UC Merced Research

research of dna strands

As it is at all University of California campuses, research is the cornerstone of UC Merced. Innovative faculty members conduct interdisciplinary, groundbreaking research that will solve complex problems affecting the San Joaquin Valley, California and the world. Students — as early as their first years — have opportunities to work right alongside them, sometimes even publishing in journals and presenting at conferences.

Top Articles

UC Merced researchers extract sewage samples from university system
Key points: Researchers successfully tested a technique that uses human sewage to measure the use of nicotine products such as cigarettes and vaping pens in a selected community. The project, led by scientists at UC Merced, can strengthen...
Depicted is the UC Merced campus in the foreground, with smoke from a distant wildfire seen behind it on a blue sky.
Key points: • Researchers found that heat waves are a critical enabler and driver of wildfire-burned areas across the western U.S. • The findings suggest that heat waves contribute not only to increased flammability, but to longer burn periods...

 

Research isn’t limited to labs with beakers and microscopes, though there are plenty of those here.

The list of UC Merced’s research strengths is long and includes climate change and ecology; solar and renewable energy; water quality and resources; artificial intelligence; cognitive science; stem-cell, diabetes and cancer research; air quality; big-data analysis; computer science; mechanical, environmental and materials engineering; political science; and much, much more.

The campus also has interdisciplinary research institutes with which faculty members affiliate themselves to conduct even more in-depth investigations into a variety of scientific topics.

Recent Articles

Alt
One of the biggest challenges in managing crops, especially in large fields, is knowing how much water each section of a field needs. Determining that accurately is a cumbersome process that requires people to hand-pluck individual leaves from plants,...
Alt
Biophysical chemistry Professor Shahar Sukenik and the graduate students in his lab are trying to make sense out of what might seem to some to be chaos. They aim to better understand how a series of floppy, malleable proteins function — or malfunction —...
Alt
Molecular biology Professor Chris Amemiya and his former graduate student Molly Phillips have made a discovery that upends traditional ideas about a structural polysaccharide called chitin that is found in some fish. Over the course of their studies,...
Alt
Since 2007, UC Merced researchers have been extremely productive in the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (CZO), delving into investigations of hydrology, climate change, geology, biology and more. But the National Science Foundation, which...
Alt
Forest restoration is often associated with mitigating wildfire risk and improving ecosystem health throughout the Sierra Nevada. But restoration also dramatically affects water use within forests and the amount of runoff that flows downstream. The...
Alt
Physics Professor Lin Tian looks to tiny quantum objects to answer very big questions. Her research group is pursuing quantum computing and technology project that are helping to expand her department’s concentration of quantum research and education. “...
  • 17 of 41