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Researchers Look Ahead to Fire Season 2025

April 22, 2025
Pictures accompanying Professor John Abatzoglou's presentation on the 2025 fire season were blurry. That was intentional, he said, because so much about wildfire is unpredictable. "There's a lot that we know, and a lot we don't know," he said. However, Abatzoglou said, some conclusions can be drawn...

UC Awards Support Tackling Big Questions in Health, Physics, Agriculture and Climate

February 5, 2025
Faculty members at UC Merced are taking the lead on four Multicampus Research Program Initiatives (MRPI), working with colleagues around the University of California system to address challenges around labor and agriculture, active matter, Indigenous health and fusion energy. “The MRPI program...

Study: Climate Change Extends Drought Recovery by at Least Three Months

October 17, 2024
A group of researchers at UC Merced has found that climate change means it takes about three months longer for California to recover from drought, and probably longer. “Climate change has fundamentally changed the odds of getting out of drought. It has weighted the dice,” said Emily Williams, a...

2024 Sierra Nevada Science Symposium Convenes Sierra Researchers at UC Merced

March 15, 2024
The 2024 Sierra Nevada Science Symposium, hosted March 5-6 at University of California, Merced, brought together National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Geological Survey, National Forest, state, local, and other resource managers and scientists with university researchers and non-governmental...

New Film Profiles Immediate Actions to Restore California's Wildfire-vulnerable Forests

February 9, 2024
The new film "California's Watershed Healing" documents the huge benefits that result from restoring forests to healthier densities. UC Merced's Sierra Nevada Research Institute partnered with the nonprofit Chronicles Group to tell the story of these efforts, the science behind them, and...

Warming Climate Pushes Rain to Higher Elevations, Raising Flooding Risks

February 5, 2024
A new study co-authored by UC Merced researchers assesses the effect of a warming climate in pushing the elevation of snow to rain higher during a storm, increasing runoff and the risk of flooding. The study also shows the importance of spatially representative ground measurements of hydrologic...

Grant Funds Research into Wildfire Behavior and Ecological Effects of Fuel Treatments

November 22, 2023
A grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will fund a project led by a UC Merced researcher looking into predicting behavior of wildfires. Jeanette Cobian-Iñiguez is leading a team from UCs Merced and Irvine awarded $1,179,479 to predict the impact of forest fuel treatments on fire...

New NSF Award Funds Study of Worker-Robot Collaborations in Agriculture

October 23, 2023
A new $2M National Science Foundation Collaborative grant unites investigators from UC Merced, UC Riverside, and UC Davis in “Elevating Farm Worker-Robot Collaborations in Agri-Food Systems.” Principal Investigator, Sierra Nevada Research Institute Faculty Director, and Civil and...

New Major Trains Students to Tell the Planet’s Urgent Stories

September 28, 2023
Compelling storytelling is vital to ensuring the action needed to secure a habitable planet for future generations, according to an increasing amount of research. UC Merced is recruiting students now to become the next environmental storytellers. Students who are interested in creatively conveying...

Founding Faculty Member Martha Conklin Bids Farewell to Campus Community

August 28, 2023
Professor Martha Conklin started her career at UC Merced at the Castle Research Facility, and it began with a frightening surprise. “I had a baby rattlesnake in my office,” she said. “The whole building was snake-infested before UC Merced moved in. But it's a small thing — there were a lot of...

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