Editor’s note: Every year UC Merced shines a spotlight on the cutting-edge research underway at the university. Research Week is an opportunity for the public to explore the groundbreaking work conducted by students and faculty. As part of Research Week, the Newsroom will highlight a few of these

At a ceremony held earlier today, UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director Michael Witherell signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a formal partnership between the two organizations. The agreement sets terms for the appointment of joint

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that they have selected former Dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Applied Mathematics Professor Juan Meza as the new Division Director for the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS). Meza was selected from a pool of highly qualified candidates

Professor Chris Amemiya is new to UC Merced, but he’s a veteran scientist with a long list of breakthroughs to his name. Amemiya’s discoveries have changed the way scientists understand vertebrate genomes and their evolution, and he was recently elected a fellow of the American Association for the

Scientists have long known that cells originating from an animal’s anterior — the body’s upper half — tend to grow, divide and survive better than those from the posterior. Studies show this to be true in cancer as well, with anterior cancers metastasizing more aggressively. Now scientists are

National security and a beautifully resonant violin have found a surprising link — a classic experiment in acoustics, recently replicated at the quantum scale as part of a collaborative project on quantum-enhanced motion sensing. UC Merced Professor Michael Scheibner and U.S. Naval Research

A new study published online in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences finds that the giant sequoia, a fixture of California’s Sierra Nevada forests for the past 2.6 million years, might be in jeopardy from the effects of drought and climate change. The iconic trees, which only grow in

When it came time to apply for college, so many of us scrambled to compile those lists of community service hours to bolster our resumes. Was there enough? Could I explain in my personal statement what this service meant to me? From the time we’re young, this idea is engrained in our heads that

Zach Petrek, a second-year doctoral student in chemistry and chemical biology, can usually be found running experiments in the laboratory of his advisor, Professor Tao Ye. But this summer, he did something different — he went to NASA. Petrek was one of seven UC Merced students to intern at NASA over

Topics ranging from ethnobotany, public health and feminism to agriculture, urban growth and social movements are among the highlights of the Mesoamerican Studies Center’s upcoming conference at UC Merced. “Mesoamericans in California: Immigrants’ Resistance, Social Movements, Rights, and Memory” is