News

UC Merced Part of CITRIS’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants

May 14, 2020

UC Merced professors are leading or participating in four technology projects designed to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis. The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute awarded seed grants to 25 interdisciplinary, multi-campus teams to...

Changing Snowmelt Threatens Valley Ag, Way of Life

May 12, 2020

The San Joaquin Valley — with all its agriculture and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that go with it — is one of the places most at risk because of changing snowmelt patterns, a new study shows. California is the No. 1 producer of food in the nation, and agriculture in the state is a $50 billion...

Virtual Commencement Promises Surprises for Grads, Families

May 11, 2020

While the COVID-19 pandemic has altered many things this spring on the UC Merced campus — from classes and research to events — UC Merced is making sure the Class of 2020 has a forum to commemorate students’ achievements and successes. UC Merced will host the University of California’s first-ever...

Innovate to Grow Goes Virtual

May 7, 2020

Innovation is nothing new at UC Merced, but this year, because of the coronavirus pandemic, everyone on campus has had to reimagine nearly everything they do. But leave it up to the School of Engineering to wholly reinvent its annual Innovate to Grow showcase and competition on the fly. The event,...

Professor’s Documentary Film about Refugee Family Honored at Vienna International Festival

May 7, 2020

“Songs that Never End,” Professor Yehuda Sharim’s intimate film about a family transitioning from Iran to life in Texas, is a finalist contender in the International Documentary Film Festival Vienna and will stream on the festival’s site for one week starting Thursday. The feature-length...

At the Intersection of Math and Biology, Sindi Lab Sees a Breakthrough in Prion Disease

May 4, 2020

A UC Merced researcher and her lab have unlocked one of the mysteries that could lead to treatments — or even cures — for prion diseases in mammals. Prion diseases are a family of rare, progressive neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans — such as with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or fatal...

First-Generation Student Pursues Anti-Racism Research, Joins Cal-Poly Pomona this Fall

April 27, 2020

Kathryn “Katie” Daniels was a teen when she attended the celebration of the opening of UC Merced. As a child growing up in Merced, Daniels had heard her parents stress the importance of education. “My mom always talked about the University of California coming to Merced and how that was going to...

Q&A with Economist Greg Wright: COVID-19’s Impact on the Economy

April 23, 2020

Since the onset of many governors’ stay-at-home orders, there are fewer cars on the road as fewer people are driving to work. While some people can work from home, sadly, some are not working at all. The global pandemic has caused record unemployment in the United States and the future of the...

Senior Becomes Fourth Bobcat to Win Prestigious Scholarship

April 23, 2020

Sam Schroeder, a fourth-year undergraduate student working with Professor Valerie Leppert in materials sciences, has been awarded a highly competitive Materials Engineering Scholarship — one of only two given annually. He is the fourth UC Merced student to achieve this honor. The scholarship was...

How 'Bout Them Apples? Engineers Correlate Friction to Texture

April 20, 2020

Think about biting into a fresh apple. What do you perceive? Is it juicy? Sweet? Tart? Crisp? Now remember how unpleasant it is to bite into mealy apple flesh. Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, a horticulture science and technology enterprise in Canada, is trying to prevent that...