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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED

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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...

UC Solar Awarded $1.1M Grant to Build Solar-Powered Water Purification Systems

July 16, 2018
UC Solar received a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to develop solar-thermal desalination technologies that reduce the cost of creating fresh water from otherwise unusable waters such as seawater, brackish water and polluted water. UC...

Campus Lands $1M Howard Hughes Grant to Make STEM More Inclusive

July 3, 2018
UC Merced’s efforts to make science education more inclusive were recently given a huge boost after the campus was awarded its first Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) grant, an impressive mark of distinction that reflects the strong upward trajectory of the campus’s research and teaching...

Merced River Helps Explain How Soils Capture and Store Planet-Warming Carbon

July 2, 2018
Soils are carbon sinks, storing more planet-warming carbon than the atmosphere and all animal and plant life combined. But they can also release massive amounts of stored carbon into the atmosphere. Given carbon’s central role in climate change, understanding the forces that govern how soils absorb...

Misbehaving “Killer” Cells Accelerate Progress of Autoimmune Disease

June 29, 2018
In 1998, scientists studying rheumatoid arthritis observed a population of immune cells that weren’t behaving the way they were supposed to. Immunologists noted the strange phenomenon, but decided not to pursue the subject further, and the cells were soon forgotten. But interest in these cells has...

Following a Devastating Pandemic, California’s Sea Stars are Evolving

June 19, 2018
In 2012, Environmental Systems graduate student Lauren Schiebelhut was collecting DNA from ochre sea stars living along the Northern California coast — part of an effort to study genetic diversity in various marine species that serve as indicators of habitat health. She had no idea that just one...

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