Environmental Research

UC Merced's Smart Farm Abuzz with Activity

June 25, 2025

Photo depicts UC Merced student Jesse Martinez operating a robot on the Experimental Smart Farm.

At UC Merced's biggest lab, students work from before sunrise to well after dusk. They are operating the university's Experimental Smart Farm, 40 acres of dirt and plants, research and experiments. They study everything from pollinators to hydroponics, but there are more than just...

Postdoctoral Researcher’s Work in International Ecology Journal

The theory that temperature limits how far up in the mountains trees can grow looks like it’s true, but not in the way researchers had expected. Working with Professor Lara Kueppers, UC Merced...

Research Week Highlights Cutting-Edge Work

Researchers at the university in your backyard are delving into issues of great importance to the San Joaquin Valley, the state, the nation and the world. You can learn more about their work at the...

Graduate Student Bringing UC Merced to Western Pacific

Graduate student Sharon Patris likes spending time at a lake in the middle of the forest on an uninhabited island in the western Pacific. The marine lake named Ongiem’l Tketau and informally known as...

Professor’s Paper, Among Year’s Best, Shows Dramatic Effects of Mountaintop Mining on Climate

UC Merced School of Engineering Professor Elliott Campbell has co-authored a paper showing that mountaintop removal mining will dramatically accelerate the regional effects of global warming by...

UC Merced’s Sustainability Practices Include the Whole Campus Community

Sometimes, what goes on behind the scenes is as important as what happens in full view – especially when it comes to UC Merced’s pledge to uphold and develop new sustainable practices. All across...

UC Merced Honors PG&E with Inaugural Vanguard Award

MERCED, Calif. — UC Merced honored the Pacific Gas and Electric Company with the School of Engineering’s inaugural Vanguard Award today with a special ceremony to thank the company for all it has...

New Energy Manager’s Big Plans Require Small Steps

As UC Merced’s new energy manager, it’s Varick Erickson’s job to watch every kilowatt hour used on campus and identify ways to save them. “It’s a lot like rummaging around in the couch and looking...

UC Merced Professor’s Lighting Device Earning Campus Its Fourth U.S. Patent

Professor Roland Winston knows a jellyfish that can help people see more clearly. But it’s not the kind found in the ocean. It’s one that’s about to earn Winston and UC Merced a U.S. patent, and is...

UC Merced Caps Successful Year with an Eye on the Future

MERCED, Calif. — Though UC Merced looked back this year to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the campus’s groundbreaking, signs of what the future will hold continue to come into focus. Those signs...