School of Natural Sciences

Professor Dives with Crocs, Displays Megalodon Expertise During Shark Week

July 17, 2025

Professor Sora Kim swam with a Nile crocodile for this year's Shark Week special, which focuses of sharks versus prehistoric reptiles. Photo courtesy of Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Shark Week starts Sunday and Professor Sora Kim will be featured again this year in a special airing at 9 p.m. Monday, titled “Jaws vs. Mega Croc,” and the filming allowed her to swim with a Nile crocodile. “I flew to Florida and learned about crocodiles – their evolution...

Quantitative and Systems Biology doctoral student Rhondene Wint was named a 2022 Rising Graduate Scholar by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

UC Merced Student Selected as a ‘Rising Graduate Scholar’ by Diverse

Rhondene Wint is one of 10 exemplary graduate students to be featured in the March 17 special issue of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education (Diverse) based on “standout scholarship thus far and...

New Program to Prepare Students for Academic, Career Success in STEM Fields

The new UC Merced Bobcat STEM Scholars Program, funded by a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), will provide four years of scholarship support for up to 10 eligible...

Research Week Offers Both Virtual and In-person Events This Year

Research Week, the annual showcase of UC Merced’s important explorations into some of the world's most pressing challenges, kicks off Monday with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute’...

Graduate students stand before the Beginnings sculpture.

Grad Students Invited to UC Merced’s First ‘Nanoengineering Environmental Sensors’ Incubator Program

Graduate students who are passionate about their research, concerned about the environment and eager to reach across disciplinary boundaries are invited to apply for a three-week summer program in...

Ph.D. Student Lands Competitive GEM Fellowship

Quantitative and Systems Biology graduate student Maria Mendoza was awarded a fellowship from the National GEM Consortium. The GEM fellowship promotes opportunities for masters and Ph.D. students...

Chemist Becomes Campus’ Second Cottrell Scholar

Theoretical chemist Professor Aurora Pribram-Jones has been named a Cottrell Scholar, winning one of only 24 of the prestigious $100,000 grants for her proposal entitled “Reframing...

Applied Mathematics Professor Suzanne Sindi, Postdoctoral scholar Lihong Zhao and immunology Professor Katrina Hoyer

Postdoc Awarded Fellowship to Support Computation and Immunology Cross-training

Postdoctoral scholar Lihong Zhao was one of 10 researchers named a 2022 Intersect Fellow by the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) — a first for UC Merced. The AAI Intersect...

B Cell Study Indicates Promising Direction for Anti-parasitic Vaccines

Creating vaccines to train the immune system against parasites is particularly challenging. They are also highly specialized masters of immune evasion. Some parasites can secrete proteins that...

NSF Award Goes to Research into Brain Formation and What Leads to Developmental Disorders

Professor Xuecai Ge, a developmental neurobiologist, has received a CAREER award for research to gain insight into the molecular mechanisms that direct brain formation, and how errors in cell...