Science

Research in the Sierra Nevada central to addressing challenges to California's water security and its link to the health of Sierra Nevada ecosystems will continue into 2018.

The National Science Foundation awarded the University of California, Merced, $5 million to continue this work on the water, forests and climate of the Sierra Nevada for another five years, said Professor Roger Bales, who also heads UC Merced’s Sierra Nevada Research Institute.

Two University of California, Merced, students – Viridiana Murillo and Alexandro Perez-Tovar – won first prize in their divisions at the recent Society for Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos & Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) conference in San Antonio, Texas.

Nineteen UC Merced students joined other scholars from all over the country at the conference, presenting the details of the research they’ve been conducting.

Just because it’s summertime doesn’t mean research at UC Merced comes to a halt.

Just the opposite.

This summer, professors and students at all levels are conducting a variety of research projects on campus, off campus, in the oceans and forests and around the world.

Up in Yosemite National Park, for example, nine undergraduate students are getting a summer experience to last them a lifetime, conducting research with faculty researchers from UC Merced, scientists from the U.S. Geologic Survey and from the park.

Using some of the tiniest fossils in the world to help clarify how climate change is modeled has earned Professor Jessica Blois a big honor – publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

A collaboration between a dean and a professor and a grant from the National Science Foundation have made UC Merced part of a national nanotechnology-biology hub that will expand both knowledge and opportunities for students in Merced.

Researchers at the university in your backyard are delving into issues of great importance to the San Joaquin Valley, the state, the nation and the world.

You can learn more about their work at the eighth annual UC Merced Research Week, from March 4 through 8, on campus and in downtown Merced.

Research at UC Merced encompasses cancer; diabetes; climate change; water, soil and air quality; water availability; nanotechnology and robotics; history; mapping; archaeology; human genes; and much, much more.

UC Merced School of Engineering Professor Elliott Campbell has co-authored a paper showing that mountaintop removal mining will dramatically accelerate the regional effects of global warming by turning natural carbon sinks into sources of carbon emissions, some within the next 15 years.

A UC Merced professor is one of five finalists in an international challenge that could win him a $50,000 research grant and free access to a record-setting, ocean-going robot.

Professor Michael Beman, with the School of Natural Sciences, entered the PacX Challenge, a competition designed to encourage scientists and students to make use of data gathered by autonomous wave glider that just completed a 9,000-nautical-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean.

The small-scale, cutting-edge work of graduate student Eric Josephs and chemistry Professor Tao Ye is providing an up-close look at the behavior of biomolecules.

Professor Christine Isborn is doing quantum chemistry at the speed of graphics.