Research

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...

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...

Undergrad Experience: Austin John Escobar

Name: Austin John Escobar Year: Third year Major: Biological Sciences with Human Emphasis; minor in Education Hometowns: Dublin, Calif., and Manila, Philippines What is a memorable...

Graduate Student’s Immune-system Research Attracts NIH Award

Graduate student Betsabel Chicana ’s research into understanding how the immune system works when there’s a problem inside the bones has earned her a prestigious fellowship from the...

Selina Brinkmann, who will graduate in May with a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, is UC Merced’s first student to earn a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship.

Mechanical Engineering Student Named the Campus’s First Rhodes Scholar

UC Merced master’s student Selina Brinkmann has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford University — a first for the campus. “A Rhodes Scholarship being awarded to...

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...

GROW Grants Nurture Vital Projects During Pandemic

Two faculty members and three graduate students who are working on food systems, food security and food sustainability research have received small grants through the UC Global Food Initiative (GFI...

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...

Prestigious Academy Recognizes Microbiology Advances by the LiWang Lab

Professor Andy LiWang is now the first from UC Merced to be elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. Colleagues at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Texas A&M...

Undergrad Experience: Gehad Elhanafy

Name: Gehad Elhanafy Year: Second Major: Bioengineering Hometown: Merced What is a memorable project that you worked on during your time at UC Merced? In the summer of 2018, as an...