Awards

Research into Hidden Chemistry Shaping Future Air Quality Earns Zhang an NSF Award

September 8, 2025

As nations cut emissions that once fueled urban smog, scientists are discovering unexpected chemistry taking place in the atmosphere. UC Merced Professor Xuan Zhang is leading a project to uncover how these chemical shifts could affect the air we breathe and the climate. The project is supported...

This year's Hellman Fellows: Adeyemi Adebiyi, Qian Wang and Meredith Van Natta

Hellman Fellowships Welcome Three New Members from UC Merced

As the Hellman Fellowships celebrate their 30th year, three more researchers, one from each of UC Merced’s schools, have joined the prestigious ranks of recipients. Electrical engineering...

Professor Amemiya, right, with Past President Leslie Pick, left, and President Karen Crow.

Amemiya Awarded for Research, Teaching, Outreach and Service

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Chris Amemiya, former interim director of the Health Sciences Research Institute, has been honored by the Pan American Society for Evolutionary...

LiWang’s Research into Biological Clocks Earns Protein Society Honors

Professor Andy LiWang knows what makes us tick, at least at a cellular level. His research into the mechanisms of the oldest biological clock known to humankind has led him to understand how...

Two UC Merced graduate students wearing blue

Students Awarded Prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Two UC Merced graduate students and an alum from the School of Natural Sciences were recently awarded fellowships from the highly competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship...

Dunham Named Cal Pac Athletic Director of the Year

UC Merced Executive Director of Recreation & Athletics David Dunham has been named California Pacific Conference Athletic Director of the Year for the second straight year and for the third time...

UC Merced Student’s Photography Joins Exhibit of Young Valley Talent

Zachary Silva’s camera escorts us to extraordinary places. We see UC Merced from high above, the land around the campus warped by a fisheye lens. We look straight down a pole at a fluttering U....

Group of five female graduates at commencement

Carnegie Recognizes UC Merced for Student Access, Grad Earnings

UC Merced has earned two 2025 Carnegie distinctions, the Student Access and Earnings Classification “Opportunity Colleges and Universities” and the Institutional Classification by the...

Top nine Grad Slam finalists with graduate dean and associate graduate dean with R1 prop

Chemistry Ph.D. Student Wins Campus Grad Slam Top Prize, Advances to UC-wide Final

Adekunle “Kunle” Adewole isn’t a stranger to the spotlight, having grown up singing at family functions and performing in theater productions. He also has fervently watched “...

Sameen Yunus, left, and her faculty advisor, physics Professor David Strubbe

Graduate Student Earns Fellowship to Study Fusion at Livermore Lab

UC Merced physics graduate student Sameen Yunus has been awarded a prestigious fellowship allowing her to spend the next three years working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, conducting...