Staff & Faculty News

The first four faculty members named to UC Merced's Agricultural Experiment Station look to make a big impact on farming in the San Joaquin Valley and beyond.

Sugar pines are the tallest pine species in the world, and they only grow along the West Coast of North America. They are a valued source of timber with cones as large as an adult’s forearm. But they face several problems that a new paper argues should be quickly addressed.

The sugar pine population has been declining because of changing fire patterns, drought, bark beetle mortality, a disease called white pine blister rust – and now the impacts of climate change.

Research on cell development has led not only to a more efficient way to map proteins in living cells but also tapped into the research capabilities of UC Merced undergraduate students and brought about a new learning opportunity that could shape their futures.

Researchers know a protein’s function is intimately tied to its location in a cell. By mapping its location, they can better understand how its function — and the cell’s biology — changes over time.

A group of faculty members at UC Merced has been awarded a $1 million seed grant from the National Science Foundation to form a research collaborative to expand participation and access to materials, research-focused facilities, education, training and careers.

A group of researchers at UC Merced has found that climate change means it takes about three months longer for California to recover from drought, and probably longer.

“Climate change has fundamentally changed the odds of getting out of drought. It has weighted the dice,” said Emily Williams, a postdoctoral scholar with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. “This is happening because of warming in summer months, and a good portion of it is because of human-caused climate change.”

He studied in hallowed halls of academia. His highly respected research takes him halfway around the globe into societies both foreign and familiar. In his newest role, he leads the largest school of a research university less than two decades old but soaring in reputation and influence.

Yet if you ask Leo Arriola about his journey, he uses a surprising word.

“I’m accidental in every possible way,” he said. “Professor. Administrator. Statistically, I shouldn’t be in this position.”

Researchers at UC Merced used fruit flies to uncover a cellular process common to many organisms that could dramatically impact the understanding of cancer and aging.

A group of UC Merced researchers modeled predation behaviors, as well as changes in those behaviors, among large carnivores, developing a new theory that will help biologists assess the health of various ecosystems.

California's agriculture faces challenges from a highly variable climate with temperatures that will increase over the next several decades. Droughts are worsening and the Sierra snowpack, integral to the water supply, is volatile.

However, there are a number of ways to mitigate those changes, as outlined in a new paper coauthored by a group of UC faculty.

California's agriculture faces challenges from a highly variable climate with temperatures that will increase over the next several decades. Droughts are worsening and the Sierra snowpack, integral to the water supply, is volatile.

However, there are a number of ways to mitigate those changes, as outlined in a new paper coauthored by a group of UC faculty.