceremony. She next plans to pursue a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.