Professor Shahar Sukenik has been a faculty member for only 5 1/2 years, but he has already built an impressive resume, becoming a leader in his research field, an innovator and an exceptional communicator.
Those qualities helped him become UC Merced’s first recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Sloan Research Fellowship.
Being able to accurately predict how the climate will change in the future is one of the most important quests of our lifetimes. A key to better prediction is the fundamental understanding of how particles in the atmosphere are connected to climate and climate change. One way to do that is to better understand the interactions between desert dust particles and radiation — from the sun and the Earth's surface.
Chemistry Professor Aurora Pribram-Jones is looking for undergrads to help her get the lead out — out of drinking-water pipes.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas that is contributing to irreversible climate change. Scientists know how to capture CO2, and they know how to transform it into useful molecules and materials.
But that transformation is neither energy nor cost-effective.
Through a prestigious grant from the Department of Energy (DOE), a diverse group of scientists, including a chemist from UC Merced, plan to address that problem by coupling two chemistries which are known to work independently, but don't work well together.
For the first time, UC Merced faculty members from each of the campus’s three schools have been chosen as principal investigators on some of the 21 exciting new projects that are being funded through UC’s Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI).
In addition, UC Merced researchers are collaborating on 10 of the other projects.
A new five-year collaboration has presented Professor Christine Isborn the opportunity to be part of the emerging field of polariton chemistry, the results of which could change the face of chemistry.
Students at UC Merced and those who might someday become Bobcats are the focus of FARMERS, Professor Rudy M. Ortiz’s training program funded again for $1 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
FARMERS stands for Facilitating Agriculture-Related Mentoring for Emerging Research Scholars, and the goal is to train 15 undergraduate and 10 graduate students a year over the next four years to conduct in-depth research into agriculture-related subjects.
Human waste isn’t a topic most people want to talk about.
But environmental systems Professor Rebecca Ryals embraces the subject, especially when it comes to mitigating climate change, improving public health and creating sustainable food systems.
Graduate students and a convergence of physics, engineering and environmental science could result in not only the next generation of solutions to pressing environmental challenges, but a new group of diverse and globally competitive nano-engineers, as well.
A nearly $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will train about 200 graduate students over the next five years as they learn and work to develop nano-sensors to better manage resources.
An HIV-inhibiting silk film designed to advance prevention and help end the AIDS epidemic in countries in Africa, developed by UC Merced Professor Patti LiWang, has met recent success at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis.
“They show complete protection,” LiWang said. “The films worked perfectly on the macaques at Davis.”
Daily cycles in virtually every aspect of our physiology are driven by biological clocks (also called circadian clocks) in our cells. The cyclical interactions of clock proteins keep the biological rhythms of life in tune with the daily cycle of night and day, and this happens not only in humans and other complex animals but even in simple, single-celled organisms such as cyanobacteria.
Cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and skates have a sixth sense, but it’s not ESP — it’s electrosense. Such fishes use hundreds or thousands of specialized organs to sense prey and mates and to navigate the oceans.
A cross-disciplinary group of researchers at UC Merced is making new discoveries about the fundamental structure of the organs and how this structure may provide clues as to how this sixth sense works.
Like many people this summer, Professor Shahar Sukenik has dehydration on his mind.
But it’s not the soaring outside temperatures prompting this focus. Dehydration has been a theme of his lab’s work for the past year, from understanding how seeds know when to germinate to a new grant to further knowledge about the proteins that help protect cells and organisms against irreversible drying.
The over the counter, “safe,” organic-compliant insecticides people purchase at home-improvement stores could be causing a problem that goes far beyond the vegetable garden or farm field — antibiotic resistance.
With a new $20 million federal grant, UC Merced becomes part of a multi-institutional research collaborative to develop artificial intelligence — or AI — solutions to tackle some of agriculture’s biggest challenges related to water management, climate change and integration of new technology into farming.
