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Two engineering professors and a graduate student received a grant from NASA to study how wildfires alter changes in carbon and sediment along California’s coastline.

Engineering Professor Awarded NASA Grant to Study Impacts of Wildfires on California’s Coastline

July 20, 2021
California is known for its beautiful coastline, where the Pacific Ocean meets sandy beaches and rugged cliffs. While many scientists have studied the land or the ocean independently, less is known about the nexus of the two. Now with the help of a $750,000 award from NASA, civil and environmental...

Cows are Udderly Useful for Healthy Vegetation Management on Nature Reserve

July 13, 2021
Today is National Cow Appreciation Day, a “holiday” invented by a fast-food chain that sells a lot of "chikn." But it’s still a good opportunity to celebrate our neighbors to the northeast — even if being surrounded by cows wasn’t necessarily how you imagined your college experience. The cows might...
Professor Marc Beutel waits to collect a wastewater sample as a facilities employee helps to remove the manhole covering on campus.

Campus Wastewater Testing Offers COVID-19 Early Warning System, Establishes Protocols for the Future

July 8, 2021
COVID-19 upended life as we know it, especially among the science community. While some scientists rushed to develop a vaccine, others sought a better understanding of the virus, hoping to predict where the next outbreak might be in order to better contain it. At UC Merced, this included testing...
SCI Active Network CEO and Founder Troy Plunkett and recent UC Merced alumnus Joseph Bello ('21).

Strauss Foundation Winner, Recent Grad Works to Improve Wheelchair Accessibility

June 29, 2021
In July, Joseph Bello will present his findings for the prestigious Donald A. Strauss Foundation scholarship to United Spinal, the longstanding nonprofit dedicated to overcoming the stigma of disability and increasing inclusivity for wheelchair users. It has taken months of work to prepare, but...

Ph.D. Student Named Underrepresented Chemist of Color by Merck

June 25, 2021
Chemistry and Chemical Biology graduate student Ali Abou Taka is one of 12 students to receive the inaugural Merck Research Award for Underrepresented Chemists of Color. Abou Taka, a Ph.D. student in Professor Hrant Hratchian’s lab, studies the transition of metal complexes that play a critical...

From Earth to Space and Back Again: Solar Samples Show Surprising Results

June 17, 2021
When physics graduate student William Delmas made samples of solar energy harvesting perovskite films two years ago, he had no idea that this summer, he’d be analyzing those same samples after they made a round trip to the International Space Station (ISS). “It’s really cool to see this come full...
Victor Muñoz

Engineering Professor Awarded $1 Million NSF Award to Study Protein Folding

June 16, 2021
Proteins operate like biological machines, regulating nearly every major function and organ in our bodies through a still-mysterious shape-shifting process. Bioengineering graduate group chair Professor Victor Muñoz has a new $1,082,356 award from the National Science Foundation to unlock those...
With the support of Mayor Matthew Serratto and others, Adison Martinez's lemonade stand raised more than $1,000 to buy trees for Rahilly Park.

Staff Members’ Daughter Raises $1,000 to Plant New Trees

June 10, 2021
A core tenet of UC Merced’s mission is public service, something staffers Tom and Esmeralda Martinez know all about thanks to their daughter. On June 5, Merced natives the Martinezes and their 7-year-old daughter, Adison, worked alongside community members and city leaders to clean up Rahilly Park...
Elena Bischak

Rotary District Scholar to Conduct Sanitation Research in Haiti

June 9, 2021
With COVID-19 protections lifting, many people are eager to travel again. Among them is graduate student Elena Bischak, who is planning multiple trips to Haiti in the coming months to study improving sanitation and human waste processing in the Caribbean country. Bischak is a third-year...

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