Engineering

People don’t often think of deformation as a good thing.

A collaboration between a dean and a professor and a grant from the National Science Foundation have made UC Merced part of a national nanotechnology-biology hub that will expand both knowledge and opportunities for students in Merced.

Researchers at the university in your backyard are delving into issues of great importance to the San Joaquin Valley, the state, the nation and the world.

You can learn more about their work at the eighth annual UC Merced Research Week, from March 4 through 8, on campus and in downtown Merced.

Research at UC Merced encompasses cancer; diabetes; climate change; water, soil and air quality; water availability; nanotechnology and robotics; history; mapping; archaeology; human genes; and much, much more.

Peek in the windows at the Mechatronics, Embedded Systems and Automation (MESA) Lab sometime. You’ll probably see students flying small remote-controlled vehicles at all hours of the day and night.

Sometimes the students are having so much fun they have to be pushed to go home and sleep.

But what seems like a hobby or diversion is actually serious research.

MERCED, Calif. — UC Merced honored the Pacific Gas and Electric Company with the School of Engineering’s inaugural Vanguard Award today with a special ceremony to thank the company for all it has done for engineering students.

“PG&E is honored to receive the inaugural Vanguard Award from UC Merced’s School of Engineering,” said PG&E President Chris Johns. “More than that, we’re proud to contribute to the foundations of this university — a diverse and environmentally minded campus that’s shaping the leaders and innovators of tomorrow’s energy workforce.”

Students with a variety of skills and perspectives make up a team that’s taking engineering principles into some of the area’s wildlands to further education and promote awareness about the environment.

UC Merced is one of only seven universities nationwide to receive a grant from the Council of Graduate Schools to develop new approaches for enhancing graduate student skills for assessing undergraduate learning, and to help prepare students for future careers as university faculty members.

In addition to being the only UC campus to receive a grant, UC Merced is among prestigious company.

More than two dozen UC Merced undergraduates spent the summer exploring a tiny but hot topic — materials 100,000 times slimmer than a human hair that are poised to revolutionize sensing, data collection and other technologies.

Zhijiang "Justin" Ye wasn’t expecting to attend the newest campus in the UC system.

He just wanted to work with Professor Ashlie Martini.

When Ye, then a student at University of Minnesota, connected with Martini and asked to join her research group, he found out she wasn’t staying at Purdue University, where he planned to earn his doctoral degree.

Sometimes, all you need is a little push, even if it comes from a mechanical arm.

That was the case with the UC Merced Robotics Society, which began in 2008 but languished after its founders graduated. This past year, though, the club’s newer members got a jump start from dedicated leadership and the programming and creativity of one of their colleagues.