News

Founding Faculty Roland Winston Remembered for Pioneering Solar Energy

February 18, 2025

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Roland Winston, a pioneer in solar energy, engineering and physics, died Feb. 8 at the age of 88 at his home in Merced. A founding faculty member in the schools of Natural Sciences and Engineering at UC Merced, Winston also founded and directed the intercampus...

Engineers Week Events Set at UC Merced

February 14, 2025

A research panel, project demonstrations and banquet are among the festivities planned for Engineers Week at UC Merced. Founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1951, Engineers Week is "dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing...

UC Merced Achieves R1: Highest Tier of Research Classification

February 13, 2025

UC Merced has assumed its place in the top echelon of research institutions in the nation by earning R1 status from Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The announcement was made Thursday morning by the American Council on Education and comes less than 20 years after the...

5 Questions for Indigenous Author of Acclaimed Memoir Coming to UC Merced

February 11, 2025

Deborah Taffa, an Indigenous author and educator whose book about growing up in a mixed-race home and struggling with social acceptance was hailed as one the best memoirs of 2024, will make a special visit to Merced this month. Taffa will make two appearances Tuesday, Feb. 18 to read from her book...

Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center Enlists Wastewater Tests in Fight Against Smoking

February 10, 2025

UC Merced's Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center has embarked on an innovative partnership with university researchers who can track an entire community’s health and habits with samples of human sewage. The project aims to determine trends and levels of nicotine use in San Joaquin Valley...

UC Awards Support Tackling Big Questions in Health, Physics, Agriculture and Climate

February 5, 2025

Faculty members at UC Merced are taking the lead on four Multicampus Research Program Initiatives (MRPI), working with colleagues around the University of California system to address challenges around labor and agriculture, active matter, Indigenous health and fusion energy. “The MRPI program...

Recognizing Late Professor Emeritus' Contributions

February 5, 2025

On Friday, the campus community will hold a remembrance to celebrate the life and contributions of bioengineering Professor Emeritus Ariel Escobar, who died in December. He joined UC Merced in 2008. His laboratory developed new optical, micro-mechanical and electrophysiological techniques for...

Multinational Research Project Shows How Life on Earth can be Measured from Space

February 3, 2025

Measurements and data collected from space can be used to better understand life on Earth. An ambitious, multinational research project funded by NASA and co-led by UC Merced civil and environmental engineering Professor Erin Hestir demonstrated that Earth's biodiversity can be monitored and...

Projects That Solve Problems Win Awards at I2G

January 31, 2025

Helping diplomats navigate new cultures, removing mircroplastics from stormwater and automating raisin processing: These are some of the projects awarded winning scores at UC Merced's fall Innovate to Grow event. Innovate to Grow, or I2G as it's known on campus, is a twice-a-year showcase for UC...

COVID Lockdown Disrupted Preschoolers’ Social Skills, Trailblazing Research Shows

January 29, 2025

Lockdowns. Social distancing. Shuttered schools and businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic and its sweeping disruptions set off a stampede of “what it’s doing to us” research, focused largely on schoolchildren. How were students’ academics affected? Their mental health? Their social development? Left...

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