Materials & Matter

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

May 1, 2025

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 Merced to earn a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). CAREER awards are among...

National Academy of Engineering Elects Kurtz Into Its Ranks

Professor Sarah Kurtz has become the first UC Merced faculty member to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in recognition of her contributions to the development of gallium...

Bioengineering professor Eva de Alba in her lab with her students and postdoctoral scholar. Students in back row: Pedro Diaz-Parga, Arturo Gonzalez, Suzanne Sandin, Kevin Ramirez and Christopher Randolph. Front Row: Meenakshi Sharma and Eva de Alba.

Bioengineering Faculty Member Studies Inflammation with NIH Grant

Everyone has inflammation in their body at some point as it is a vital part of the immune system. It’s what happens when white blood cells flow to a wound, whether that is a bruise or a broken...

Materials Science Researcher Honored with CAREER Award

Professor Yue ‘Jessica’ Wang, with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the 25th...

Lab Works to Understand Molecular Motors and Cholesterol’s Relation to Alzheimer’s

Professor Jing Xu and her students study extremely tiny motor proteins, but their work could make a huge contribution to the growing body of knowledge about Alzheimer’s and other diseases that...

Physicist Found His Path to the Future at UC Merced

When Denzal Martin started his undergraduate work at UC Merced, he wasn’t thinking about a career in physics, interning with NASA or attending graduate school. The Los Angeles native was...

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...

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...

Biochemistry Researcher Named to NIH Review Board

Professor Andy LiWang has accepted an appointment to the National Institutes of Health’s Macromolecular Structure and Function B (MSFB) Study Section Center for Scientific Review. Over his...

Professor Strubbe stands in front of a research poster.

Physicist Researching Materials Chemistry to Build Better Solar Cells

Durable, reliable, affordable solar power is the future of energy, and UC Merced computational physicist Professor David Strubbe is diving into a new area of science to answer the call. Strubbe...

Research