Solar films developed by a graduate student in the Department of Physics at UC Merced while on an internship at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) not only survived 10 months in space with minimal degradation, but the little damage they did incur was more than 90 percent reversible.
You know that warm, uplifting feeling you get when you see someone going out of their way to help other people? You might get goosebumps or even a tear in your eye, and something inside you might make you want to be like them, support others and try to be a better person.
That feeling isn't happiness, awe or pride. It’s not even love, although it is related. Until recently, that feeling didn't have a name in English. Now, it is known as “moral elevation,” a unique emotion linked with trust, compassion and a desire to help others.
Professor Rebecca Ryals has made campus history by being named UC Merced’s inaugural Presidential Chair in Climate Change. The appointment was recommended by her peers and Dean Betsy Dumont from the School of Natural Sciences in recognition of Ryals’ outstanding research, teaching and service.
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.
UCs Merced and Santa Cruz became the newest campuses in the system to be named an agricultural experiment stations (AES), UC President Michael Drake announced at today’s Regents’ meeting.
They are the first campuses in more than 50 years to earn the designation.
Rising juniors this fall will have an unprecedented opportunity for stem cell research training that could lead directly to careers in stem cell science after graduation.
Mechanical thinning of overstocked forests, prescribed burning and managed wildfire now being carried out to enhance fire protection of California's forests provide many benefits, or ecosystem services, that people depend on.
Engineering Professor Sarah Kurtz has been awarded the Reno Ferrero Family Chair in Electrical Engineering, making her the second woman to hold an endowed chair in the School of Engineering.
"I am truly honored to have been chosen for this chair, not only because of the donor and his achievements, that because this is going to greatly further the electrical engineering program at UC Merced," Kurtz said.
Green energy solutions are critical to meet current and future power demands, and while solar and wind power are great, they are also site-specific and intermittent.
Distinguished Professor Roland Winston was among the first eight faculty members at UC Merced in 2003, two years before the campus opened. When he retires July 1, at age 86, he will be the first of those eight to leave — but his work on solar energy applications will continue.
It's not hyperbolic to say Winston is a really big deal in the worlds of physics and solar energy.
