Materials & Matter

Astronomers Reveal Hidden Activity in the Early Universe’s Most Massive Galaxies

January 5, 2026

Spectroscopy at the UC's W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii helped the researchers interpret complex data about ultramassive galaxies. Photo courtesy of the W.M. Keck Observatory.

An international team of astronomers has studied ultramassive galaxies - galaxies containing more than 100 billion stars - as they existed when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. The results show that while some of these ultramassive galaxies, or UMGs, had already shut down star...

High school students will have a wider array of research opportunities through COSMOS starting next summer.

COSMOS Expands to UC Merced, Opening Doors for California’s Brightest Young Scientists

Starting next summer, UC Merced will join an elite group of University of California campuses hosting COSMOS — the California State Summer School for Math and Science — giving some of the...

This year's Hellman Fellows: Adeyemi Adebiyi, Qian Wang and Meredith Van Natta

Hellman Fellowships Welcome Three New Members from UC Merced

As the Hellman Fellowships celebrate their 30th year, three more researchers, one from each of UC Merced’s schools, have joined the prestigious ranks of recipients. Electrical engineering...

Simple Chemical Treatment Makes Next-Gen Electronics More Reliable

A team of international researchers has discovered that a simple chemical treatment can enhance the strength and reliability of one of the world’s thinnest materials for use in future...

Anne and David Kelley, third and fourth from left, with a group of graduate students.

A New Adventure for Two Founding Faculty Chemists: Retirement

Starting a university from scratch isn’t for the faint of heart — or the slow of foot. Lucky for UC Merced, Anne Myers Kelley and David Kelley are neither. Anne, a former Olympic...

A sign posted on a tree in Eastern Europe warns of active land mines.

UC Merced’s Berhe Joins Scientists in Warning of Global Land Mine Crisis

More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians,...

NSF Award Supports Young Faculty Member’s Research into Building Blocks of the Universe

Cosmology Professor Anna Nierenberg has received a CAREER award for a project that will vastly improve the study of the nature of dark matter in the universe. She is the 42nd researcher from UC...

Sameen Yunus, left, and her faculty advisor, physics Professor David Strubbe

Graduate Student Earns Fellowship to Study Fusion at Livermore Lab

UC Merced physics graduate student Sameen Yunus has been awarded a prestigious fellowship allowing her to spend the next three years working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, conducting...

Wilson Among This Year’s AAAS Fellows, Recognized for Science and Outreach

Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development Gillian Wilson has been named a 2024 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’...

Stargazing and Lecture Offer Unique Perspectives on Stars and Exoplanets

The night sky is filled with countless mysteries and worlds yet to be explored but that someday might be visited by spacecraft. In a free event titled “Celestial Tales: Stars, Exoplanets and...

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