Research Excellence

Research Week Marks UC Merced’s First Full Year as an R1 Institution

April 9, 2026

Two students and their professor in a UC Merced research lab.
UC Merced will host Research Week April 13-17, celebrating innovative work across campus and encouraging engagement in research among students, faculty and staff. The weeklong event allows the campus community to showcase research findings, participate in workshops, take tours and connect with...
Cognitive science robot experiment

Study: People Facing Life-or-Death Choice Put Too Much Trust in AI

In simulated life-or-death decisions, about two-thirds of people in a UC Merced study allowed a robot to change their minds when it disagreed with them -- an alarming display of excessive trust in...
Lab members Zabir Mahmud and Farzan ZareAfifi are pictured on either side of electrical engineering Professor Sarah Kurtz.

As California Develops More Clean Energy, Researchers Delve Into How to Store it

As California lawmakers consider a package of bills aimed at increasing the production of clean energy, a major question arises: How would we store all this new power? Storage is a vital...
From left, Professor Fred Wolf, Sammy Villa and Vishva Dixit in the lab.

Researchers Discover Mechanism that Could Control Longevity, Cancer Cell Production

Researchers at UC Merced used fruit flies to uncover a cellular process common to many organisms that could dramatically impact the understanding of cancer and aging. Department of Molecular and...
Kara McCloskey and students in her lab are shown.

Students Spend Summer Learning about Stem Cells

A diverse group of students participated in a stem cell training pilot program at UC Merced this summer. It was the second summer for the Training Undergrads in Stem Cell Engineering and Biology (...

CITRIS Aviation Prize Delivers Connections, Prizes

What would it take to connect the University of California's campuses in Merced, Berkeley, Davis and Santa Cruz with a safe and sustainable system of air taxis that ferries students, faculty,...
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...
Illustration of hands reach out to each other.

Psychological Bias Links Good Deeds with Religious Belief, UC Merced Research Says

Experiments conducted by UC Merced researchers find that people who perform good deeds are far more likely to be thought of as religious believers than atheists. Moreover, the psychological bias...

Researcher's Work Aimed at Helping People Live Better Lives

"I like research on the Internet of Things because it solves problems in people's lives," said Shijia Pan , a professor of computer science and engineering at UC Merced and a...

Ecologists’ Meeting Showcases UC Merced Student Researchers and Faculty

Students and faculty are converging on Long Beach this week for the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. Seven students will present their research and Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe...

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