Faculty

A biology professor at the University of California, Merced, discovered mechanisms that allow a potentially fatal biofilm to spread and resist drugs.

UC Merced is one of the greenest campuses in the nation, with 100 percent of its new construction having earned LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Those certifications have been earned on the basis of building construction practices, such as integrating recycled materials and diverting tons of waste from landfills for reuse, better mechanical and electrical systems

Professor Florin Rusu’s passion for analyzing voluminous amounts of data has won him a prestigious early-career award from the federal Department of Energy, making him the fifth of the nine eligible faculty members in the computer science and engineering group to earn the honor, and the first one to get this award from the DoE.

There’s a tendency for researchers to only study leftist movements, but a new book co-edited by UC Merced sociology Professor Nella Van Dyke analyzes the Tea Party movement.

For the past several years, art history Professor ShiPu Wang has been on a detective mission to find every work produced by a group of overlooked artists from the early 20th century.

At two weekend ceremonies, UC Merced conferred degrees on more than 1,000 commencement candidates who said goodbye to the campus they called home for the past four or more years of their lives.

Climate change is creating two problems. One is understanding and addressing its impact on the world. The other is convincing large swaths of the public that it is, in fact, a reality.

In an effort to spur people to take action to prevent ecological disaster, researchers with the new UC Merced Center for Climate Communications are studying the best ways to spread the message.

MERCED, Calif. — From disposable drones mapping wildfire perimeters to increasing the number of young students interested in science, technology, engineering and math studies, this year’s engineering capstone and Innovate to Grow teams have real, impactful work to show off.

The annual Innovate to Grow competition and expo at UC Merced takes place Friday, May 16, across campus, with a variety of events including demonstrations of each team’s work, plus blue-ribbon panels and cash prizes. The events are free and open to the public.

The National Science Foundation is honoring UC Merced Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe with a Faculty Early Career Development Award to support her examination of how soil helps regulate the climate.

The awards are given to junior faculty members who “who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations,” the NSF said.

The entrepreneurial mindset is as much an inherent part of the atmosphere at UC Merced as it is at any start-up.

But now two students, Eduardo Rojas-Flores and Nick Fong, are on a mission to help bring even greater levels of innovation and venture activity to the campus.