Despite the challenges of making an in-person event into a remote one, students in this year’s Innovate to Grow spring showcase displayed the determination, passion and innovation Bobcats are known for.
Innovation is nothing new at UC Merced, but this year, because of the coronavirus pandemic, everyone on campus has had to reimagine nearly everything they do.
But leave it up to the School of Engineering to wholly reinvent its annual Innovate to Grow showcase and competition on the fly.
A UC Merced researcher and her lab have unlocked one of the mysteries that could lead to treatments — or even cures — for prion diseases in mammals.
Prion diseases are a family of rare, progressive neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans — such as with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or fatal familial insomnia — and animals, such as mad-cow disease. These disorders are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Most people wouldn’t think physics has anything to do with baby babble and human language development.
But most people aren’t Ritwika Vallomparambath PanikkasserySugasree.
Two projects from a UC Merced engineering lab are making interactions with mobile devices easier and quicker, especially for blind people.
Computer science Professor Ahmed Arif and his students have developed a new way for blind people to be faster and more accurate when entering text, and a new way for all users to work with numbers.
Breakthrough collaborative science by an interdisciplinary team of researchers brought together by computational biology Professor David Ardell promises a new approach for treating all types of infections.
Infections have become more dangerous in recent years because bacteria and parasites rapidly evolve resistance to the medicines.
Competitions, showcases, career success stories and more highlight the work of the School of Engineering and its students at UC Merced’s annual celebration of National Engineers Week, Feb. 18 to 21.
E-Week is an opportunity for engineering students to share the work they do with the campus, invite some friendly competition and introduce other students and younger school children to the field. Each day carries a specific theme, from Project Palooza (a showcase for engineering clubs and organizations) to Professional Day (career advice and alumni success stories).
Professor Joel Spencer was a rising star in college soccer and now he is an emerging scientist in the world of biomedical engineering, capturing — for the first time — an image of a hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) within the bone marrow of a living organism.
Professor Clarissa Nobile has been named the newest Kamangar Family Endowed Chair in Biological Sciences and will be honored at a private ceremony with the donors this fall.
“I am so pleased and honored to have been named to this chair,” Nobile said. “Thank you for investing in me and the future of biomedical research on infectious diseases at UC Merced.”
Soil biogeochemistry Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe has been named the Ted and Jan Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology.
“The Falasco family is engaged in construction and development, so they have an intimate connection with and an understanding of the earth beneath our feet,” Berhe said. “Not only are they generous with their hard-earned resources, they are investing in a worthy cause for the Valley. They appreciate how invested we all should be in the land and the Earth.”
