Science

Persistence has paid off for UC Merced doctoral candidate Arabi Seshappan.

The graduate student from Fremont, about to start her sixth year, was selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program's Fulbright-Université Paris-Saclay Doctoral Research Award, which is only granted to three U.S. students each year.

Less than three years ago, the idea of bringing a children’s museum to Merced began to blossom. Since Mayya Tokman and Angelo Kyrilov, both UC Merced professors, opened the doors of Kids Discovery Station, they have seen more than 65,000 visitors.

Three faculty members have joined the prestigious ranks of Hellman Fellowship recipients this year.

UC Merced's resident shark expert, Professor Sora Kim, will be featured on the prime-time, premiere-night episode of Discovery’s Shark Week discussing an enormous, legendary sea creature that takes on different forms in different cultures but has a basis in science.

At 9 p.m. EDT Sunday, audiences all over the world can watch Kim as she dives with great white sharks off the southern coast of New Zealand for the episode titled “Jaws vs Leviathan.”

A group of researchers, including physicists from UC Merced, has made discoveries about the mechanics of blood clots that could help in the development of biomaterials for tissue engineering and improved surgical adhesives.

Many materials around us, including those in cells and tissues, are made of networks of elastic fibers that resist deformation. These biological fibrous networks determine the fine balance between health and disease.

Earlier this month, Ambarish Varadan competed in UC Merced’s Grad Slam finals and seized the title of Campus Champion.

This was the second time the Quantitative and Systems Biology (QSB) Ph.D. candidate from Fremont vied for the top prize. Last year, he placed second among the top 10 contenders.

UC Merced Foundation Board Trustee Robert Bernstein, M.D., and his wife, Diplomat Jane Binger, Ed.D., have made generous donations to support Grad Slam.

In Professor Xuecai Ge ’s lab, where UC Merced researchers study how cells talk to each other to develop and differentiate, a recent surprise discovery is lending insight as to how erroneous cell signals lead to disease and birth defects.

Ge and her colleagues zeroed in on a slice of the communication system, the primary cilia, and found a protein called Numb, which they didn’t expect to be there.

Numb facilitates development of the spinal cord and cerebellum during embryonic neurodevelopment.

The National Science Foundation awarded a team, led by principal investigators Professor Ajay Gopinathan and Carrie Kouadio, funding to establish a summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at UC Merced.

This new program seeks to increase the diversity of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research community.

Who will UC Merced’s Grad Slam champion be?

Cheer on the finalists on April 8 and find out.

Graduate students from UC Merced’s three schools will take the stage to compete in the Graduate Division’s 10th Grad Slam finals.

Merced area fourth- and fifth-grade girls and their mothers recently participated in hands-on scientific projects in a UC Merced classroom laboratory that was transformed for one day into an exciting experimental space.

UC Merced’s NSF-funded CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM) hosted the event as part of the seven-week Mother Daughter Science Camp, organized by the Merced branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).