A leading expert in soil biogeochemistry and environmental engineering, UC Merced Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, brings her research and perspective to a global conversation about the future of our planet. Berhe, the Ted & Jan Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology and director of the UC

Key Points: Elephants function as a keystone species, producing large amounts of nutrient-rich dung that sustain diverse dung beetle populations and support wider ecosystem health. A 15-year field experiment showed that removing elephants leads to sharp declines in dung beetle abundance, biomass

Editor's note: This story is republished from the Spring/Summer 2026 issue of UC Merced Magazine. Walk across UC Merced’s campus on any weekday, and you might hear laughter spilling from a classroom, feel the thrum of a wind tunnel or spot students crouched in a field searching for mushrooms. Not

UC Merced is abuzz with celebration as students, families, friends, staff and faculty finish last-minute preparations for the largest commencement in university history. Across three outdoor ceremonies, 1,649 undergraduates and 112 graduate students will walk the stage at Spring Commencement 2026

Editor's note: This story is republished from the Spring/Summer 2026 issue of UC Merced Magazine. Omar DeGuchy remembers the moment he left the comfort of UC Merced — the place he’d found his footing — and stepped onto what some call “the smartest square mile on Earth.” He defended his Ph.D

Students who arrive at UC Merced planning on specific careers often discover along the way that their interests — and strengths — are broader than they first imagined. A new initiative called Education Tracks, or EdTracks, is designed to give students a flexible, low‑risk way to explore careers in

Avinav Biswas, a third‑year undergraduate majoring in biological sciences at UC Merced, has been named a 2026 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar, becoming the university’s first recipient of one of the nation’s most prestigious undergraduate awards for students pursuing research careers in science

Rahim Moulanazada’s path from Modesto to major construction projects across California has been shaped by persistence, family and a deep appreciation for collaboration. Moulanazada, 24, graduated from UC Merced in spring 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. He now works as an

Nervous but prepared, Tahirah Williams took the stage at UC Merced’s Grad Slam competition in March and delivered her three-minute talk, “More Than Slime: When Mucus Meets the Valley Fever Invader.” By day’s end, she had been announced as the university’s 12th Grad Slam Campus Champion. “It feels

Professors Asmeret Asefaw Berhe and Ming-Hsuan Yang have been named 2025 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. They are among the nearly 500 scientists, engineers and