School of Natural Sciences

Postdoc Leads Study to Turn Cotton Waste into Climate-Smart Compost

November 12, 2025

three stages of cotton textile composting

UC Merced researchers are collaborating on a two-year research project to develop effective composting methods for cotton textiles. The project explores manufacturing cotton waste scraps from clothing into compost to demonstrate efficient composting with the right recipe, and the compost’s...

Six UC Merced Students Awarded UC Food Initiative Fellowships

As part of the University of California Global Food Initiative, 54 students — including six from UC Merced—have been awarded fellowships to fund projects that will address issues ranging from...

Chancellor Attends Second White House Education Summit

MERCED, Calif. — The University of California, Merced, will report at the White House today (Dec. 4) on progress the campus is making in its efforts to support undocumented students, create career...

Ph.D. Student Beats Odds to Put Science and Community First

The odds were stacked against Ruben Rodriguez. When the 27-year-old UC Merced student was still in high school, he was confronted with a sobering statistic that Hispanics receive only 5 percent of...

Diverse Physics Group Achieves Milestones with Focus on Innovation

From understanding how groups of atoms behave at ultra-low temperatures to modeling how flocks of birds organize, UC Merced's Physics group is helping solve many of the world's mysteries and using...

Researchers Delve into Valley Fever from All Angles

Note: This story originally appeared in the Fall 2014 issue of UC Merced Magazine. Before it infects humans who breathe it in, the fungus that causes valley fever changes shapes in the environment....

NIH Supports Professor’s Work in Inhibiting HIV Infection

Biochemistry Professor Patricia LiWang calls it a stroke of luck that she has become enmeshed in HIV research, but her developments are no accident. The National Institute for Health (NIH) apparently...

Researching the Hows and Whys of Politics

Note: This story originally appeared in the Fall 2014 issue of UC Merced Magazine and has been updated in the wake of the Nov. 4 elections. Read the whole issue online. In two small rooms on the...

Professor’s Soil Research Digs Up Many More Questions

When people get near California’s giant sequoias, they usually look up. But Professor Steve Hart looks down, and what he finds beneath the trees has intrigued him. The trees, some of which could...

Nobel Laureate Offers Chemistry Seminar

Professor K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research Institute and the 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, will offer a chemistry seminar at UC Merced at 3 p.m. Friday in COB 120. His pioneering...