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...

Student Researchers Working with National Lab on Mercury Remediation

At UC Merced, mercury is a regional challenge that student and faculty researchers have been tackling for several years. Mercury was used to extract gold during the Gold Rush in California, and the...

Ph.D. Student Named an American Farmland Trust Research Fellow

Fourth year Environmental Systems Ph.D. student Elena Bischak has been named a research fellow by the American Farmland Trust (AFT). The AFT Research Fellows Program aims to “empower the...

Professor Rebecca Ryals and her students study soil organic amendments.

Ryals’ Teaching, Research and Service Earns Her Presidential Chair in Climate Change

Professor Rebecca Ryals has made campus history by being named UC Merced’s inaugural Presidential Chair in Climate Change. The appointment was recommended by her peers and Dean Betsy Dumont...

Field researcher at California's tidal pools.

Research Week Highlights Solutions to Urgent Environmental Issues

It's time for the campus and the community to celebrate UC Merced’s high-level research during Research Week, March 6 through 10. The annual research showcase, hosted by the Office of...

Study Finds Childhood Exposure to Weed Killer May Increase Risk of Disease in Young Adulthood

Children who are exposed to glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide worldwide, may suffer from liver inflammation and metabolic disorder in early adulthood, according to a new study by a team that...

Laurels for the director's choice award at the Thomas Edison Film Festival

Award-winning Films Connecting ‘Unseen’ Communities Around the World

Global Arts Studies Professor Yehuda Sharim ’s film “El Ojo Comienza en la Mano,” a documentary about a Central Valley farm worker who never gave up his love of painting, has been...

Eaton's Research on Student Debt Highlighted in New York Review of Books Article

Sociology Professor Charlie Eaton's study of the relationships between financialization (the growing importance of financial markets, organizations and ideas) and growing inequalities in...

Berhe Chosen for National Academy Membership in Recognition of Her Soil Research

Soil biogeochemistry Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe — who is on leave from UC Merced while she serves as federal director of the Office of Science for the Department of Energy — has...

Wilson Selected as a 2023 American Astronomical Society Fellow

Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development Gillian Wilson has been named a 2023 American Astronomical Society (AAS) Fellow — the preeminent organization of professional...