Staff & Faculty News

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...

Beyond Cinema: Reviews Shared for Professor's Films on Immigrants and Refugees

Global arts Professor Yehuda Sharim's 2019 documentary "Songs That Never End" continues to garner attention both on and off the screen. The film, along with two of his previous works...

Faculty Members Earn Peer Honors for Teaching, Research and Mentorship

Faculty members at UC Merced are recognized throughout the year for excellence in a variety of ways, including by their colleagues in the Academic Senate. This year’s Academic Senate awards...

Professor Berhe Nominated to Lead Federal Office of Science

President Joe Biden has nominated UC Merced Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe to be the new director of the Office of Science in the federal Department of Energy. In honor of Earth Day, the White...

The Center for Climate Justice’s two-day launch event kicks off on Earth Day, April 22.

Professor Tracey Osborne Leads New UC Center for Climate Justice

The University of California is launching a new center just in time for Earth Day: the Center for Climate Justice. Led by Management of Complex Systems Professor and UC Presidential Chair Tracey...

Engineering Professor Marie-Odile Fortier stands among the solar array that helps power the campus.

CAREER Award will Support Enhanced Renewable Energy Assessments

Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Marie-Odile Fortier’s plan to make more accurate assessments of renewable energy systems’ carbon footprints has made her the fifth UC Merced...

Computer science Professor Ahmed Arif stands with two of his female graduate students in the Science and Engineering 2 Building.

Lip-reading Software Helps Users of All Abilities to Send Secure Messages

A computer science lab focused on making human-computer interaction easier for people of all abilities has developed a digital lip-reader complete with its own repair system so the software can...

Mercury Control and Mitigation Research Earns Professor and Student Honors

Professor Marc Beutel and his graduate student Mark Seelos have been recognized for papers and a presentation on toxic mercury mitigation by the North American Lake Management Society. Beutel, an...

From left to right: Marjorie Zatz, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Tracey Osborne, Sora Kim, Teenie Matlock and Denise Payán.

Female Faculty to Know on International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day is more than a day to celebrate the fantastic females around us. It is a day to reflect on the contributions women have made both socially and politically around the...

Computational biology Professor Bercem Dutagaci sitting in the quad.

New Researcher Revealing Important Processes Within Cells

A brand-new faculty member is shaking up the way researchers understand cellular systems. Computational biology Professor Bercem Dutagaci, who started at UC Merced in January, developed...

All News