School of Natural Sciences

COSMOS Expands to UC Merced, Opening Doors for California’s Brightest Young Scientists

December 11, 2025

High school students will have a wider array of research opportunities through COSMOS starting next summer.

Starting next summer, UC Merced will join an elite group of University of California campuses hosting COSMOS — the California State Summer School for Math and Science — giving some of the state’s most talented high school students a new destination for exploring advanced STEM...

Alumna Credits UC Merced for Inspiring Her Interest in Cancer Research

After transferring from a Sacramento community college to UC Merced in 2007, Maxine Umeh-Garcia was unsure of her future career. She admits she hadn’t looked at the majors the newest UC offered...

Wilson Selected as a 2023 American Astronomical Society Fellow

Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development Gillian Wilson has been named a 2023 American Astronomical Society (AAS) Fellow — the preeminent organization of professional...

Professor Suzanne Sindi, left, Nitesh Kumar and Professor Roummel Marcia

Alumni Success Celebrated at Inaugural Math Event

The Department of Applied Mathematics, the Applied Mathematics Graduate Program and the student chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) celebrated their many...

Professor Stephanie Woo, left, and graduate student Leesa Strasser are trying to unlock the mechanics of endodermal cells.

Award Supports Study of Fish Embryos to Understand Process that Affects Birth Defects

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has given Professor Stephanie Woo the CAREER award to help her delve into congenital birth defects by looking at the embryonic cells of zebrafish. Woo is...

Professor Findlater and graduate student Aneelman Brar.

Findlater First at UC Merced to Join DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas that is contributing to irreversible climate change. Scientists know how to capture CO2, and they know how to transform it into useful molecules and materials...

UC Awards $16.4 Million in Grants to Address Climate, Energy and Health

For the first time, UC Merced faculty members from each of the campus’s three schools have been chosen as principal investigators on some of the 21 exciting new projects that are being funded...

Graduate Summer Bridge Program Recognized as a ‘Program to Watch’

Graduate Division’s Competitive Edge Summer Bridge program for incoming Ph.D. students was identified as a Program to Watch by Excelencia in Education, a national effort to identify evidence-...

A graduating student holds up a diploma cover.

'Courage' and 'Idealism' Take Center Stage at Fall 2022 Commencement

Neither chilly temperatures nor a thick blanket of dense fog could dampen the smiles and spirits of hundreds of Bobcats as they participated in UC Merced's Fall 2022 Commencement. Nearly 450...

UC Merced-led Research Predicts How Air Cleans Itself

Although climate change is still a very real challenge, the past decades of efforts to reduce the effects of human activities on the atmosphere have been potent enough to have thrown off the models...