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...

Illustration of worker threatened by robot

People Don’t Worry About Losing Jobs to AI, Even When Told It Could Happen Soon

As debates rage about artificial intelligence's impact on jobs, new research suggests that even warnings that AI could disrupt workers' employment soon do little to shake their...

three stages of cotton textile composting

Postdoc Leads Study to Turn Cotton Waste into Climate-Smart Compost

UC Merced researchers are collaborating on a two-year research project to develop effective composting methods for cotton textiles. The project explores manufacturing cotton waste scraps from...

Professor and Environmental Champion Bales Retires, But Research and Advocacy Continue

Professors Roger Bales and Martha Conklin arrived in Merced in 2003, the first non-administrative faculty members at UC Merced. They came with a vision: to create a research university that would...

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...

Unraveling Cancer’s Neural Connections: NIH-Funded Study Investigates How Stem Cell Regulation Influences Tissue Renewal, Cancer Development

The same cellular renewal that keeps our bodies healthy might also fuel the growth of cancer. A UC Merced biologist has found that the brain could hold the key to stopping it. Professor Néstor...