Faculty

The Class of 2009 were pioneers of the Bobcat spirit, overcoming obstacles and defying the odds. Ten years later, we look back at UC Merced’s formative beginnings from the perspectives of those who lived the journey. 

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Audio has become a top form of entertainment over the past several years, in large part due to the rising popularity of podcasts. UC Merced graduate students are seizing the opportunity to help improve science literacy.

A group of Quantitative and Systems Biology (QSB) graduate students started RadioBio, a science podcast that discusses biology topics, in 2016. The podcast sparked from a discussion between the students and Professor Fred Wolf during a graduate professional skills development course.

Professor Clarissa Nobile has been named the newest Kamangar Family Endowed Chair in Biological Sciences and will be honored at a private ceremony with the donors this fall.

“I am so pleased and honored to have been named to this chair,” Nobile said. “Thank you for investing in me and the future of biomedical research on infectious diseases at UC Merced.”

UC Merced is offering the opportunity for Valley residents to learn what clinicians and researchers know about Valley fever, an airborne fungal infection that can have serious, even fatal, consequences for people across California and the Southwest.

A multi-campus Valley fever summit in the California Room at UC Merced on Oct. 25 is free and open to all who reserve seats online by 5 p.m. Oct. 15.

It’s a new school year, which also happens to be a new chapter of the UC Merced Writing Project.

The UC Merced Writing Project is a local affiliation of the National Writing Project, which aims to improve writing skills among students as well as the art of teaching writing among educators.

The National Writing Project’s mission is to enhance student achievement by improving the teaching of writing, and therefore learning, in the nation’s schools.

Harvesting is said to be one of the most costly and labor-intensive operations in strawberry production.

But a UC Merced engineering researcher is looking for ways to make it easier and cheaper. As part of a four-year project, Professor Reza Ehsani will explore the possibilities and benefits of people and robots picking the fruit together.

Lauren Schiebelhut credits the support and opportunities afforded to her at UC Merced with opening the door to her research career.

Schiebelhut — a first-generation transfer student from Fresno — earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from UC Merced in May 2009 but was uncertain about her future.

Math at UC Merced isn’t exactly like math at most other universities.

Sure, there are parabolas and equations, orders of operations and cosines, but at this campus, those lead into topics such as Mad Cow Disease, coral photosynthesis and a crab’s sense of smell.

Two UC Merced physics groups are totally spacing out this year.

Professors Sayantani Ghosh and David Strubbe and their students in the Department of Physics are working on a NASA initiative to fabricate solar cells in space and turn sunlight into electricity.

Developmental biologist Professor Anna Beaudin and her lab are making breakthrough discoveries in a growing field of research that could lead to exciting developments in such medical puzzles as cancer treatments, regenerative medicine and the cause of autism.

She examines the mechanisms of how distinct blood stem cells are established during fetal development, how and why they give rise to the cells that make up human immune systems, how these cells work and what happens when something goes wrong.