School of Engineering

UC Merced's Smart Farm Abuzz with Activity

June 25, 2025

Photo depicts UC Merced student Jesse Martinez operating a robot on the Experimental Smart Farm.

At UC Merced's biggest lab, students work from before sunrise to well after dusk. They are operating the university's Experimental Smart Farm, 40 acres of dirt and plants, research and experiments. They study everything from pollinators to hydroponics, but there are more than just...

Students Take Home Honors for Research Presentations

Three UC Merced students who devoted the summer to research earned top awards for poster presentations at the national conference of SACNAS, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing Hispanics...

Cozy Campus, Research Opportunity Benefit Engineering Major

Coming from a private high school in Sacramento, Ian Donahue knows a thing or two about small class sizes. The 21-year-old UC Merced senior from Jesuit High School has been having flashbacks to his...

Sierra Nevada Water Researchers Awarded $2M Grant

Researchers with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI) at the University of California, Merced, have received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to expand on a prototype...

Researchers Unveil Innovative Solar Cooling Project

Using solar thermal energy to power an air conditioning unit can be difficult and expensive. But a team of researchers at the University of California, Merced, have added a game-changing advance to...

Impact: Engineers Building Sustainable Solutions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thl53DGexFk UC Merced graduate student Brandi McKuin recently returned from a trip to India, where she spent time studying the energy needs of rural villages that have...

Impact: Creating More Realistic Virtual Reality Avatars

http://youtu.be/bWfh28B-hv0 UC Merced's computer graphics lab, with body sensors, motion-capture cameras, and a giant movie screen is straight out of Hollywood. But instead of producing blockbusters...

Researchers Assist IBM in Cognitive Computer Chip Design

A team of researchers led by IBM, including a pair of professors from the University of California, Merced, unveiled today a new generation of experimental computer chips designed to emulate the...

Research Gets to the Root of California's Water Cycle

In a remarkable outdoor laboratory in the Sierra, a team of researchers led by UC Merced hydrologist Roger Bales is using sensors to gather a mother lode of data to greatly improve ecological...

Study: Climate Change to Increase Yellowstone Wildfires Dramatically

An increase in wildfires due to climate change could rapidly and profoundly alter the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, according to a new study authored by environmental engineering and geography...