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...

Now a Dentist, Alum Embodied Campus’s Founding Spirit

Looking back on his years as one of the first students at UC Merced, Vinh Vo remembers how the brand-new university served him not only as a student, but also by preparing him for graduate school and...

New Research Center to Leverage High-Performance Computing Hardware

Faculty members from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Mechanical Engineering groups are forming the newest research center at UC Merced, seeking the...

Professor’s Early Career Work Recognized With Award

Professor Jessica Blois is the newest recipient of the International Biogeography Society’s MacArthur & Wilson Award recognizing early career work and contributions to biogeography. Blois, a...

Alumnus Expands Science Literacy Nonprofit to South America

A science literacy nonprofit created by UC Merced students is gaining an international foothold with planned expansion into classrooms in Ecuador. Growth is nothing new for BEAT — short for Biology,...

Students Show Climate Impacts, Pitch Solutions in UC-wide Contest

Several students, faculty members and the provost represented UC Merced at the University of California’s recent Carbon Slam event, placing in the presentation competitions and increasing the campus’...

Studying the ’Saurs: New Class is a ‘Gateway to Science’

One of the campus’s newest professors is teaching one of its newest classes on one of the world’s oldest subjects: dinosaurs. But there’s much more to Professor Justin Yeakel’s Natural History of...

Brainstorm: Professors Take Holistic Approach to Study Thinking, Learning and Neuroscience

The following article is the main story in a six-piece package that appeared in the spring issue of UC Merced Magazine focusing on the research performed at UC Merced that relates to the brain. You...

Campus Getting Greener with New Research Growing Spaces

Everyone knows UC Merced is growing, but pretty soon, the campus will be growing lots of plant specimens for research, too. The School of Natural Sciences is buying a pair of greenhouses that will be...

Study Links Cancer Cell Growth to Nervous System

Cancer cells divide with more frequency and are more resilient when they are closer to the brain, indicating a potential link between cell growth and the nervous system, according to new research...