Sometimes public service at UC Merced looks like finding ways to grow crops with a changing water supply. Or delving into how children translate for their non-English-speaking parents.
And sometimes it looks like picking up a paintbrush and refurbishing park benches and curbs at Lake Yosemite.
The newest major in UC Merced's School of Engineering is one of the most exciting subjects in - and out of - this world.
Aerospace engineering, one of the fastest-growing industries in the state, will be available as a major area of study at the university in fall 2025.
The adoption of an aerospace engineering major at UC Merced is exciting for all the romantic reasons you might expect - visions of alumni working on satellites and spacecraft and taking part in missions to explore the vast frontier.
University of California researchers from the USDA-funded Secure Water Future project recently found that increases in crop water demand explain half of the cumulative deficits of the agricultural water balance since 1980, exacerbating water reliance on depleting groundwater supplies and fluctuating surface water imports.
Discussions around climate change often center around the bad news - the planet is warming, weather is getting more extreme, resources are increasingly scarce.
But there also is cause for hope. There are options to mitigate climate change, and some of them are already happening.
A UC Merced undergraduate student's work at NASA helped ensure the space agency will have cost-effective and efficient communications.
Tejas Bhartiya, who recently graduated from the university after only 2.5 years, also last month concluded an internship with NASA's Goddard Space Center.
The Goddard Space Flight Center, based in Greenbelt, Md., is home to the nation's largest organization of scientists, engineers and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study Earth, the sun, the solar system and the universe, according to its website.
Editor's note: In honor of Black History Month, the UC Merced newsroom is highlighting some of the organizations, services and people who serve or represent the Black community on campus.
An organization that was created in a time of tragedy and crisis has been a force for good for UC Merced's Black community.
A study conducted by a UC Merced researcher found that people injured through violent acts have a substantially higher risk to die by or attempt suicide.
For professors, it’s up or out when it comes to tenure and promotion: After five years on the job as assistant professors, junior professors’ promise is evaluated by their more senior colleagues.
Using magnetic resource imaging, or MRI, to harmlessly detect seeds in Mandarin oranges. Identification of pathogens in an image library with artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose plant disease. Creating a robot to more efficiently manufacture a robot. Building a user-friendly database to organize information for a global tech organization. Production-grade employee coaching and training applications for a large cold chain industry and a multinational computer storage company.
Climate change is a very real - and very scary - threat.
Climate change and its underlying primary cause - burning fossil fuels - are arguably the world's leading causes of preventable death and ill health, writes researcher Edward Maibach.
However, there are tangible ways to limit global warming, and research shows that getting the message from the health care professionals who are on the front lines of dealing with the effects of climate change can have a big impact.
