Physics

Cal-Bridge Scholar Rolando Ortega Wants to Build the Future

August 22, 2025

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 scholar from Los Angeles County joins UC Merced to start his doctoral journey. With experience...

Physics Grad Student Receives Competitive UC Fellowship

Ph.D. student Micah Oeur has been awarded a 2024-2025 UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship to support her physics research and boost her goal to be a professor. PPPF’s goal is...

Grad Student Receives Prestigious Defense Fellowship

Thomas “Teddy” Adams has been awarded the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) fellowship sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. The three-year fellowship...

Lions consume a giraffe carcass in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania.

Researchers Accurately Model Animals’ Hunting, Scavenging Behavior

A group of UC Merced researchers modeled predation behaviors, as well as changes in those behaviors, among large carnivores, developing a new theory that will help biologists assess the health of...

Ph.D. candidate Arabi Seshappan will spend 10 months at a satellite campus of the Université Paris-Saclay in France after being selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

Fulbright Award Sends Physics Grad Student to France for Quantum Research

Persistence has paid off for UC Merced doctoral candidate Arabi Seshappan. The graduate student from Fremont, about to start her sixth year, was selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program...

Physics-based Modeling Reveals Surprising Behavior of Blood Clots

A group of researchers, including physicists from UC Merced, has made discoveries about the mechanics of blood clots that could help in the development of biomaterials for tissue engineering and...

Professor Ajay Gopinathan and CCBM Executive Director Carrie Kouadio

New Summer Research Opportunities for Undergraduates from Across U.S.

The National Science Foundation awarded a team, led by principal investigators Professor Ajay Gopinathan and Carrie Kouadio, funding to establish a summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (...

Fellowship Expands Quantum, AI Training to Fill Industry Demand

UC Merced graduate students Anuvetha Govindarajan and Jocelyn Ornelas-Munoz have each received a $25,000 fellowship from SandboxAQ, which creates solutions at the nexus of artificial...

Active-matter Researcher will Further Modeling, Education with NSF CAREER Award

Department of Physics Professor Kinjal Dasbiswas has received a CAREER award for his work on the theory and modeling of shape-changing active solids. He is the 38th researcher from UC Merced to...

Graduate students Alauna Wheeler, Arabi Seshappan, Zunaira Iqbal and Hope Hauptman received a prestigious fellowship from the Northern California Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation.

ARCS Scholars Work to Advance STEM Research

Four UC Merced graduate students can focus fully on their research and academic studies this year thanks to a generous gift from the Northern California Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College...