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...

Researchers Reverse Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics

The rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a growing problem in the United States and the world. New findings by researchers in evolutionary biology and mathematics could help doctors better...

Mentoring Program Empowers Student Leaders

For senior Jessica Nguyen, UC Merced has fueled more than academic preparedness — it has sparked her fervent interest in civic leadership. Nguyen has been involved in the Women’s Program’s Lift While...

Campus Celebrates 10th Annual Leadership Awards

The 2015 UC Merced Leadership Awards were held this evening (April 30) at the Wallace-Dutra Amphitheater. Presented by the Margo F. Souza Student Leadership Center, the awards recognize and celebrate...

Chemist to Lobby for NSF Funding at Washington Event

Chemistry Professor Hrant Hratchian is part of a delegation of academics at the Coalition for National Science Funding’s (CNSF) advocacy day in Washington, D.C., today. Hratchian will show his lab’s...

Mapping Genomes of Pine Bacteria Yields Unexpected Results

UC Merced Professor Carolin Frank is helping figure out how a certain bacteria helps promote healthy tree growth by studying the bacteria’s genome sequence. In the new paper, published in the open-...

Grad Student Uses Math to Study Deadly Diseases

Graduate student Jason Davis doesn’t use a traditional lab to study prion diseases. Instead, he relies on computer modeling and applied mathematics. Working with Suzanne Sindi, a professor of applied...

Campus Celebrates UC Natural Reserve System on Protected Lands

Research, teaching and public outreach were all on display today at UC Merced’s celebration of the University of California Natural Reserve System’s 50th anniversary. The inaugural celebration of the...

Two Grad Students Earn Prestigious NSF Fellowships

UC Merced graduate students Theo Crouch II and Lauren Edwards recently were awarded fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Jessica Ross...

Three Students Chosen to Further Carbon Neutrality Efforts

Three UC Merced undergraduates are the recipients of a new fellowship under University of California President Janet Napolitano’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative. Through the President’s Sustainability...