Science

An average of more than 1 million acres of idled farmland a year is a significant contributor to a growing dust problem in California that has implications for millions of residents’ health and the state’s climate.

Cosmology Professor Anna Nierenberg has received a CAREER award for a project that will vastly improve the study of the nature of dark matter in the universe.

She is the 42nd researcher from UC Merced to earn a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Professor Emily Jane McTavish and colleagues at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have mapped the evolution of every known bird species.

They created a complete evolutionary tree of bird species by combining data on 9,239 species published in nearly 300 studies between 1990 and 2024 and additional curated data on another 1,000 species. The resulting database can easily be shared and updated as additional studies are published.

California’s Central Valley, famous for producing much of the food Americans eat, is also infamous for its inferior air quality and its high rates of poverty, housing insecurity and at-risk workers.

Increasing epidemiological evidence has shown a correlation between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and the incidence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD).

Areas with severe PM2.5 pollution — including the Central Valley — are often inhabited by low-income residents who are disproportionately affected by these environmental hazards.

UC Merced physics graduate student Sameen Yunus has been awarded a prestigious fellowship allowing her to spend the next three years working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, conducting experiments and simulations that could lead to faster fusion ignition.

The UC-National Lab In-Residence Graduate Fellowship is designed to help graduate students complete their theses. Yunus, a third-year Ph.D. candidate, will work on experiments that complement her computational work in Professor David Strubbe’s lab.

Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development Gillian Wilson has been named a 2024 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

Being elected an AAAS Fellow is one of the most prestigious honors awarded by the association. Wilson is one of only eight astronomers honored this year.

Note: This article has been republished in part.The full article is available online .

When David Mendoza-Cózatl, a 2006 Pew Latin American fellow in the biomedical sciences, got an email soliciting applications for the Pew Innovation Fund, he sprang into action.

The Biology Integration Institute (BII): The Institute for Symbiotic Interactions, Training and Education in the Face of a Changing Climate, or INSITE, stands out because it is supported by $12.5 million from the National Science Foundation, one of the largest NSF grants UC Merced has ever received.

The bond between the San Joaquin Valley and the University of California, Merced, continues to strengthen.

This past year, UC Merced's ongoing research endeavors produced new knowledge that serves the San Joaquin Valley's community and economy, while the university's burgeoning athletics program became another source of pride for the community.

Additionally, the campus' continued development serves as major source of economic investment during a difficult economy.

Physiology Professor Rudy M. Ortiz has been named this year's winner of the A. Clifford Barger Underrepresented Minority Mentorship Award by the American Physiological Society.

The UC Merced professor was recognized for his leadership, guidance and mentorship of underrepresented minority and diverse groups of students in the physiological sciences.