Physics

Innovative Research Secures Coveted Fellowships for Ph.D. Students

January 14, 2026

graphic with five individuals higlighted; three females and two males with UC Merced and ARCS logos on blue background

The ARCS Foundation Northern California awarded five UC Merced graduate students with 2025-26 fellowships. ARCS advances science and technology in the United States by providing financial awards to exceptional graduate-level scholars in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. In...

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.

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

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...

Female with brown hair in cream turtle neck top in front of building

Doctoral Student Secures New Fellowships to Support Computational Modeling Research

Physics Ph.D. candidate Arabi Seshappan added two prestigious fellowships to her curriculum vitae: the Chateaubriand Fellowship in Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics & Biology-Health...

UC Merced Chemist Wins DOE Award to Simulate Electron Motion at Quantum Speeds

Chemistry Professor Henrik Larsson has received a prestigious Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, becoming the first faculty member from UC Merced’s School of Natural...

UC Merced to Host Stargazing Night with Director of UC Observatories

UC Merced invites the public to an evening of cosmic discovery on Thursday, Oct. 23, featuring a free lecture by Bruce Macintosh, director of the University of California Observatories, followed by...

Cal-Bridge Scholar Rolando Ortega Wants to Build the Future

This is part of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2025 semester. Rolando Ortega is closing in on his dream of earning a Ph.D. This fall, the Cal-Bridge...

Photo depicts UC Merced student Jesse Martinez operating a robot on the Experimental Smart Farm.

UC Merced's Smart Farm Abuzz with Activity

At UC Merced's biggest lab, students work from before sunrise to well after dusk. They are operating the university's Experimental Smart Farm, 40 acres of dirt and plants, research and...

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’...