MERCED, Calif. — NASA has awarded a group of researchers at the University of California, Merced, $5 million to establish the campus’s largest extramurally funded research and education center to date, designed to benefit current and future students and contribute to NASA’s missions.

Long hours and hard work paid off for UC Merced’s intercollegiate athletics program last week when the California Pacific Conference’s 2014-15 awards were announced. For the first time in conference history, one school earned every departmental award.

UC Merced Director of Recreation and Athletics David Dunham was selected as the Cal Pac Athletic Director of the Year. UC Merced was also named the top institution in the categories of sportsmanship, sports medicine and sports information. 

UC Merced researcher David Rheinheimer has seen the Himalayas from many angles — from his home on the Yangtze River, from the foothills as a student in India and from the Nu River in Yunnan’s Three Parallel Rivers area.

MERCED, Calif. — New farmland-mapping research published today shows that up to 90 percent of Americans could be fed entirely by food grown or raised within 100 miles of their homes.

UC Merced Professor Stefano Carpin will serve on the executive board of a new multidisciplinary res

The winners of this year’s Innovate to Grow competition have been announced.

The event includes three components: The Mobile App Challenge, the Capstone competition for senior Innovation and Design Clinic teams and the Engineering Service Learning competition for undergraduate teams.

Two prizes are given for Capstone teams. The winners receive $1,000 each — up to $5,000 or $6,000 per team, depending on the number of students on the winning teams.  

The winning Engineering Service Learning team shares $3,000, while Mobile App winners share $5,000.

Thousands of area children will attend performances of “Who Stole B-Flat?” on the UC Merced campus this week as part of an effort to expose Merced County youth to opera and theater. 

In addition to the free performances being offered to schools all week, a performance for the community is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, May 23, in the Dr. Lakireddy Auditorium. Suggested donations for the public performance are $5 for adults and $3 for children. 

Researcher Makenzie Provorse parlayed her passion for computational chemistry into a position as UC Merced’s second Chancellor’s Postdoctoral fellow.

As a runner up for the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship — a 31-year-old program enhanced with more money for hiring incentives recently by UC President Janet Napolitano — her application was referred back to the campus for the chancellor’s fellowship, and ranked highest among all applicants at UC Merced.

When students walk across the stage at this weekend’s commencement ceremonies at the University of California, Merced, they will join the nearly 4,000 scholars who have earned degrees from the university, while marking yet another campus milestone as the campus’s 10th graduating class.

Innovate to Grow, the annual showcase of UC Merced student creativity, features some amazing teamwork this year, from medical and agricultural devices to mobile applications for saving energy and water.