Patty Guerra

After weathering a pandemic shutdown and some fairly withering criticism, UC Merced's food service programs have emerged better than ever.

The shutdown that started in 2020 brought about abrupt changes to food service operations - prepackaged items were the order of the day to feed students, and for catering, there were no orders of the day.

Materials Science and Engineering Professor Beth Nowadnick has earned a National Science Foundation (NSF) award to study materials that may provide new ways to store or process information.

Nowadnick has been collaborating for the past two years with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) scientist Sinead Griffin on the project that led to the grant, which totals $379,374.

As more renewable energy projects take hold in California, there is more need for effective ways to store that energy.

A paper published by a UC Merced research team examines how the need for storage can vary for different combinations of renewable resources.

Innumerable changes have come to UC Merced since ground was broken for the campus in 2002. Some of the women who helped found the campus and remain employed by UC Merced, reflected recently on the changes in the university and themselves for Women's History Month.

UC Merced once again broke a record for the number of first-year applications the university received, continuing to show impressive growth even as the national trend shows a decline in the number of students enrolling in higher education.

More than 26,000 prospective first-year, or freshmen, students applied for admission to the university. And nearly 4,000 students applied to transfer to UC Merced. Most of the applicants are from California.

As agriculture, California's most important industry, becomes increasingly technical, the workforce needed to sustain it will have to have different skills than those of a generation ago.

A UC Merced researcher has been awarded a grant aimed at sparking interest and knowledge among disadvantaged young students who could grow up to take those jobs as the current workforce ages out.

In the wake of record-breaking rain and snow this winter, experts have cautioned that despite the deluge, California remains in a drought.

The United States Drought Monitor shows much of California still experiencing "moderate drought," and in some places "severe drought." That is a big improvement from last month, when much of the state was in "severe drought" with 7 percent of California in what was considered "exceptional drought" conditions.

The setting for the celebration marking 20 years since the groundbreaking for UC Merced was markedly different in many ways from the event it commemorated.

Wednesday's ceremony, attended by hundreds of faculty and staff - including dozens from when the university opened - took place in the Dr. Vikram and Priya Lakireddy Grand Ballroom. It was a scene far removed from the empty field where ground was broken for the 10^th University of California campus in October 2002.

A company started by UC Merced founding faculty member Roland Winston - and staffed by alumni - is looking for partners for some exciting solar projects. And the government could cover the costs.

Winston Cone Optics seeks to develop pilot projects that use solar energy to heat water, evaporate waste and remove salt from wastewater.

Innovate to Grow is a twice-yearly celebration of student ingenuity hosted by the School of Engineering (SoE). In a way, it's a science fair for college students to help solve problems that businesses and nonprofit organizations face, and potentially gain partnerships to see their projects utilized in real-world applications.