News

UC Merced Grad Student, Alumnus Play Significant Role in Mars 2020 Mission

July 29, 2020

NASA’s fifth exploratory rover is scheduled to head for Mars later this month to try and answer key questions about the potential for life on the red planet. Before the rover leaves Earth, current and former members of UC Merced’s Fundamental Tribology Lab conducted critical tests that will provide...

$3.5 Million Hellman Endowment Expands Future of Research at UC Merced

July 26, 2020

Since 2011, the Hellman Fellows Fund has provided close to 60 UC Merced assistant professors with much-needed research support in the form of seed funding. The prestigious Hellman Fellowship has launched countless careers at UC Merced and across the UC system. Now, thanks to a generous new $3.5...

Low-Wage Work Is Linked to Spread of COVID-19, Study Finds

July 21, 2020

California counties with high numbers of low-wage workers are seeing higher incidence of COVID-19, suggesting a link between so-called “worker distress” and spread of the virus, according to a new study by UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center. While efforts to contain COVID...

New Project Aims to Advance Understanding of Immune Cells as they Develop

July 20, 2020

Maybe now more than ever, scientists need to understand the immune system. A new National Institutes of Health grant is funding a cross-disciplinary collaboration between bioengineering Professor Joel Spencer and immunology Professor Jennifer Manilay that will allow them to watch as immune-...

Central Valley Musicians to Perform Online in the Levitt AMP Virtual Music Series

July 17, 2020

UC Merced and the City of Merced, through the Levitt Foundation, are hosting a virtual concert in August as part of the current Levitt AMP Virtual Music Series. The series was moved online in response to the postponement of national in-person events due to COVID-19. Music fans across the country...

New Study Finds Media Coverage Could Discourage Many from Guiding Groundwater Use

July 16, 2020

Superficial media coverage of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) could discourage democratic engagement on resource-management issues by having focused on relatively few stakeholders, a new study from UC Merced shows. Because water is essential to everyone, all have a stake...

Professor Emeritus Mark Aldenderfer Honored with Dickson Chair

July 14, 2020

Esteemed anthropologist and archaeologist Professor Mark Aldenderfer, who retired this month from UC Merced, has been awarded the Edward A. Dickson Emeriti Professorship Endowed Chair, the university announced. Aldenderfer is the second UC Merced faculty member to receive the one-year...

Podcast Focuses on New Agriculture and California’s Future

July 14, 2020

On a hot June evening, UC Merced Professor Josh Viers joined farm advocate and small farmer Tom Willey on his front porch near Fresno to talk about California’s water, disadvantaged communities, agricultural production and the future as part of the new “Down on the Farm” podcast that’s now...

Three Awarded UC Pre-Professoriate Fellowships

July 8, 2020

UC Merced graduate students Anabel Castillo, Veronica Lerma and Sammy Villa are recipients of the University of California’s inaugural President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship (PPPF). The UC Office of the President launched the PPPF as part of its UC-Hispanic Serving Institutions Doctoral Diversity...

NASA Renews Campus Research Center for Another Two Years

July 2, 2020

The Merced nAnomaterials Center for Energy and Sensing (MACES) —UC Merced’s NASA-funded center for nanomaterials-based research and education — has received a two-year, $1.8 million renewal from the federal space agency. Continuing to build on the research already underway, Professor Jennifer Lu,...