Staff & Faculty News

Project Aims to Put AI to Work Reducing its Own Energy Needs

April 8, 2026

Photo depicts Elizabeth Nowadnick, center, surrounded by members of her lab on campus at UC Merced.
It's no secret that artificial intelligence uses a lot of electricity. A standard ChatGPT query consumes approximately 0.34 watt-hours - roughly 10 times more than a Google search. According to the Pew Research Center, U.S. data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024 -...
Tammy Johnson, Diane Caton and Carmen Middleton are among the women who have worked at UC Merced since the beginning.

Women Make History at UC Merced

Innumerable changes have come to UC Merced since ground was broken for the campus in 2002. Some of the women who helped found the campus and remain employed by UC Merced, reflected recently on the...
Professor Peggy O'Day

Student Researchers Working with National Lab on Mercury Remediation

At UC Merced, mercury is a regional challenge that student and faculty researchers have been tackling for several years. Mercury was used to extract gold during the Gold Rush in California, and the...
Professor Rebecca Ryals and her students study soil organic amendments.

Ryals’ Teaching, Research and Service Earns Her Presidential Chair in Climate Change

Professor Rebecca Ryals has made campus history by being named UC Merced’s inaugural Presidential Chair in Climate Change. The appointment was recommended by her peers and Dean Betsy Dumont...
Laurels for the director's choice award at the Thomas Edison Film Festival

Award-winning Films Connecting ‘Unseen’ Communities Around the World

Global Arts Studies Professor Yehuda Sharim ’s film “El Ojo Comienza en la Mano,” a documentary about a Central Valley farm worker who never gave up his love of painting, has been...

Eaton's Research on Student Debt Highlighted in New York Review of Books Article

Sociology Professor Charlie Eaton's study of the relationships between financialization (the growing importance of financial markets, organizations and ideas) and growing inequalities in...
Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe

Berhe Chosen for National Academy Membership in Recognition of Her Soil Research

Soil biogeochemistry Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe — who is on leave from UC Merced while she serves as federal director of the Office of Science for the Department of Energy — has...
Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development Gillian Wilson has been named a 2023 American Astronomical Society (AAS) Fellow.

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...
UC Merced researcher Reza Ehsani leads a team that will host day camps for students who will take on research and other agricultural projects.

Grant Will Fund Development of New, Technically Advanced Agriculture Workforce

  As agriculture, California's most important industry, becomes increasingly technical, the workforce needed to sustain it will have to have different skills than those of a generation...
Cognitive science Professor Teenie Matlock

Matlock Receives International Cognitive Science Prize

Teenie Matlock, Cognitive and Information Sciences professor and the McClatchy Chair in Communications, has been awarded the fourth Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community...

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