Engineering

Championing the Transition to Clean Energy

June 11, 2025

Image depicts UC Merced mechanical engineering Professor Ricardo Pinto de Castro talking to students near a small robot.

Mechanical engineering Professor Ricardo Pinto de Castro has turned a penchant for systems-level thinking and a longtime love of cars into a climate-resilient research mission. From electric vehicles (EVs) traversing San Francisco's busiest streets to electric appliances such as...

Past Wildfires Offer Future Roadmap for Forest Management’s Effects on Water

Forest restoration is often associated with mitigating wildfire risk and improving ecosystem health throughout the Sierra Nevada. But restoration also dramatically affects water use within forests...

In just 15 years, UC Merced has reached the top 100 in the US News & World Report rankings.

UC Merced Moves Into Top 100 National Universities Ranked by U.S. News & World Report

UC Merced has broken into the top 100 of U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of the top national universities, placing 97th overall and 40th among public institutions. The university,...

Global Fire Outlook Not Good News, but Mitigation is Possible, Analysis Shows

Wildfire is a natural process necessary to many ecosystems. But wildfires are getting worse and more damaging, and it is our fault, according to new research. A paper by two UC Merced researchers...

New Grant More than Doubles Campus Supercomputing Power

UC Merced is rapidly gaining a strong reputation for research and scientific computing across many disciplines and a major expansion of its computing infrastructure is about to cement the campus...

Freeing the state from its dependence on fossil fuels means finding the right combination of renewable solutions, as well as efficient, low-cost energy storage.

New Project Shining a Light on Energy Storage

California’s leaders want the state to reach 100 percent clean energy in the future, including being 60 percent powered by renewable energy by 2030 and being free of fossil fuels entirely by...

Equipment in the Costa Rican rainforest measures the soil emissions.

Precipitation and Drainage Fuel Large CO2 ‘Burps’ from Rainforest Soils, Study Finds

It is said that rainforests are the Earth’s lungs, capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, building it into lush vegetation and releasing oxygen and water back into the air. But every...

New Engineering Research Center to Focus on Agriculture Technology

By 2050, the U.S. population is estimated to grow to 400 million, and the world population to 9.1 billion, requiring a 70 percent increase in global food production. UC Merced is one of four...

New NSF Center Intersects Chemistry and Mechanics

Scientists know the whats and whys of using light, heat and electricity to direct chemical reactions toward an end goal. What’s less well understood are the effects mechanical force can have on...

SNRI Sees a Leadership Transition

Change is everywhere at UC Merced this year, from hiring a new chancellor to the completion of a major campus expansion. The Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI), an early hallmark of research...