Research Excellence

California’s drought was hard not to notice — the dry lawns, fallowed fields and hot temperatures were evident across the state. To better understand how the drought affected the natural ecosystem in which we live, biology Professor Jason Sexton and his graduate students conducted a study on a California plant known only from the Sierra Nevada — the cut-leaf monkey flower.

Durable, reliable, affordable solar power is the future of energy, and UC Merced computational physicist Professor David Strubbe is diving into a new area of science to answer the call.

Strubbe’s new project aims to understand why two organic materials — that are cheaper and easier to produce than the prevalent silicon-based products — don’t last as long, and explore how to improve them.

At the northern tip of the UC Merced campus, an unremarkable aluminum gate leads into a field that extends, seemingly, into infinity. Perpendicular to the gate, the LeGrand Canal, drawn from Lake Yosemite, snakes around campus into the emerald pastures, through farm rows and almond orchards across the highway. It’s the rainy season and bulbous cumuli foreground the rippled line of the Sierra Nevada that slices across the open sky.

Overdoses and suicides were among the most common reasons for mothers dying within a year of giving birth in California, according to a new study published this week.

Three big UC Solar projects are poised to be the next big breakthroughs in low-cost, accessible sustainable commercial and residential energy in California and far beyond.

Researchers are building working models of one project developed through a grant from the California Energy Commission for a solar unit that can provide electricity and heat to commercial and residential buildings.

The undergraduate engineering curriculum at UC Merced offers students professional experience by participating in the senior capstone project, the Innovation Design Clinic (IDC). The IDC culminates in the Innovate to Grow event on Friday, May 17, from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in an annual showcase of student talent and ingenuity, highlighting the culture of entrepreneurship in UC Merced’s School of Engineering .

The number of people being deported from the United States is at a historic high and one UC Merced professor is on the ground-level, meeting with family members of those affected to better understand the traumatic consequences of deportation.

A rigorous, first-of-its-kind global study provides new insights into the natural history of soil biodiversity and shows that changes in soil pH during soil development is a major driver of most of that biodiversity.

Children who live near major roads are at higher risk for developmental delays because of traffic-related pollutants.

That’s the major finding of a new study authored by UC Merced environmental epidemiology Professor Sandie Ha and colleagues. The study appears in the journal Environmental Research and is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the UC Merced Senate Grant.

Under the leadership of Professors Asmeret Berhe and Stephen Hart, three UC Merced Environmental Systems (ES) graduate students have been awarded fellowships from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to advance their doctoral theses.