Research

Ocean Chemistry Now Substantially Shaped by Humans

March 16, 2026

A sign on a southern California beach indicates it is unsafe to swim because of human-caused contamination.

Although the oceans are the least explored places on the planet, even their depths are not untouched by humans. Drawing on more than 2,300 seawater samples collected across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, researchers found that hundreds of synthetic chemicals — many of them rarely...

‘Smart’ Plugs Could Help Campus Reduce Carbon Footprint

When you plug in an appliance, chances are you don’t think of the plug as being particularly intelligent. But WattTime, a startup nonprofit developed through the Center for Information Technology...

Inaugural GradSLAM! Event Set to Kick Off

The UC Merced Graduate Division will soon launch GradSLAM!, in which Ph.D. students will hone their public speaking skills before competing against their peers on campus in a research presentation...

Professors Share in UC Effort to Study Effects of Climate Change

Several UC Merced faculty members will play important roles in a new UC systemwide effort to study the ecological effects of climate change across varied ecosystems. Funded by a $1.9 million...

$100,000 Wells Fargo Gift Supports Engineering Capstone Program

Longtime campus contributor Wells Fargo is giving a $100,000 grant to help students at the University of California, Merced, design technologies that address some of the Central Valley’s water...

Political Scientist Studies Who Tortures Whom, and Why

What makes a government decide to use torture in its interrogations? How do those decisions differ when terrorism is suspected? Once torture starts, how can it be stopped? These questions are at...

Aldenderfer to Speak at Prestigious Indian Event

Mark Aldenderfer, dean of the UC Merced School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, will speak this weekend as a guest lecturer at Kshitij, the annual “techno-management fest” of the Indian...

2015 CITRIS Mobile App Challenge Expanding

First hosted at UC Merced in 2011, the CITRIS Mobile App Challenge is a semester-long competition that blends education, prototyping skills and teamwork to empower students to develop apps for...

New California Center for Service Science Seeks to Create Value for Researchers, Students and Public

Even when we don’t notice it, service is a huge part of everyday life, from the people who make our morning cups of coffee to the doctors who save our lives, said Professor Paul Maglio, the founding...

Unprecedented Melanoma Study Maps Cancer Drivers

Researchers at the University of California, Merced, have completed a comprehensive map of the genetic makeup of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. By comparing the genomes of more than 300...