Research Excellence

UC Merced Named Top 25 Public University by U.S. News & World Report

September 22, 2025

UC Merced’s upward trajectory shows no signs of slowing as the university has cracked the Top 25 of U.S. News & World Report’s best public schools in the nation. The annual survey, which evaluates nearly 1,700 national public and private colleges and universities, also placed UC...

UC Merced's Experimental Smart Farm is shown.

Grants Fund Wide Variety of Climate Change Research Projects

UC Merced researchers will tackle climate changes in multiple ways through more than $4 million in grants recently awarded from within the university. The Office of Research and Economic...

Professors Briana Ballis, Shijia Pan and Xuan Zhang are pictured.

Three Hellman Fellows Awarded at UC Merced

Three UC Merced researchers have recently received the prestigious Hellman Fellowship. Computer science and engineering Professor Shijia Pan, economics Professor Briana Ballis and life...

Miguel Chacón-Terán was presented with his award at Merck’s headquarters in Rahway, NJ.

Chemistry Postdoc Awarded Merck Research Award

Miguel Chacón-Terán was selected as one of 16 scientists from across the country to receive the 2023 Merck Research Award for Underrepresented Chemists of Color, intended to support rising chemists...

Most of the Universe Composed of Dark Energy, Researchers Show

A UC Merced researcher and her teammates around the world have succeeded in measuring the total amount of matter in the universe for the second time. A new paper in the Astrophysical Journal,...

Merced Materials Science and Engineering professor Yue "Jessica" Wang

UC Merced Researcher Earns Her Third Early Career Award

A UC Merced Materials Science and Engineering professor recently earned a prestigious award from the Army Research Office, a directorate of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army...

Department of Energy Awards $37 Million to Build Research Capacity

Five faculty members from the School of Natural Sciences received grants recently from the Department of Energy (DOE) under its Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR) initiative. To...

An aerial photograph of the UC Merced campus.

NIH Grant to Study Immigration Policy Impacts on Mental Health and Access to Health Care for Latinos in Rural Communities

UC Merced public health Professor Maria-Elena De Trinidad Young has been awarded an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The $3 million grant will fund Young's ambitious...

UC Merced Computer Science and Engineering Professor Xiaoyi Lu and members of the Lu lab.

Department of Energy Grant will Fund EECS Professor Lu's Research into Improving Federated Machine Learning

UC Merced Computer Science and Engineering Professor Xiaoyi Lu is leading a collaboration that secured a $4.35 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) to improve federated...

Founding Faculty Member Martha Conklin Bids Farewell to Campus Community

Professor Martha Conklin started her career at UC Merced at the Castle Research Facility, and it began with a frightening surprise. “I had a baby rattlesnake in my office,” she said....

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