Research Excellence

May 20, 2026

Microscope on lab bench with researcher in background.
The W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded UC Merced nearly $1.8 million in new grants that fuel ambitious research and give early-career scientists a crucial boost at a pivotal stage of their careers. One of the nation’s most prominent private supporters of basic science, the Los Angeles–...
A woman comforts another woman by holding her hand.
A new study by faculty members and students in UC Merced's Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences takes a closer look at the sympathy people have for one another. The...
An image depicts a plush toy on top of a mattress.
It's no surprise that a good night's rest is one of the most important factors for a person's well-being, but not everyone can say they have the luxury of being able to sleep for eight...
From left, professors Linda Hirst, Chris Amemiya and Valerie Leppert.
Cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and skates have a sixth sense, but it’s not ESP — it’s electrosense. Such fishes use hundreds or thousands of specialized organs to sense prey...
UC Merced's Health Sciences Research Institute (HSRI) has been awarded a $1.2 million grant to study the effects of vehicle emissions on public health and the environment. This award is part...
Professor Colleen Naughton (center) poses with first-year doctoral student Ana Grace Alvarado (left) and fourth-year undergraduate student Fernando Adali Roman, Jr (right). Photo by Veronica Adrover, UC Merced
As the number of cases of COVID-19 surge again globally as a result of the delta variant, world leaders are searching for ways to make more informed decisions on how to contain the pandemic....
Professor Joel Spencer (far right) and members of his lab at UC Merced.
Some scientific discoveries are a happy accident (think: penicillin). Others have been there all along, they just take a keen eye to notice, which was recently the case in Professor Joel Spencer...
Professor Mark Sistrom
The over the counter, “safe,” organic-compliant insecticides people purchase at home-improvement stores could be causing a problem that goes far beyond the vegetable garden or farm field...
A Galapagos snake
It has been 186 years since Charles Darwin collected the samples of the Galapagos Islands species that led to his explanation of how the diversity of life on Earth has evolved and forever changed the...
A machine developed in Professor Reza Ehsani's lab improves almond harvests by reducing the amount of dust stirred up as the nuts are gathered from the ground.
With a new $20 million federal grant, UC Merced becomes part of a multi-institutional research collaborative to develop artificial intelligence — or AI — solutions to tackle some of...

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