Lorena Anderson

A team of scientists led by UC Merced is embarking on a project to understand how the twisted shapes of specific molecules can influence the spin of electrons — a phenomenon that could revolutionize solar energy, electronics and quantum computing.

The research, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program, focuses on a mysterious effect known as chirality-induced spin selectivity, or CISS.

Kathy Chau believed she knew what her future would look like. The first in her family to attend college, she had long been advised to aim for a safe and stable job — one that might not light a fire in her soul but would pay the bills.

“I resigned myself to working a corporate job. I didn't like the sound of it, but I didn't hate it, either,” she said.

When Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe arrived at UC Merced in 2009, she and her husband, Professor Teamrat Ghezzehei, were leaving major research institutions to join a brand-new campus in California’s Central Valley. It was a leap of faith — one made easier by the Sierra Nevada Research Institute.

As nations cut emissions that once fueled urban smog, scientists are discovering unexpected chemistry taking place in the atmosphere.

UC Merced Professor Xuan Zhang is leading a project to uncover how these chemical shifts could affect the air we breathe and the climate. The project is supported by a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

Zhang is the 43rd researcher from UC Merced to earn a CAREER award from the NSF.

As the Hellman Fellowships celebrate their 30th year, three more researchers, one from each of UC Merced’s schools, have joined the prestigious ranks of recipients.

Electrical engineering Professor Qian Wang, sociology Professor Meredith Van Natta and Earth systems Professor Adeyemi Adebiyi will receive funding through their fellowships for projects they have proposed.

Starting a university from scratch isn’t for the faint of heart — or the slow of foot. Lucky for UC Merced, Anne Myers Kelley and David Kelley are neither.

Anne, a former Olympic marathon trials qualifier, and David, a competitive cyclist, were no strangers to long, grueling efforts when they packed up their lab gear and headed west from Kansas State University in 2003.

In addition to being used recreationally, marijuana and cannabidiol, or CBD, one of the cannabinoids produced by the marijuana plant, are thought to have medical benefits such as helping with chemotherapy-induced nausea, treating epilepsy, relieving pain and helping with a variety of mental health issues.

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Chris Amemiya, former interim director of the Health Sciences Research Institute, has been honored by the Pan American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology (PASEDB) with the Service Award.

More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians, every year. 

As the world’s geopolitical landscape shifts, nine scientists studying different aspects of warfare ecology from seven countries — Poland, Ukraine, Norway, Spain, the United States, Finland and Croatia — are warning against the growing deployment of land mines as countries bordering Russia withdraw from global conventions restricting their use.

Professor Andy LiWang knows what makes us tick, at least at a cellular level.

His research into the mechanisms of the oldest biological clock known to humankind has led him to understand how proteins — and hence cells — can tell time.

It has also led the UC Merced biochemist to become this year's recipient of the prestigious Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin award, sponsored by the Rigaku Corporation and given by The Protein Society (TPS).