Brenda Ortiz

Postdoc Leads Study to Turn Cotton Waste into Climate-Smart Compost

November 12, 2025

three stages of cotton textile composting

UC Merced researchers are collaborating on a two-year research project to develop effective composting methods for cotton textiles. The project explores manufacturing cotton waste scraps from clothing into compost to demonstrate efficient composting with the right recipe, and the compost’s...

UC Merced Tells Madera Students: College is Attainable

For Melissa Ugaldes and many San Joaquin Valley high school students like her, a University of California education might not be an obvious option. That’s why leaders from UC Merced visited Madera...

Record Spike in Applications Nets Enrollment Increase

A fall census shows enrollment at the University of California, Merced, has reached 6,195 students — a 7 percent increase over last year — as the campus continues to grow in both numbers and ...

UC Merced Sees 26 Percent Increase in Private Funding

The University of California, Merced, recorded $5.04 million in private gift and grant support from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013 — an increase of 26 percent over the last fiscal year’s total of $3....

UC Goes Social to Raise Scholarship Funds

The University of California today (Sept. 18) began Promise for Education, a six-week crowd-funding campaign to engage students, faculty, alumni, celebrities, businesses, politicians and supporters...

UC Merced Alum Travels to U.K. for Master’s Program in Brain Sciences

With UC Merced in her hometown, Hillary Brown had an easy commute to her college campus. She’ll log many more miles on the way to graduate school. Brown is headed to the University of Glasgow in...

On-Campus Housing Accommodates 2,100 Students This Year

Although the UC Merced campus is entering its ninth academic year, the campus is still in a constant state of expansion. To fill a demand for more housing, the newest residence hall — Half Dome — was...

Merritt Writing Program Lecturer Reaches Students with Comic Books

In John Bultena’s writing classes, students often explore new literary classics. Like “Batwoman Volume 1: Hydrology.” Bultena, a lecturer in UC Merced’s Merritt Writing Program and recent panelist at...

Management Major Takes Leadership Experience to South Africa

UC Merced senior Alexandra Hamilton is spending five months at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, studying global markets and business. Hamilton, a management major and San Diego native,...

Aspiring Architect Earns PG&E Internship

At a conference of the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers, Jessyca Kamel, a junior from Los Angeles, wore her UC Merced shirt on her morning coffee run. “I bumped into one of the PG&E...