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CAREER Award Will Help Professor Advance Organic Chemistry Education

October 16, 2018
Chemistry and chemical biology Professor Ryan Baxter recently became the campus’s 22nd recipient of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) prestigious early CAREER awards for untenured faculty. The $647,000 he received from NSF will mostly go toward paying student research assistants and...

The Poetry of Science Sparks International Collaboration

October 4, 2018
Writing poetry can lead to increased innovation in science, according to a new article in BioScience that came about because of a Twitter connection between UC Merced and Swansea University in Wales. As part of National Poetry Month, UC Merced launched a hashtag encouraging community members to...

Emergence, Extinction of Massive Ancient Shark to be Explored with NSF Grant

October 1, 2018
Forty million years after dinosaurs went extinct, one of the largest predators that ever prowled Earth’s oceans emerged, feeding the imaginations of modern scientists and the nightmares of modern movie audiences. Megalodon — the name means ‘giant tooth’ — appeared some 23 million years ago and...

UC Merced Professors Honored for Work with First-Generation Students

September 24, 2018
UC Merced psychology Professor Anna Song and biology Professor Jennifer Manilay had a special dinner with UC President Janet Napolitano at her Oakland home recently to honor the faculty members for their work on first-generation student initiatives. All faculty in attendance, including Song and...

NSF Grant Helps Professor Connect Evolutionary Dots along the Open Tree of Life

September 18, 2018
UC Merced life and environmental sciences Professor Emily Jane McTavish and a collaborator at the University of Kansas recently received a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to extend and improve the Open Tree of Life (OpenTree). OpenTree is a collaborative project...

Postdoc Earns Prestigious NIH Award to Study Health Disparities

September 17, 2018
Jaapna Dhillon had no idea that studying how almonds affect health would win her a huge advantage in securing a tenure-track position. But Dhillon just became UC Merced’s first postdoctoral researcher to receive a Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “The K99/...

Frustration and Compromise in Flocking Cells Produce New Migration Patterns

September 12, 2018
Even if some members of a goal-driven group don’t seem to work well with others — even if the whole group is extremely frustrated — the group can still compromise and find new ways to produce a successful outcome. This sounds like a political allegory, but it’s actually a novel finding about...

$1.5M Grant Will Transform Chemistry Curriculum, Improve Access to STEM Careers

September 4, 2018
It’s a startling statistic: Nearly 30 percent of UC Merced students who start their college careers in the School of Natural Sciences (SNS) switch to majors outside the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields by their second year. But a new five-year, $1.5 million grant from the...

Study: Snacking on Almonds a Healthy Alternative for Breakfast-Skipping Students

August 16, 2018
Independence: It’s what many students value most about the transition to college life. But the freedom to make decisions without interference from parents can lead to unhealthy eating habits. There’s the dreaded “Freshman 15” — the 15 pounds that students purportedly gain during their first year of...

CAREER Award Will Help Professor Predict How Species Respond to Climate Change

August 10, 2018
Paleoecology Professor Jessica Blois recently became the campus’s 19th recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award. The NSF describes as the CAREER as its “most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty who have the potential...

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