Science

For the First Time, All Avian Evolutionary Relationships Revealed Through Collaboration

April 29, 2025

Professor Emily Jane McTavish and colleagues at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have mapped the evolution of every known bird species. They created a complete evolutionary tree of bird species by combining data on 9,239 species published in nearly 300 studies between 1990 and 2024 and...

SNRI Sees a Leadership Transition

Change is everywhere at UC Merced this year, from hiring a new chancellor to the completion of a major campus expansion. The Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI), an early hallmark of research...

More than 100 students participated remotely in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center's Summer Undergraduate Research Institute to develop critical research skills and prepare for graduate school.

Summer Research Program Continues to Serve Students Remotely

While the COVID-19 pandemic has kept most students and faculty mentors off campus, UC Merced’s commitment to providing research experiences to undergraduate students has not wavered. Over...

$3.5 Million Hellman Endowment Expands Future of Research at UC Merced

Since 2011, the Hellman Fellows Fund has provided close to 60 UC Merced assistant professors with much-needed research support in the form of seed funding. The prestigious Hellman Fellowship has...

New Project Aims to Advance Understanding of Immune Cells as they Develop

Maybe now more than ever, scientists need to understand the immune system. A new National Institutes of Health grant is funding a cross-disciplinary collaboration between bioengineering Professor...

Podcast Focuses on New Agriculture and California’s Future

On a hot June evening, UC Merced Professor Josh Viers joined farm advocate and small farmer Tom Willey on his front porch near Fresno to talk about California’s water, disadvantaged...

Three Awarded UC Pre-Professoriate Fellowships

UC Merced graduate students Anabel Castillo, Veronica Lerma and Sammy Villa are recipients of the University of California’s inaugural President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship (PPPF)....

NASA Renews Campus Research Center for Another Two Years

The Merced nAnomaterials Center for Energy and Sensing (MACES) —UC Merced’s NASA-funded center for nanomaterials-based research and education — has received a two-year, $1.8 ...

Professor Explores Green Lubricants for Mechanical Systems with NSF Grant

Mechanical systems, such as car engines and manufacturing equipment, use petroleum-based lubricants and solvents that are considered hazardous. After use, those compounds mostly end up in the earth...

New Bridge Program Involves Incoming Students in the Future of Agriculture

Incoming first-year and transfer students will have a new resource for success and an introduction to research starting next summer, thanks to a four-year, $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of...