Lorena Anderson

Two UC Merced Researchers Among This Year’s AAAS Fellows

March 26, 2026

The sign reads University of California, Merced

Professors Asmeret Asefaw Berhe and Ming-Hsuan Yang have been named 2025 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. They are among the nearly 500 scientists, engineers...

An undergraduate students works on a science experiment with two middle school students during a CalTeach Bobcat Summer STEM Academy camp.

CalTeach and Local Schools Team Up to Energize Learning across Merced County

UC Merced’s CalTeach program is opening new pathways for younger students to experience hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning, academic support and early exposure...

UC Merced graduate student Reo Maynard studies a carpenter ant from one of his many ant colonies.

Ants, Endurance and a Ph.D. at the Finish Line

On most days, Reo Maynard’s life swings between two ecosystems: the microscopic world inside an ant’s gut and the sprawling one that stretches from Fresno to the Sierra Nevada mountains...

A sign on a southern California beach indicates it is unsafe to swim because of human-caused contamination.

Ocean Chemistry Now Substantially Shaped by Humans

Although the oceans are the least explored places on the planet, even their depths are not untouched by humans. Drawing on more than 2,300 seawater samples collected across the Pacific, Atlantic...

Blue-green algae in flasks are used by researchers at UC Merced and UC San Diego to further the understanding of circadian clocks. Image courtesy of UC San Diego.

Researchers Rebuild Microscopic Circadian Clock That Can Control Genes

Our circadian clocks play a crucial role in our health and well-being, keeping our 24-hour biological cycles in sync with light and dark exposure. Disruptions in the rhythms of these clocks, as with...

Unlocking the Secrets of Tiny, Living Clocks Could Revolutionize Science

Biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang has spent much of his career studying how life keeps time. His work on the circadian clock of cyanobacteria — tiny, ancient organisms that share the planet...

UC Merced Scientists Among Global Elite Shaping AI, Climate and Health

UC Merced continues to demonstrate its growing influence on the global stage. Several faculty members landed on Clarivate’s 2025 list of the world’s most‑cited researchers. The honor...

Spectroscopy at the UC's W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii helped the researchers interpret complex data about ultramassive galaxies. Photo courtesy of the W.M. Keck Observatory.

Astronomers Reveal Hidden Activity in the Early Universe’s Most Massive Galaxies

An international team of astronomers has studied ultramassive galaxies - galaxies containing more than 100 billion stars - as they existed when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. The...

High school students will have a wider array of research opportunities through COSMOS starting next summer.

COSMOS Expands to UC Merced, Opening Doors for California’s Brightest Young Scientists

Starting next summer, UC Merced will join an elite group of University of California campuses hosting COSMOS — the California State Summer School for Math and Science — giving some of the...

Professor and Environmental Champion Bales Retires, But Research and Advocacy Continue

Professors Roger Bales and Martha Conklin arrived in Merced in 2003, the first non-administrative faculty members at UC Merced. They came with a vision: to create a research university that would...