Key points Three UC Merced professors have been named 2026 Hellman Fellows, representing the university’s School of Engineering, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, and School of Natural Sciences. The fellowships will advance innovative research across three fields, from heat-responsive

Talk about meta: A pop culture phenomenon is using a pop culture phenomenon to undo the results of a pop culture phenomenon. And for the fourth consecutive year, paleoecology Professor Sora Kim is diving back into the spotlight of the Discovery Channel hit "Shark Week," this time with a K-pop twist

Everyone recognizes the sharp, clean fragrance of pine needles. But that's not just a pine forest or a Christmas tree we're smelling - it's the aroma of thousands of microscopic partners working quietly on every needle, helping shape the health of entire forests. For years, researchers have known a

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

Five UC Merced faculty members are among the first awardees of a UC-wide honor given for exemplary research in budding academic careers. The Early Career Faculty Research Excellence Awards, launched last fall, support commitment to scholarship and creative activity across the 10-campus system. The

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

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

On most days, Reo Maynard’s life swings between two ecosystems: the microscopic world inside an ant’s gut and the sprawling one that stretches from Fresno to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The 51-year-old Navy veteran, dad of two, screenwriter-in-waiting and newly minted Fresno City College faculty