School of Natural Sciences

UC Merced to Host Stargazing Night with Director of UC Observatories

October 7, 2025

UC Merced invites the public to an evening of cosmic discovery on Thursday, Oct. 23, featuring a free lecture by Bruce Macintosh, director of the University of California Observatories, followed by telescope viewing with the campus Astronomy Club. Macintosh, a leading expert in the search for...

Chemistry Professor Making the Most of his Waste

Chemistry Professor Jason Hein and his students make a lot of compounds in the lab. They also make a lot of chemical waste. But Hein found a way to clean up the waste and reuse it, saving money and...

Professor Working to Stop Melanoma in its Tracks

Professor Fabian Filipp is trying to put up roadblocks. But instead of stopping cars, he’s trying to keep cancers from growing. Filipp, a systems biology professor who started at UC Merced this fall...

UC Merced Faculty Opinion in Journal Science

Professor Mónica Medina started out as the only marine biologist in a National Science Foundation workshop last year, but she ended up with a group of new partners and an opinion piece in the...

Campus Research Investment Hits New High

Research is the hallmark of the University of California, which develops more patents than any other university in the nation. And as the system’s newest campus, UC Merced is continuing to conduct...

Study Sheds Light on Bacterial Cell Division

Staph, e-coli, meningitis, MRSA and botulism are just a few of the thousands of bacterial infections that plague people all over the world. For example, almost 23,300 people in the United States were...

National Science Foundation Grant Supports Biodiversity Research

MERCED, Calif. — A $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation will support a five-year investigation by University of California, Merced, researchers into environmental changes in marine...

Senegal Shrubbery Research Could Bear Fruit for Many

Shrubs blooming in a specific area of Africa might hold the answers to feeding millions of people on that continent, and possibly others. UC Merced Professor Teamrat Ghezzehei, his doctoral student,...

Academic Year Begins with Sharper Focus on Emerging Fields of Excellence, Graduate Programs and Flexible Growth

The University of California, Merced, begins its eighth academic year today with record enrollment of approximately 5,600 students, a 23 percent increase in graduate-student enrollment and 26 newly...

Researchers Spend Summer Working on Projects Near and Far

From the caves of Belize to laboratories in Japan, UC Merced faculty members and students are abroad conducting research this summer across the globe. Though the semester ended in mid-May, the campus...