Environmental Research

Finalists Vie for Campus Grad Slam Champion Title During Research Week

March 10, 2025

Each spring, master’s and doctoral students across UC Merced’s 18 graduate groups are invited to contend in the campus’s Grad Slam Finals. They are given three minutes and one visual slide to present their research to a panel of non-specialist judges. This year’s...

Climate Change Influencing Freshwater Mountain Runoff, Research Shows

As the climate warms, sources of the water so critical to life everywhere on Earth are drying up. By the end of this century, communities dependent on freshwater from mountain-fed rivers could see...

Rare Flower Variant Discovered by Professor Offers Insight into Evolution

The discovery of a new, rare species of monkey flower by Professor Jason Sexton provides clues as to how new species are born. Sexton, who researches the monkey flowers that grow wild throughout...

California Overspends Water Rights by 300 Million Acre Feet

California is deficit-spending its water and has been for a century, according to state data analyzed recently by researchers from the University of California. UC Merced Professor Joshua Viers and...

Engineering Students Working on Water Issues for Summer Research Project

Spending a summer finding ways to make toilet water reusable and trying to extract urine from wastewater might not sound glamorous. But the results of the work two UC Merced students are doing though...

Facilities Management Seeks Campus’s Help in Attaining Sustainable Certifications

UC Merced is one of the greenest campuses in the nation, with 100 percent of its new construction having earned LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Those certifications have been...

New Center Seeks Better Ways to Communicate Climate Issues

Climate change is creating two problems. One is understanding and addressing its impact on the world. The other is convincing large swaths of the public that it is, in fact, a reality. In an effort...

Innovate to Grow Competition Highlights Student Creativity

MERCED, Calif. — From disposable drones mapping wildfire perimeters to increasing the number of young students interested in science, technology, engineering and math studies, this year’s engineering...

NSF Early Career Award Honors Professor’s Research and Potential

The National Science Foundation is honoring UC Merced Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe with a Faculty Early Career Development Award to support her examination of how soil helps regulate the climate....

Professor’s Passion for Monkey Flower Leads to Genetic Discoveries

The environment affects the way genetic populations move, and similar environments likely play a bigger role in how a species develops than does geographic distance. Those are just two of the...