School of Engineering

20 Years In, UC Merced Celebrates Achievements, Looks to Future

October 23, 2025

Only 20 years since undergraduate instruction began, UC Merced is a recognized leader in conducting academic research, developing young minds for career success and driving economic growth, the university’s chancellor said Wednesday. Speaking to a gathering of campus and community...

Two men pose with an oversized check on stage at a check presentation ceremony for the PG&E award to SNRI.

PG&E Funds Critical SNRI Work on Sierra Forest Resiliency

A team of UC Merced researchers was recently awarded $100,000 from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to identify ways to improve drought resilience and reduce the risk of wildfire in Sierra...

Professor Roland Winston and his student researchers

Our First Campus Was a Castle

The University of California, Merced, was established in 2005 — or so the story goes. The main campus officially opened in September of that year, but that particular reading of history elides...

A man in a blue jacket, blue jeans and sunglasses stands in a snowy forest repairing an electronic sensor device.

Massive Sensor Network Helps Scientists Monitor Mountain Water Resources

Scientists from the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, UC Merced, UC Berkeley and the USDA Agricultural Research Service have designed the first ever wireless sensor network (WSN) capable of...

Four female middle school students in summer robotics academy are gathered around a desk. All four students are sitting in front of laptops and writing code for their robots.

Summer STEM Academy Aims to Prepare Valley Students for College

The leap from high school to college is an enormous intellectual hurdle. But UC Merced engineering Professor Yanbao Ma wants to ease the transition by better preparing Central Valley students for the...

Study: Critical Sierra Meadows Being Overtaken by Forest

Subalpine meadows are among the Sierra Nevada’s most enchantingly picturesque landscapes. These sparsely wooded, grassy expanses are home to plants and animals found nowhere else, and they play an...

Blum Center Announces 2017 Seed Grant Recipients

UC Merced’s branch of the Blum Center for Developing Economies rebooted this spring with a faculty-led effort to spend two years working on becoming the hub for all food-security-related research and...

‘Swarmathon’ Robotics Team Competes at Cape Canaveral

Manuel Meraz transferred to UC Merced with a mission: to revive what had once been an award-winning, student-led robotics scene on campus. Meraz had just completed a robotics internship at the...

CREST Center Hosts Local Students for Science and Engineering Event

Students from Burbank and Peterson Elementary Schools in Merced participated in a day of interactive science and engineering hosted last month by UC Merced’s Center for Cellular and Biomolecular...

Campus Marks Largest Class, Year of Growth With 2017 Commencement

More than 1,200 undergraduate and graduate students are expected to participate in the University of California, Merced’s 12th commencement ceremonies this weekend — its largest class since opening...