Skip to content

News

2023-2024 Physics Graduate Student News and Achievements

September 24, 2024
Welcome to our first-year students! Hamad Afzal – UC Merced. Rotation advisor: Sharping Jonah Beurkens – Kalamazoo College, Michigan. Rotation advisor: Sharping Julian Davis – California State University, East Bay. Rotation advisor: Liu...

Physics Grad Student Receives Competitive UC Fellowship

September 5, 2024
Ph.D. student Micah Oeur has been awarded a 2024-2025 UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship to support her physics research and boost her goal to be a professor. PPPF’s goal is to enhance faculty pathways for historically underrepresented groups, particularly Chicanx/Latinx, African Americans...

Grad Student Receives Prestigious Defense Fellowship

August 19, 2024
Thomas “Teddy” Adams has been awarded the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) fellowship sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. The three-year fellowship covers tuition and university fees and provides a monthly stipend of $3,600, along with access to additional funding...

Researchers Accurately Model Animals’ Hunting, Scavenging Behavior

August 14, 2024
A group of UC Merced researchers modeled predation behaviors, as well as changes in those behaviors, among large carnivores, developing a new theory that will help biologists assess the health of various ecosystems. Department of Life and Environmental Sciences Professor Justin Yeakel, Department...

Fulbright Award Sends Physics Grad Student to France for Quantum Research

August 7, 2024
Persistence has paid off for UC Merced doctoral candidate Arabi Seshappan. The graduate student from Fremont, about to start her sixth year, was selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program's Fulbright-Université Paris-Saclay Doctoral Research Award, which is only granted to three U.S. students...

Physics-based Modeling Reveals Surprising Behavior of Blood Clots

June 27, 2024
A group of researchers, including physicists from UC Merced, has made discoveries about the mechanics of blood clots that could help in the development of biomaterials for tissue engineering and improved surgical adhesives. Many materials around us, including those in cells and tissues, are made of...

New Summer Research Opportunities for Undergraduates from Across U.S.

April 23, 2024
The National Science Foundation awarded a team, led by principal investigators Professor Ajay Gopinathan and Carrie Kouadio, funding to establish a summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at UC Merced. This new program seeks to increase the diversity of the science,...

Fellowship Expands Quantum, AI Training to Fill Industry Demand

February 26, 2024
UC Merced graduate students Anuvetha Govindarajan and Jocelyn Ornelas-Munoz have each received a $25,000 fellowship from SandboxAQ, which creates solutions at the nexus of artificial intelligence and quantum technology — or AQ — to address some of the world's greatest challenges. For the past six...

Active-matter Researcher will Further Modeling, Education with NSF CAREER Award

February 12, 2024
Department of Physics Professor Kinjal Dasbiswas has received a CAREER award for his work on the theory and modeling of shape-changing active solids. He is the 38th researcher from UC Merced to earn this award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). CAREER awards are among the NSF’s most...

New Partnership Offers Ph.D. Students a Path to Pedagogical Excellence

December 4, 2023
Graduate student Samuel Leventini comes from a long line of educators, and the tribology researcher thinks he might want to follow in those footsteps. Thanks to a new supplemental grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Leventini will get the opportunity to find out if teaching is really...

Pages