School of Natural Sciences

Fall Commencement Graduates Urged to Write Their Own Story

December 22, 2025

Student speaker at 2024 UC Merced Fall Commencement

A beaming Jesus Cevon-Gonzalez stood on Merced’s Main Street, surrounded by his mom and dad, grandparents, sister and other loved ones. He clutched the proof of a freshly bestowed bachelor’s degree in computer science. “I’m just trying to make my parents proud,...

Process That Kills Damaged Cells Hints at New Cancer Therapies

Scientists have long known that cells originating from an animal’s anterior — the body’s upper half — tend to grow, divide and survive better than those from the posterior....

A man wearing safety goggles adjusts a laser apparatus with a screwdriver.

Study: Quantum Vibrations Could Help Detect Nuclear Threats

National security and a beautifully resonant violin have found a surprising link — a classic experiment in acoustics, recently replicated at the quantum scale as part of a collaborative project...

Study: Climate Change, Drought Threaten Giant Sequoias

A new study published online in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences finds that the giant sequoia, a fixture of California’s Sierra Nevada forests for the past 2.6 million years...

Campus Voices: Serving Community Brings Benefits to Students

When it came time to apply for college, so many of us scrambled to compile those lists of community service hours to bolster our resumes. Was there enough? Could I explain in my personal statement...

A student stands in front of a sign that reads "NASA Research Park." Above the sign is a model of a NASA space shuttle.

NASA Interns Return With New Prospects, Realized Dreams

Zach Petrek, a second-year doctoral student in chemistry and chemical biology, can usually be found running experiments in the laboratory of his advisor, Professor Tao Ye. But this summer, he did...

New Center, Conference Focus on Mesoamerican Studies

Topics ranging from ethnobotany, public health and feminism to agriculture, urban growth and social movements are among the highlights of the Mesoamerican Studies Center’s upcoming conference...

Professor Clarissa Nobile wearing a blue lab coat, teal-colored gloves, and safety goggles leans against a bench in her laboratory.

Another First for Nobile: NIH Outstanding Investigator Award

Professor Clarissa Nobile is changing the way we look at microbes. She wants to understand them as they’re found in nature, not as they exist in the laboratory. And she was just awarded a five-...

Professor Michael Dawson (seated) with graduate student Karly Higgins (left) and postdoctoral researchers Dannise Ruiz-Ramos (center) and Lauren Schiebelhut.

NSF Grants Will Help Unravel Mysteries of Sea Stars, Jellyfish

The National Science Foundation recently awarded Professor Michael Dawson $900,000 to study some rather mysterious marine phenomena. Dawson received $700,000 — part of a three-year, $1.2...

Mathematicians Making Strides Toward Lifelike Animations

Imagine going to see the latest Pixar movie. You’re sitting in the theater enjoying the film, when you begin to notice the astounding level of detail in the animation. On screen, water is...