School of Natural Sciences

Six faculty members have been named this year’s Hellman Fellows — two from each of UC Merced’s schools.

The 2019-20 winners are:

• Professor Anna E. Beaudin, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, School of Natural Sciences;

• Professor Chih-Wen Ni, Department of Bioengineering, School of Engineering;

Harrison Duran has always wanted to discover ‘the land before time,’ and his desire to dig up dinosaur bones led him to the Badlands of North Dakota, where Alice the Triceratops was waiting for him.

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.

Climate change is bad news for forests, and a new study by UC Merced Professor Emily Moran demonstrates one aspect of that news.

Higher summer temperatures hurt tree seedlings’ growth and survival.

But whether that is entirely bad depends on the degree of change in the number of young trees.

It started with a simple off-hand comment, one that would likely be met with a chuckle at any other institution. At UC Merced, it became a ripple that has changed the academic and social strata of an entire school.

The opportunity to participate in cutting-edge scientific research as an undergraduate is one of the most exciting aspects of a UC Merced education.

One of the best preparation opportunities for graduate school is to engage in research as an undergraduate, but at many universities, it’s not until you’re in graduate school that you conduct research. 

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.

Hundreds of students join the UC Merced campus each year intent on health-related careers.

What they might not know, though, is that there are resources on campus that can be critical in helping them achieve their goals.

“If it weren’t for the Pre-Health Advising program, I might not be where I am,” said Dr. Randell Rueda, a 2011 graduate of UC Merced who is in his residency as a family doctor in his hometown of Fresno. “I would have struggled in school and with myself.”

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.

A decade has passed since Sam Fong (’09) crossed the stage to get his diploma and walked through Beginnings for the first time as part of UC Merced’s inaugural graduating class, and a lot has changed.

For one, the student population has quadrupled to nearly 8,000. The campus is in the midst of a massive expansion. But the 2019 commencement ceremonies provided a pause and a perfect opportunity for Fong and other first graduates to reflect on the university’s early days.