Lorena Anderson

From Soil to Climate Solutions: Berhe Leads Sierra Nevada Research Institute into its Next Chapter

September 11, 2025

When Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe arrived at UC Merced in 2009, she and her husband, Professor Teamrat Ghezzehei, were leaving major research institutions to join a brand-new campus in California’s Central Valley. It was a leap of faith — one made easier by the Sierra Nevada Research...

Researcher Tracking Teens Who Attempted Suicide

More than 120,000 young people ages 10 to 18 attempt suicide each year, and about 4,500 of those attempts are fatal. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among children ages 10-14 and the...

Multicampus Grant Provides for Advances in Learning Interventions

UC Merced Professor Jeffrey Gilger is an integral part of a new intercampus effort to understand and reduce education-related risks in California’s young English-language learners. Funding for the...

Study: Dust Helps Regulate Sierra Nevada Ecosystems

“Collecting dust” isn’t usually considered a good thing. But dust from as near as the Central Valley and as far away as the Gobi Desert in Asia provides more nutrients — especially critical...

Paleorecord Critical to Future Conservation Efforts, Scientists Say

The rapid pace of global change has large impacts on nature, and on the work conservation biologists will have before them, too. From here on out, experts say, the fossil record is going to be...

Renewable Power Project Could Help Cut Food Processing Costs, Feed People and Animals

Researchers at UC Solar have developed and tested an innovative solar thermal-powered process for turning the pomace, or byproduct, of vegetable and fruit processing into reusable products,...

Startups Poised to Make Strides for Local Economy

Two startup companies run by UC Merced alumni have taken big steps toward the kind of success many entrepreneurs can only hope for. St. Vincent’s Solutions, which makes a humidifying respirator for...

Ancient Biological Clockwork Revealed Using ‘Secret Sauce’

In finding a way to see assemblies of the proteins that direct cyanobacterial circadian rhythms, or biological clocks, UC Merced biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang and his colleagues have done what...

New Initiative Advances Agriculture Technology Education

As agriculture and food production achieve greater high-tech heights and resources such as water become more scarce, the country will increasingly depend on innovative solutions from its brightest ...

New UC Solar Project Produces Both Heat and Power

One of California’s greatest energy challenges is finding innovative ways to lower natural gas consumption to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. To help meet that...