Faculty

Professor Dives with Crocs, Displays Megalodon Expertise During Shark Week

July 17, 2025

Professor Sora Kim swam with a Nile crocodile for this year's Shark Week special, which focuses of sharks versus prehistoric reptiles. Photo courtesy of Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Shark Week starts Sunday and Professor Sora Kim will be featured again this year in a special airing at 9 p.m. Monday, titled “Jaws vs. Mega Croc,” and the filming allowed her to swim with a Nile crocodile. “I flew to Florida and learned about crocodiles – their evolution...

Capstone Team’s Designs Could Win DARPA Competition

Improvements for a ubiquitous device that cools high-powered electronics aboard military aircraft could do more than just earn a group of engineering students their senior capstone design credits. It...

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...

Researchers Melt Snow to See Climate Change Impacts

In a megadrought like the one California is experiencing, people tend to look at how much rainfall has come along. But it also matters when the snowmelt releases its cache, because the snowpack is...

Walking, Talking in Infants Connected

Infants show a sharp increase in understanding and using language shortly after they begin walking, according to research by a UC Merced developmental psychology professor. “What is it about walking...

Annual Bobcat Art Show Roars into Ninth Year

UC Merced artists will showcase their talent during the campus’s annual Bobcat Art Show, which starts its month-long run Monday in the UC Merced Art Gallery and Kolligian Library. The show, now in...

Humanities Center Turns World Upside Down

The UC Merced Center for the Humanities has turned the world upside down. The center, which received a $2 million gift in 2012 to expand its activities, selected “The World Upside Down: Topsy-Turvy”...

Professor’s Paper in Nature Communications Indicates Deep Sea Changes

Large, naturally occurring low-oxygen zones in the Pacific appear to be expanding, and there is a sharp change in the number of bacteria that produce and consume different forms of toxic sulfur,...

Social Feedback Loop Aids Language Development

Verbal interactions between parents and children create a social feedback loop important for language development, according to research by a professor at the University of California, Merced. That...

McCloskey’s Research Earns Grant from California’s Stem Cell Push

UC Merced Professor Kara McCloskey was recently awarded a highly competitive $500,000 grant to continue tackling significant, unresolved issues in human stem cell biology, as part of an effort to...