Environmental Research

When Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe arrived at UC Merced in 2009, she and her husband, Professor Teamrat Ghezzehei, were leaving major research institutions to join a brand-new campus in California’s Central Valley. It was a leap of faith — one made easier by the Sierra Nevada Research Institute.

As nations cut emissions that once fueled urban smog, scientists are discovering unexpected chemistry taking place in the atmosphere.

UC Merced Professor Xuan Zhang is leading a project to uncover how these chemical shifts could affect the air we breathe and the climate. The project is supported by a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

Zhang is the 43rd researcher from UC Merced to earn a CAREER award from the NSF.

As the Hellman Fellowships celebrate their 30th year, three more researchers, one from each of UC Merced’s schools, have joined the prestigious ranks of recipients.

Electrical engineering Professor Qian Wang, sociology Professor Meredith Van Natta and Earth systems Professor Adeyemi Adebiyi will receive funding through their fellowships for projects they have proposed.

Three professors are joining UC Merced’s Agricultural Experiment Station this fall, bringing more expertise and resources to the 3-year-old research center.

More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians, every year. 

As the world’s geopolitical landscape shifts, nine scientists studying different aspects of warfare ecology from seven countries — Poland, Ukraine, Norway, Spain, the United States, Finland and Croatia — are warning against the growing deployment of land mines as countries bordering Russia withdraw from global conventions restricting their use.

Shark Week starts Sunday and Professor Sora Kim will be featured again this year in a special airing at 9 p.m. Monday, titled “Jaws vs. Mega Croc,” and the filming allowed her to swim with a Nile crocodile.

“I flew to Florida and learned about crocodiles – their evolution, strength, physiology and behavior. More interactions are being recorded between sharks and crocodiles these days, so I also needed to learn about these situations,” she said.

San Luis Reservoir in Merced County - one of California's largest artificial lakes - not only irrigates Central Valley farmland and supplies drinking water across Silicon Valley and the South Bay, but also draws swimmers, boaters and anglers year-round.

Yet for months at a time, forest-green blankets of algae spread across the lake's surface. Despite their calm appearance, these harmful algal blooms, or HABs, can disrupt water supplies, ecosystems and recreation activities - and pose serious health risks.

At UC Merced's biggest lab, students work from before sunrise to well after dusk. They are operating the university's Experimental Smart Farm, 40 acres of dirt and plants, research and experiments.

They study everything from pollinators to hydroponics, but there are more than just academic endeavors happening: Students say they have plans for community engagement opportunities including a corn maze and pumpkin patch. They also have been planting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, kale, arugula and melons.

Growing up in Watsonville, a vibrant agricultural community on California's Central Coast, Adamaris Alvarez always knew she wanted to work in agriculture. She worked on her family's berry ranch, Alvarez Farms, where she grew a deep appreciation for the hard work agriculture demands.

But it wasn't until she saw an Instagram post about an internship at UC Merced's Experimental Smart Farm that she realized she could help shape the future of farming.

With careful planning and a little luck, researchers found a surprising upside to hurricanes after a Category 4 storm disrupted their expedition off the coast of Mexico.

The team was able to sample the ocean right after the storm passed and found that the storms churn the ocean so powerfully and deeply — up to thousands of meters — that nutrient-rich, cold water is brought to the surface.