Research

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...

New Provost Shares Vision for Campus

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Tom Peterson assumed his leadership role at UC Merced on Dec. 3 and has been meeting with various campus groups to learn more about the university. Before coming...

Professor Looks Inside Trees for Answers

Professor Carolin Frank is concerned with the inner lives of trees. She looks inside them to see whether microbes are part of – and perhaps even critical to – life functions such as growth. “It’s a...

Engineering Students Solving a Wild Problem

Students with a variety of skills and perspectives make up a team that’s taking engineering principles into some of the area’s wildlands to further education and promote awareness about the ...

Gaming Graphics Changing How Computational Science is Conducted

Professor Christine Isborn is doing quantum chemistry at the speed of graphics. Isborn is using the same graphics computer cards (graphical processing units, or GPUs) that make your Playstation...

Applying Creative Solutions to ‘Impossible’ Problems

The tougher a problem, the more creative a solution it needs, from the increasing power in orbiting satellites and saving tigers to saving state parks and catching thieves. And when a problem seems...

Internship Gives Undergrads Journal Experience

The undergraduate students in Professor Linda Hirst’s new internship course are getting an advanced education in science communications that could serve them well in their future careers. By...

UC Merced Researcher, Graduate Student, Contribute to Inventory of All Marine Life

Counting the number of species that live in the Earth’s oceans sounds as impossible as counting the grains of sand on a beach. But a global collaboration involving a UC Merced researcher and a...

Graduate Student Uses Llamas to Continue Research in Yosemite

Graduate student Kaitlin Lubetkin and several sure-footed assistants spent much of the summer in Yosemite National Park. Her frequent hiking companions were Toronado and Bravo — llamas who shouldered...

Inaugural Managers to Lead New Vernal Pool Reserve

MERCED, Calif. — The effort to create a natural reserve out of nearly 6,000 acres adjacent to UC Merced has been jump-started by the hiring of two people to share the management duties. Sierra...