Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a biogeochemist who studies the impact of climate change on Sierra Nevada soils. She’s also active in efforts to recruit and retain women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
A team of UC Merced researchers was recently awarded $100,000 from Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to identify ways to improve drought resilience and reduce the risk of wildfire in Sierra Nevada forests.
A full-length documentary highlighting the relationship between water, food security and, ultimately, global security, features UC Merced researchers and is scheduled to premiere Sept. 14 in downtown Merced.
Professor Noemi Petra is UC Merced’s newest recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award, which the NSF describes as its “most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their organizations.”
On Sept. 22, MacArthur "Genius" Award winner and Stanford University bioengineering Professor Manu Prakash will deliver the keynote lecture at the first annual open house for UC Merced’s Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM), a National Science Foundation Center of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (NSF-CREST).
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 rippling and leaves are flittering with an almost uncanny realism. It’s art imitating life with incredible verisimilitude, and it makes you wonder how the animators are able to pull off such lifelike effects.
Open access is a publishing model premised on the idea that scholarly research should be freely accessible to anyone with internet access. UC Merced has staked its claim as a member of the open access vanguard, as one of just five of American universities to have signed on to the OA2020 Expression of Interest.
In a major advance in astronomy, scientists announced last month that they had observed two neutron stars colliding, a never-before-seen cosmic event that made headlines the world over — and two UC Merced computer scientists were instrumental in making it happen.
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-year, $1.89 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to bolster her efforts.
Very few people will admit to an abiding love of statistics. But Emanuel Alcala, a second-year public health doctoral student, believes statistics are key to solving many of the San Joaquin Valley’s public health challenges.
“I grew fond of statistics when I started working at the Central Valley Health Policy Institute,” Alcala said. “I saw firsthand how statistics could impact people.”
