School of Engineering

UC Merced Alum, Now a Robotics Expert for Amazon, Advises Students to Get Their Hands Dirty

January 6, 2026

Kevin Arrieta is pictured speaking to an electrical engineering class at UC Merced.

Kevin Arrieta got into robotics to avoid getting into trouble. Arrieta said he joined the robotics club at his Compton high school after the teacher who ran it gave him an ultimatum. "I had gotten in with the wrong crowd," he said. "I had a physics teacher who told me, '...

Jessica Anderson will give the commencement address on Sunday, Dec. 15.

2010 Alum Jessica Anderson to Speak at UC Merced Fall Commencement

When Jessica Anderson first visited UC Merced as a high school senior, there wasn’t a campus to see. “They couldn’t bring us to campus because it was under construction,”...

Team Project Protect is developing a mobile app that translates and correctly pronounces medical words to assist younger people in helping their elders communicate better with health-care providers.

Team to Demonstrate Healthy New App at Fall Innovate to Grow Event

It’s a situation familiar to many UC Merced students: Having to translate for parents and other, older relatives who speak little or no English. It can be especially challenging when what...

Materials Science Researcher Honored with CAREER Award

Professor Yue ‘Jessica’ Wang, with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the 25th...

Tenure-Track Faculty Merit Reviews Go Paperless Thanks to New System

A new electronic workflow system for tenure-track faculty merit reviews is modernizing and eventually replacing a tedious, time-consuming and paper-heavy process at UC Merced. After a two-year...

Water Yield from Forest Thinning Depends on How, Where and How Much

Even a little forest management significantly increases water runoff in the Central Sierra Nevada and other semi-arid regions, while drier forests need more extensive treatments, according to a new...

CCBM Bringing High-Powered Speakers for Two-Day Workshop

The NSF-CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM) at UC Merced is hosting a two-day workshop entitled “Emerging Themes in Cellular and Biomolecular Machines” on campus...

Symposium Explores How Biogas Could Fuel California

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 104 times greater than carbon dioxide. But what if the methane could be turned into energy? The topic of using waste for power...

The inaugural class of graduates from the Master of Management (MM) degree offered by the Ernest & Julio Gallo Management Program.

Inaugural Class Graduates from Gallo MIST Master of Management Program

When Alyssa Young returned to Long Beach after earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC Merced in 2017, she didn’t imagine she would be back in Merced just one year later....

Engineering Professor Working to Improve Strawberry Harvesting

Harvesting is said to be one of the most costly and labor-intensive operations in strawberry production. But a UC Merced engineering researcher is looking for ways to make it easier and cheaper....