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...

Precision Targeting Provides New Insights Into Therapy-Resistant Cancers

The National Cancer Institute’s “cancer moonshot” tasks researchers with, among advancing other new biotechnologies, delving into immunotherapy and epigenomic analysis. UC Merced Professor Fabian V....

Researcher Illuminates the Olfactory Life of Crabs

If you want to know what the ocean really smells like, you’ll have to ask a crab. Yes, crabs have a sense of smell. In humans, chemicals in the air flow into our nasal cavities toward specialized...

Despite Farms, Some in Valley Struggle to Find Fresh Food

It might come as a surprise that, in a region where agriculture is so prevalent, many people in the San Joaquin Valley cannot afford fresh, quality produce or live too far from grocery stores,...

New Book Focuses on Teaching Writing to Minorities

Teaching writing is both a science and art. As the field of education moves more toward inclusiveness and embracing diversity, however, the art and science of writing — and how to teach it — becomes...

Cancer Patients’ Care Requires More Than Written Instructions

The depth and breadth of post-diagnosis care for cancer patients often depends on the resources available to them. But a new paper in the journal PLoS One by UC Merced Professor Nancy Burke shows...

UC Merced Professor Delivers Pellissier Lecture

Everyone is invited to hear UC Merced Professor Clarissa Nobile, this year’s Pellissier Distinguished Speaker, discussing biofilms. “Microbial Films: Why are They Important? How do They Form? And...

Study: Infants Recognize Surprise in Others Before Age 2

Infants as young as 20 months of age expect adults to display surprise when discovering a false belief, according to a new study from UC Merced Professor Rose Scott. Previous research suggested that...

Raindrops, Red Wine Inspire Solar Tech Advancements

In recent publications, Professor Vincent Tung proves that inspiration for advancements in materials science can come from anywhere — even the merging of raindrops on a windshield or the sheeting of...

New UC Grant Enables Deeper, Broader Valley Fever Research

Researchers at UC Merced are playing key roles in the new UC Valley Fever Research Initiative, studying how the Valley fever fungus, Coccidioides immitis, causes disease in its mammalian hosts, and...