Faculty

From Soil to Climate Solutions: Berhe Leads Sierra Nevada Research Institute into its Next Chapter

September 11, 2025

When Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe arrived at UC Merced in 2009, she and her husband, Professor Teamrat Ghezzehei, were leaving major research institutions to join a brand-new campus in California’s Central Valley. It was a leap of faith — one made easier by the Sierra Nevada Research...

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...

Undergraduate Applications to UC Merced Surge 14 Percent

Editor’s Note: As of mid-February, UC Merced’s graduate student applications increased by 6.6 percent over last year. This press release reports a 41 percent increase, which at the time (Jan. 18) was...

Professor Awarded National Grant for Research on Moroccan Literature

University of California, Merced, literature Professor Cristián H. Ricci has received a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities award to write an in-depth analysis of Moroccan literature....

Parents' Financial Help Linked to Lower GPAs, Higher Graduation Rates

College students who aren’t studying hard may have their parents’ financial support to blame. A new study by University of California, Merced, sociology Professor Laura T. Hamilton found that...

Historian Uses 'Big Data' to Study World History

The path from ancient China to information science might seem like a long one, but Ruth Mostern is walking it. Mostern, a history professor in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, is...

Researchers Publish in Leading Science, Technology Journal

The small-scale, cutting-edge work of graduate student Eric Josephs and chemistry Professor Tao Ye is providing an up-close look at the behavior of biomolecules. The two UC Merced researchers hope to...

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...

New Provost Shares Vision for Campus

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Tom Peterson assumed his leadership role at UC Merced on Dec. 3 and has been meeting with various campus groups to learn more about the university. Before coming...

Gaming Graphics Changing How Computational Science is Conducted

Professor Christine Isborn is doing quantum chemistry at the speed of graphics. Isborn is using the same graphics computer cards (graphical processing units, or GPUs) that make your Playstation...