Lorena Anderson

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

November 10, 2025

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 serve California’s future. Now, after more than 22 years of building institutions, mentoring...

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

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...

How 'Bout Them Apples? Engineers Correlate Friction to Texture

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...

Babies Forage for Sounds That Contribute to Language Acquisition, Study Shows

Most people wouldn’t think physics has anything to do with baby babble and human language development. But most people aren’t Ritwika Vallomparambath PanikkasserySugasree. The...

Research Reveals Collective Dynamics of Active Matter Systems

Flocks of starlings producing dazzling patterns across the sky are natural examples of active matter — groups of individual agents coming together to create collective dynamics. In a study...

New Tech Will Change How People Use Mobile Devices

Two projects from a UC Merced engineering lab are making interactions with mobile devices easier and quicker, especially for blind people. Computer science Professor Ahmed Arif and his students...

Researchers Forge a New Weapon to Fight Parasites and Other Infections

Breakthrough collaborative science by an interdisciplinary team of researchers brought together by computational biology Professor David Ardell promises a new approach for treating all types of...

Researchers Discover Mechanism Proteins Use To Find And Control Genes

Bioengineering Professor Victor Muñoz has answered a long-standing genetic mystery, and his research suggests that someday, bioengineers could devise ways to control gene activity — manually...

‘E-Week’ Shines Spotlight on Engineering Field, Students

Competitions, showcases, career success stories and more highlight the work of the School of Engineering and its students at UC Merced’s annual celebration of National Engineers Week, Feb. 18...

Breakthrough in Stem Cell Research: First Image of Niche Environment

Professor Joel Spencer was a rising star in college soccer and now he is an emerging scientist in the world of biomedical engineering, capturing — for the first time — an image of a...