Research

Project Aims to Put AI to Work Reducing its Own Energy Needs

April 8, 2026

Photo depicts Elizabeth Nowadnick, center, surrounded by members of her lab on campus at UC Merced.
It's no secret that artificial intelligence uses a lot of electricity. A standard ChatGPT query consumes approximately 0.34 watt-hours - roughly 10 times more than a Google search. According to the Pew Research Center, U.S. data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024 -...
MSE student John Misiaszek

MSE Student Receives Prestigious Scholarship

Each year, only two ASM International/SAMPE scholarships are awarded to students throughout northern California. This year, UC Merced junior John Misiaszek is one of them. Misiaszek conducts...
Participants in this year's production of "As You Like It" include: UC Merced student Angel Nunez, Yosemite Park Ranger Jess Rivas, local English teacher Bethy Harmelin, UC Merced faculty member Tawanda Chabikwa and UC Merced student Maria Nguyen-Cruz.

‘All the World’s a Stage’ with Shakespeare in Yosemite’s 3rd Annual Production

William Shakespeare’s plays are meant to be enjoyed by a live, theater audience and there is no better place to experience The Bard than Yosemite National Park. For the third year, UC Merced...
ice Provost and Graduate Dean Marjorie S. Zatz was selected as one of the Top 35 Women in Higher Education by Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.

‘Diverse’ Names Zatz One of the Nation’s Leading Women in Higher Ed

UC Merced’s Vice Provost and Graduate Dean Marjorie S. Zatz was selected as one of the Top 35 Women in Higher Education in Diverse: Issues In Higher Education’s eighth annual special...
Kimber Moreland with the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) instrument. Photo courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Lab: LLNL-PHOTO-769483.

Three Environmental Systems Graduate Students Receive Department of Energy Fellowships

Under the leadership of Professors Asmeret Berhe and Stephen Hart, three UC Merced Environmental Systems (ES) graduate students have been awarded fellowships from the U.S. Department of Energy (...
Waterbirds take flight over a large wetland area along the Pacific Flyway.

Climate Change is Negatively Affecting Waterbirds in the American West

Climate change is having a profound effect on the millions of migrating birds that rely on annual stops along the Pacific Flyway as they head from Alaska to Patagonia each year. They are finding...
Two professors are researching how to predict those who is most likely to use firearms to commit suicide.

New Project Aims to Predict People Likely to use Firearms in Suicides

The majority of people who die by suicide do so with firearms, and there were more firearm suicides in America in 2017 than there were homicides committed by any method. Combined. Those shocking...
Rose Scott engages with a child to gauge his reactions as part of her research.

Grant Enables Researcher to Focus on Valley Families and Children’s Development

Certain aspects of children's social cognition ripple throughout their lives, including whether small children can understand that other people’s minds are different than their own. That...
Leaf-cutter ants in the tropical rain forest of Costa Rica carry cut leaves back to their colony.

Study: Tiny ‘Ecosystem Engineers’ Are an Overlooked Source of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

It’s estimated that a leaf-cutter ant colony can strip an average tree of its foliage in a day, and that more than 17 percent of leaf production by plants surrounding a colony goes straight...

UC Merced Holds First Arts Week to Showcase Students, Faculty, Staff and Community

Some people have the idea that the arts are being shortchanged as UC Merced grows. The Global Arts, Media and Writing Studies (GAMWS) Program is here to correct that perception with its...

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