Research

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Ph.D. Student Gets to the Root of Health Disparities Facing Hmong Farmers
January 8, 2020
Chia Thao was a teenager when she arrived in Fresno with her family to begin a new life. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, where her Laotian parents had fled after the Vietnam War. “Our parents brought a skillset to the U.S.,... Read More
Potential of Electric Vehicles Tied to Solar Research
January 6, 2020
Not spending money on gas, oil changes, and tune-ups and not producing harmful greenhouse gas emissions is enough to sell many people on plug-in electric cars. But many consumers won’t bite until they’re assured that electric cars can go... Read More
Engineered Protein Assemblies that Respond to Cues Open Path for Smart, Protein-Based Medicines
December 17, 2019
Proteins are miniscule machines inside the body, about 10,000 times smaller than the thickness of human hair. They control all the processes of life — like how cells communicate to each other, how the immune system combats infection, how... Read More
New Director of Medical Education Ready to Unleash Valley’s Untapped Potential
December 2, 2019
Dr. Thelma Hurd’s journey in medicine has taken her from New Jersey to Nigeria, with stops in Texas and Buffalo. Along the way, she gathered experience as a clinician, public health researcher and translational scientist. Her proficiency... Read More
Researchers Aim to Solve the Unsolvable to Predict the Unseeable
November 18, 2019
A pair of UC Merced researchers are combining computational chemistry and machine learning principles to solve what seems to be an intractable problem at the heart of quantum mechanics: predicting the movement of electrons, also known as... Read More
Star Student and NASA Standout Preparing for a Stellar Future
November 12, 2019
Like many young women, Calista Lum absorbed the message that she was not as capable as her male peers when it came to science, technology, engineering and math. Teachers in her Fairfield high school engineering classes often asked if male... Read More
Researchers Look to Wetlands to Increase Delta Water Quality
November 4, 2019
UC Merced Professor Peggy O’Day hopes to improve water quality in the California Delta by studying local wetlands. O’Day is leading a new three-year study of Merced County wetlands that drain into the San Joaquin River and eventually the... Read More
Physicist Found His Path to the Future at UC Merced
November 4, 2019
When Denzal Martin started his undergraduate work at UC Merced, he wasn’t thinking about a career in physics, interning with NASA or attending graduate school. The Los Angeles native was studying computer science and engineering. One day,... Read More
Lab Works to Understand Molecular Motors and Cholesterol’s Relation to Alzheimer’s
November 4, 2019
Professor Jing Xu and her students study extremely tiny motor proteins, but their work could make a huge contribution to the growing body of knowledge about Alzheimer’s and other diseases that progressively destroy brain tissue. Alzheimer'... Read More
Berhe Named to Endowed Chair in Recognition of Her Work in Soil Sciences
October 21, 2019
Soil biogeochemistry Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe has been named the Ted and Jan Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology. “The Falasco family is engaged in construction and development, so they have an intimate connection with and... Read More