Faculty

Two UC Merced computer science and engineering professors will delve deep into artificial intelligence in projects with Amazon.

Applications are open for the 2026 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Data Science Challenge, a two-week summer internship that gives students a firsthand look at national lab research through high‑impact, data‑driven problem solving.

Our circadian clocks play a crucial role in our health and well-being, keeping our 24-hour biological cycles in sync with light and dark exposure. Disruptions in the rhythms of these clocks, as with jet lag and daylight saving time, can throw our daily rhythms out of whack.

But a group of researchers is getting closer to understanding how these clocks operate.

UC Merced biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang and his colleagues have solved how the circadian clocks in microscopic bacteria precisely control when different genes are turned on and off during the 24-hour cycle.

Biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang has spent much of his career studying how life keeps time. His work on the circadian clock of cyanobacteria — tiny, ancient organisms that share the planet with us — has shed light on one of biology’s most elegant systems.

But his newest research project, supported by a prestigious $1.2 million grant from the William M. Keck Foundation, pushes that inquiry into bold, uncharted territory.

UC Merced continues to demonstrate its growing influence on the global stage.

Several faculty members landed on Clarivate’s 2025 list of the world’s most‑cited researchers. The honor is reserved for the top 1% of scholars whose work has shaped their fields over the last 10 years. Clarivate, which produces journal impact factors and other analytics, says the award identifies the world’s most influential researchers.

Physics Ph.D. candidate Arabi Seshappan added two prestigious fellowships to her curriculum vitae: the Chateaubriand Fellowship in Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics & Biology-Health and the UC President's Pre-Professoriate Fellowship.

Starting next summer, UC Merced will join an elite group of University of California campuses hosting COSMOS — the California State Summer School for Math and Science — giving some of the state’s most talented high school students a new destination for exploring advanced STEM fields.

UC Merced researchers are collaborating on a two-year research project to develop effective composting methods for cotton textiles.

The project explores manufacturing cotton waste scraps from clothing into compost to demonstrate efficient composting with the right recipe, and the compost’s ability to nourish soils without introducing pollutants, according to UC Merced’s project lead, Biyensa Dubiwak, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences.

Professors Roger Bales and Martha Conklin arrived in Merced in 2003, the first non-administrative faculty members at UC Merced. They came with a vision: to create a research university that would serve California’s future.

Now, after more than 22 years of building institutions, mentoring and pioneering environmental research, Bales has retired from UC Merced.