Research

COSMOS Expands to UC Merced, Opening Doors for California’s Brightest Young Scientists

December 11, 2025

High school students will have a wider array of research opportunities through COSMOS starting next summer.

Starting next summer, UC Merced will join an elite group of University of California campuses hosting COSMOS — the California State Summer School for Math and Science — giving some of the state’s most talented high school students a new destination for exploring advanced STEM...

Researcher Tracking Teens Who Attempted Suicide

More than 120,000 young people ages 10 to 18 attempt suicide each year, and about 4,500 of those attempts are fatal. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among children ages 10-14 and the...

Multicampus Grant Provides for Advances in Learning Interventions

UC Merced Professor Jeffrey Gilger is an integral part of a new intercampus effort to understand and reduce education-related risks in California’s young English-language learners. Funding for the...

Study: Dust Helps Regulate Sierra Nevada Ecosystems

“Collecting dust” isn’t usually considered a good thing. But dust from as near as the Central Valley and as far away as the Gobi Desert in Asia provides more nutrients — especially critical...

Paleorecord Critical to Future Conservation Efforts, Scientists Say

The rapid pace of global change has large impacts on nature, and on the work conservation biologists will have before them, too. From here on out, experts say, the fossil record is going to be...

New Classroom Building Earns Campus’ 17th LEED Certification

Ten years after receiving its first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), UC Merced has earned platinum certification for...

Renewable Power Project Could Help Cut Food Processing Costs, Feed People and Animals

Researchers at UC Solar have developed and tested an innovative solar thermal-powered process for turning the pomace, or byproduct, of vegetable and fruit processing into reusable products,...

Ancient Biological Clockwork Revealed Using ‘Secret Sauce’

In finding a way to see assemblies of the proteins that direct cyanobacterial circadian rhythms, or biological clocks, UC Merced biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang and his colleagues have done what...

New Initiative Advances Agriculture Technology Education

As agriculture and food production achieve greater high-tech heights and resources such as water become more scarce, the country will increasingly depend on innovative solutions from its brightest ...

Donation Encourages Grad Students to Share Their Research

The contest for top honors in UC Merced’s Grad Slam competition will be even more intense this year thanks to a generous donation from Jane Binger, Ed.D., and her husband, Robert Bernstein, M.D....