Chemical Sciences

Chemistry Professor Henrik Larsson has received a prestigious Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, becoming the first faculty member from UC Merced’s School of Natural Sciences to earn the honor.

A team of scientists led by UC Merced is embarking on a project to understand how the twisted shapes of specific molecules can influence the spin of electrons — a phenomenon that could revolutionize solar energy, electronics and quantum computing.

The research, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program, focuses on a mysterious effect known as chirality-induced spin selectivity, or CISS.

Starting a university from scratch isn’t for the faint of heart — or the slow of foot. Lucky for UC Merced, Anne Myers Kelley and David Kelley are neither.

Anne, a former Olympic marathon trials qualifier, and David, a competitive cyclist, were no strangers to long, grueling efforts when they packed up their lab gear and headed west from Kansas State University in 2003.

In addition to being used recreationally, marijuana and cannabidiol, or CBD, one of the cannabinoids produced by the marijuana plant, are thought to have medical benefits such as helping with chemotherapy-induced nausea, treating epilepsy, relieving pain and helping with a variety of mental health issues.

Professor Andy LiWang knows what makes us tick, at least at a cellular level.

His research into the mechanisms of the oldest biological clock known to humankind has led him to understand how proteins — and hence cells — can tell time.

It has also led the UC Merced biochemist to become this year's recipient of the prestigious Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin award, sponsored by the Rigaku Corporation and given by The Protein Society (TPS).

UC Merced students pursuing degrees in chemical sciences now have access to a new source of financial support, thanks to a gift from two of the university’s most dedicated advocates.

Alumna Laura Showalter ’16, ’18 and UC Merced Foundation Diplomat Dr. Jane Binger have established the Showalter Binger Scholarship to assist promising students who demonstrate passion and perseverance on their journeys to becoming future scientific leaders.

Two UC Merced graduate students and an alum from the School of Natural Sciences were recently awarded fellowships from the highly competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

This year, NSF awarded 1,000 GRFP fellowships compared to about 2,000 in previous years.

“Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.” — William S. Burroughs

The economic and educational advantages of having a University of California campus in the San Joaquin Valley are easy to measure — just look at the thousands of alumni contributing to the region, hundreds of staff members boosting the local economy, and professors conducting research that directly and indirectly benefits society.

A group of faculty members at UC Merced has been awarded a $1 million seed grant from the National Science Foundation to form a research collaborative to expand participation and access to materials, research-focused facilities, education, training and careers.

UC Merced was the site of the 22nd Molecular Education and Research Consortium in Undergraduate computational chemistRY (MERCURY) Conference held in mid-July.