Materials Sciences

Zach Petrek, a second-year doctoral student in chemistry and chemical biology, can usually be found running experiments in the laboratory of his advisor, Professor Tao Ye. But this summer, he did something different — he went to NASA.

Petrek was one of seven UC Merced students to intern at NASA over the summer, an opportunity provided through MACES, the Merced nAnomaterials Center for Energy and Sensing.

A new paper from School of Engineering Professor Vincent Tung has made the cover of Advanced Materials, one of the top journals in materials science and engineering, and the research could one day lead to new sources of clean energy.

On Sept. 22, MacArthur "Genius" Award winner and Stanford University bioengineering Professor Manu Prakash will deliver the keynote lecture at the first annual open house for UC Merced’s Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM), a National Science Foundation Center of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (NSF-CREST).

A new study published in the journal Science may have major implications for the future of water purification.

As the frenzy surrounding the Aug. 21 solar eclipse begins to peak, physics Professor Wil van Breugel is using the opportunity to give Merced stargazers a crash course in the science and history of these astronomical curiosities.

“It’s important for people to fully appreciate the science,” van Breugel said. “This is an opportunity to try to explain things more fundamentally.”

Patricia LiWang was at an impasse.

UC Merced added a powerful new tool to the campus’s Ima

In rece

Scientists have been synthesizing lipid membranes from a variety of materials, making them as lifelike as possible to learn more about how cells work and how they can be manipulated.