Faculty

Ph.D. Student Awarded Fellowship to Advance Environmental Health and Harmful Algal Bloom Mitigation

December 18, 2025

Collage photo of Black male with dark hair and beard wearing blue and gray long sleeve shirt and photo of campus signage and palm trees.

Public health Ph.D. student Felix Agyemang Opoku has been awarded the UC Global Health Initiative Center for Planetary Health Water and Health Summer Research Fellowship. The research fellowships are designed to provide students with funding to conduct research on water and health. Opoku...

Studying the ’Saurs: New Class is a ‘Gateway to Science’

One of the campus’s newest professors is teaching one of its newest classes on one of the world’s oldest subjects: dinosaurs. But there’s much more to Professor Justin Yeakel’s Natural History of...

Ancient DNA Sheds Light on Origins of Himalayan Populations

In a collaborative study by the University of California, Merced, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Chicago and Uppsala University in Sweden, researchers conduct the first ancient DNA...

Scientists Unveiling the Complexity of Mysterious Protein Folding

Imagine trying to reverse engineer a car when all you have is a finished product or a box full of parts — no instructions. That’s what scientists have been trying to do with proteins, the mysterious...

Brainstorm: Professors Take Holistic Approach to Study Thinking, Learning and Neuroscience

The following article is the main story in a six-piece package that appeared in the spring issue of UC Merced Magazine focusing on the research performed at UC Merced that relates to the brain. You...

Wildfire Increasing in the West Because of Climate Change, Research Shows

The number, size and duration of large mountain forest fires in the Western United States has increased dramatically in the past 40 years, according to research from UC Merced Professor LeRoy...

Campus Getting Greener with New Research Growing Spaces

Everyone knows UC Merced is growing, but pretty soon, the campus will be growing lots of plant specimens for research, too. The School of Natural Sciences is buying a pair of greenhouses that will be...

Professor Recounts Lost History of Migrant Workers in New Book

When UC Merced Professor Mario Sifuentez was a graduate student, he didn’t have to look far to find a subject to research — members of his family had been migrant workers in Oregon for many years,...

Congratulations to #UCM2016, UC Merced's 11th Graduating Class

The campus posted 122 updates to social media over the weekend. Here is a curated collection of those and ones shared by members of our community. [View the story “Commencement 2016” on Storify]

Study Links Cancer Cell Growth to Nervous System

Cancer cells divide with more frequency and are more resilient when they are closer to the brain, indicating a potential link between cell growth and the nervous system, according to new research...