Note: This story originally appeared in the Fall 2014 issue of UC Merced Magazine and has been updated in the wake of the Nov. 4 elections. Read the whole issue online.
Professor K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research Institute and the 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, will offer a chemistry seminar at UC Merced at 3 p.m. Friday in COB 120.
Professor Masashi Kitazawa wants to figure out if any environmental factors increase the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease – specifically, whether elevated levels of copper in drinking water play a role.
A new $2.6 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences will fund his research, making what was a side project into a full-blown exploration.
UC Merced has hired 34 faculty members for the 2014-15 academic year, giving the campus 212 tenure-track professors who expand the depth and breadth of research expertise.
Excluding student employees, the campus now has about 1,300 total staff and faculty members, which also includes 149 lecturers.
Professor Carolin Frank will collect $1.6 million over the next four years to continue researching the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in pine needles and to work with the Sierra Foothill Charter School, which she helped found.
The discovery of a new, rare species of monkey flower by Professor Jason Sexton provides clues as to how new species are born.
Sexton, who researches the monkey flowers that grow wild throughout California, and are especially prolific in the Sierra Nevada, conducted this work with researchers Kathleen G. Ferris and John H. Willis, both from Duke University.
The long-awaited Science and Engineering Building 2 officially opens today, providing more space for instruction, research and offices.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony begins at 1 p.m.
Thirty months in the making, the building is designed to foster interdisciplinary work for researchers across UC Merced.
“We’re continuing a concept that has been important since the campus itself was being planned – collaboration between the schools,” Academic Facilities Planning Director Steve Rabedeaux said.
Extreme changes in seasonality in the Sierra Nevada can have lasting impacts on meadow health and could mean less water and carbon storage in high elevation wetlands, according to research conducted at UC Merced.
When people get near California’s giant sequoias, they usually look up.
Professor K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research Institute and the 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, will offer a chemistry seminar at UC Merced at 3 p.m. Friday in COB 120.