Research Excellence

Damaging Lightning-Caused Wildfires Likely to Increase in a Few Years, Researchers Find

September 3, 2025

Photo depicts a silhouette of California firefighters battling a lightning-caused fire in 2020.

Lightning from thunderstorms rolling through Central California on Sept. 2 ignited numerous wildfires, including several large fires in the Sierra Nevada foothills that had burned more than 19 square miles by Wednesday morning. The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services recorded...

Scientific equipment for making solar cells

UC Merced Reaches for Stars with Solar Cells

Two UC Merced physics groups are totally spacing out this year. Professors Sayantani Ghosh and David Strubbe and their students in the Department of Physics are working on a NASA initiative to...

Cognitive Scientist Shows How Culture Shapes Personality Traits

Complex societies produce people with more varied personalities. That’s the surprising finding of a cognitive science study that attempts to understand how people develop into who they are:...

Blood Cell Research Taking Groundbreaking Turns in Biology Lab

Developmental biologist Professor Anna Beaudin and her lab are making breakthrough discoveries in a growing field of research that could lead to exciting developments in such medical puzzles as...

TED Audiences get the Dirt on Soil and Climate Change from Berhe

Soil is one of the foundations of life on Earth and could be an important part of the solution to climate change, if only we can stop treating it like dirt. That’s the message Professor...

Hellman Family Recognizes Young UC Merced Faculty Projects and Careers

Six faculty members have been named this year’s Hellman Fellows — two from each of UC Merced’s schools. The 2019-20 winners are: • Professor Anna E. Beaudin, Department...

Professor Jason Sexton, right, works in the field with a graduate student.

Researchers Use Monkey Flower to Study Climate Change

California’s drought was hard not to notice — the dry lawns, fallowed fields and hot temperatures were evident across the state. To better understand how the drought affected the natural...

Professor Strubbe stands in front of a research poster.

Physicist Researching Materials Chemistry to Build Better Solar Cells

Durable, reliable, affordable solar power is the future of energy, and UC Merced computational physicist Professor David Strubbe is diving into a new area of science to answer the call. Strubbe...

Research Field Study Brings New Sharing Apps to UC Merced Employees

The practice of sharing our possessions is something that most of us learned in childhood. Now, UC Merced Professor Anita Bhappu is expanding that idea to the workplace through a research study...

Field Station Planned for UC Merced's Vernal Pools and Grassland Reserve

At the northern tip of the UC Merced campus, an unremarkable aluminum gate leads into a field that extends, seemingly, into infinity. Perpendicular to the gate, the LeGrand Canal, drawn from Lake...

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