Research

Sensor Provides Cheap, Smart Way to Monitor How Much Water Crops Need

January 24, 2025

Image depicts a scene of grass, sidewalks and a large UCM at UC Merced.

As water becomes an ever more precious and unpredictable resource, particularly in the Central Valley, finding ways to precisely irrigate crops is a valuable tool in the fight against climate change. Climate shifts have triggered more frequent and more severe droughts that have reduced the...

UC Merced Part of CITRIS’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants

UC Merced professors are leading or participating in four technology projects designed to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis. The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (...

Changing Snowmelt Threatens Valley Ag, Way of Life

The San Joaquin Valley — with all its agriculture and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that go with it — is one of the places most at risk because of changing snowmelt patterns, a new...

At the Intersection of Math and Biology, Sindi Lab Sees a Breakthrough in Prion Disease

A UC Merced researcher and her lab have unlocked one of the mysteries that could lead to treatments — or even cures — for prion diseases in mammals. Prion diseases are a family of rare...

Senior Becomes Fourth Bobcat to Win Prestigious Scholarship

Sam Schroeder, a fourth-year undergraduate student working with Professor Valerie Leppert in materials sciences, has been awarded a highly competitive Materials Engineering Scholarship — one...

Q&A with Economist Greg Wright: COVID-19’s Impact on the Economy

Since the onset of many governors’ stay-at-home orders, there are fewer cars on the road as fewer people are driving to work. While some people can work from home, sadly, some are not working...

Babies Forage for Sounds That Contribute to Language Acquisition, Study Shows

Most people wouldn’t think physics has anything to do with baby babble and human language development. But most people aren’t Ritwika Vallomparambath PanikkasserySugasree. The...

Top 10 Finalists Advance in UC Merced’s Grad Slam

Although COVID-19 has changed everyone’s plans this spring, Graduate Division staff members rallied to make sure the campus’s annual Grad Slam competition — showcasing graduate...

Research Reveals Collective Dynamics of Active Matter Systems

Flocks of starlings producing dazzling patterns across the sky are natural examples of active matter — groups of individual agents coming together to create collective dynamics. In a study...

New Tech Will Change How People Use Mobile Devices

Two projects from a UC Merced engineering lab are making interactions with mobile devices easier and quicker, especially for blind people. Computer science Professor Ahmed Arif and his students...