Faculty

Ants, Endurance and a Ph.D. at the Finish Line

March 18, 2026

UC Merced graduate student Reo Maynard studies a carpenter ant from one of his many ant colonies.

On most days, Reo Maynard’s life swings between two ecosystems: the microscopic world inside an ant’s gut and the sprawling one that stretches from Fresno to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The 51-year-old Navy veteran, dad of two, screenwriter-in-waiting and newly minted Fresno City...

Professor lectures in front of class of college students

New Teaching Professor Title Recognizes Work, Expertise of Faculty Group

Roughly 20 faculty members at UC Merced have new titles this semester that more accurately reflects their work: Teaching professor. The working title change involves the group of faculty in the L(...

Engineering Professor Working to Improve Strawberry Harvesting

Harvesting is said to be one of the most costly and labor-intensive operations in strawberry production. But a UC Merced engineering researcher is looking for ways to make it easier and cheaper....

National Writing Project Kicks Off Under New Leadership

It’s a new school year, which also happens to be a new chapter of the UC Merced Writing Project. The UC Merced Writing Project is a local affiliation of the National Writing Project, which...

Lauren Schiebelhut is putting what she learned at UC Merced to take her research career to the next level.

Alumna Tackles Eco-Evolutionary Research on the California Coast

Lauren Schiebelhut credits the support and opportunities afforded to her at UC Merced with opening the door to her research career. Schiebelhut — a first-generation transfer student from...

Physicists Revealing Mysteries of Biological Fluids

A group of physics researchers from UC Merced have revealed that a fluid made from biological molecules found in human cells behaves much like ordinary fluids that are mixed externally, such as paint...

Applied Math — an ‘Oddity’ in its Field — Continues to Evolve at UC Merced

Math at UC Merced isn’t exactly like math at most other universities. Sure, there are parabolas and equations, orders of operations and cosines, but at this campus, those lead into topics...

Scientific equipment for making solar cells

UC Merced Reaches for Stars with Solar Cells

Two UC Merced physics groups are totally spacing out this year. Professors Sayantani Ghosh and David Strubbe and their students in the Department of Physics are working on a NASA initiative to...

Blood Cell Research Taking Groundbreaking Turns in Biology Lab

Developmental biologist Professor Anna Beaudin and her lab are making breakthrough discoveries in a growing field of research that could lead to exciting developments in such medical puzzles as...

UC Merced has risen 61 spots in the overall U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges rankings in the past two years.

UC Merced Takes Another Giant Leap in U.S. News Rankings

The fastest-growing public research university in the nation is the fastest-rising university in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges rankings. The University of California Merced,...