Research

Using solar thermal energy to power an air conditioning unit can be difficult and expensive. But a team of researchers at the University of California, Merced, have added a game-changing advance to the process that could make it much simpler, less costly and more effective.

Professor Jason Hein was lured to UC Merced because of the opportunity to pursue his research, even if it crosses into other branches of chemistry, physics, biology and engineering.

As a child, Sarah Sanders was fascinated by how some of her bilingual classmates needed to translate conversations for their parents. Called language brokering, the practice often resulted in her classmates being pulled into an adult world at an early age.

Researchers with the University of California, San Francisco, and UC Merced will examine the effectiveness of state and local antismoking programs across the United States in an effort to make sure health authorities are able to use their increasingly limited resources to support and defend the most effective approaches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thl53DGexFk

UC Merced graduate student Brandi McKuin recently returned from a trip to India, where she spent time studying the energy needs of rural villages that have been told by their government that they’ll never get electricity.

http://youtu.be/bWfh28B-hv0

UC Merced's computer graphics lab, with body sensors, motion-capture cameras, and a giant movie screen is straight out of Hollywood. But instead of producing blockbusters, a group of UC Merced researchers are working to create more realistic human motions for virtual reality avatars. The movements are analyzed to create more lifelike virtual characters, which will have multiple applications.

Spencer Castro is moving from one of the nation's most established research universities and most successful athletics programs to one building its reputation in both regards. He's also coming home, or close to it.

In a remarkable outdoor laboratory in the Sierra, a team of researchers led by UC Merced hydrologist Roger Bales is using sensors to gather a mother lode of data to greatly improve ecological measurement and hydrologic forecasting.

Just after graduating college in 1995, Nigel Hatton showed up for the first day of his journalism internship with the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. That afternoon, he was assigned to go with a couple more seasoned reporters to an execution.