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UC Merced Cultivates More Ag-Food-Tech Expertise with New CITRIS Hire

July 31, 2019
Leigh Bernacchi, Ph.D., has officially joined UC Merced’s Center for Information Technology in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and Banatao Institute as the program director. “Leigh has worked at the intersection of ag and water for several years and will provide valuable support for CITRIS in...

Founding Professor Named Associate Dean of Natural Sciences

July 26, 2019
The School of Natural Sciences has a new associate dean for Academic Programs, founding faculty member Professor Michael Colvin. “With his experience as a researcher and administrator, his dedication to student success and his deep knowledge of the School, Professor Colvin is particularly well...

Undergrad Discovers Triceratops Skull on Paleontology Dig in North Dakota

July 24, 2019
Harrison Duran has always wanted to discover ‘the land before time,’ and his desire to dig up dinosaur bones led him to the Badlands of North Dakota, where Alice the Triceratops was waiting for him. Duran is a fifth-year biology student with an emphasis in ecology and evolutionary biology. A...

Biochemistry Researcher Named to NIH Review Board

July 18, 2019
Professor Andy LiWang has accepted an appointment to the National Institutes of Health’s Macromolecular Structure and Function B (MSFB) Study Section Center for Scientific Review. Over his four-year term, LiWang will be a member of the group that reviews grant applications submitted to the NIH,...

New Program Offers Veterans a Way to Realign with Civilian Life

July 18, 2019
One of the pillars of UC Merced is service and giving back to the community. Now the university, Yosemite National Park and partners in the region are offering a new program to help a group of people who gave back in advance — those who served in the military and now qualify for GI Bill benefits....

Physicist Researching Materials Chemistry to Build Better Solar Cells

July 9, 2019
Durable, reliable, affordable solar power is the future of energy, and UC Merced computational physicist Professor David Strubbe is diving into a new area of science to answer the call. Strubbe’s new project aims to understand why two organic materials — that are cheaper and easier to produce...

Multiyear Drought Caused Massive Forest Die-off in Sierra Nevada

July 1, 2019
The most extreme drought event in hundreds of years caused a catastrophic die-off of the Sierra Nevada’s mature trees in 2015-2016. A study published today in Nature Geoscience details how UC Merced Professor Roger Bales and his colleague Professor Michael Goulden from UC Irvine tracked the...

Three Ph.D. Students Receive 2019 NSF Fellowships

June 27, 2019
UC Merced doctoral student Melissa Spence and incoming graduate students Caleb Larnerd and Cristian Sarabia were awarded Graduate Research fellowships (GRFP) from the National Science Foundation. The fellowship provides multiyear support to predoctoral students in the fields of science, technology...

Sierra Seedlings Illustrate Effects of Climate Change on Next Generation of Forests

June 24, 2019
Climate change is bad news for forests, and a new study by UC Merced Professor Emily Moran demonstrates one aspect of that news. Higher summer temperatures hurt tree seedlings’ growth and survival. But whether that is entirely bad depends on the degree of change in the number of young trees. “One...

Science-Themed Living Learning Communities Enjoy Successful Debut

June 18, 2019
It started with a simple off-hand comment, one that would likely be met with a chuckle at any other institution. At UC Merced, it became a ripple that has changed the academic and social strata of an entire school. School of Natural Sciences Dean Betsy Dumont recalled the exchange that took place...

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