ϰٿ

Lorena Anderson

ϰٿ campus photo of sign

Senior Writer and Public Information Representative

Office: (209) 228-4406

Mobile: (209) 201-6255

landerson4@ucmerced.edu

Virtual Summer Academy, Other Sessions, Reached Students Around the Country

Students and faculty worked with a record number of schoolchildren from Merced, the Bay Area and southern California all the way to Washington, D.C., enriching their learning and increasing their interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

Hard Shells and Electrosensory Gels: Lab Makes Surprising Discovery

Molecular biology Professor Chris Amemiya and his former graduate student Molly Phillips have made a discovery that upends traditional ideas about a structural polysaccharide called chitin that is found in some fish.

New Project Focuses on Life in Soil in the Earth’s Critical Zone

Since 2007, ϰٿ researchers have been extremely productive in the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (CZO), delving into investigations of hydrology, climate change, geology, biology and more.

But the National Science Foundation, which funded the CZOs, is decommissioning the sites and has reconfigured the program around themed research clusters in a new program called the Critical Zone Collaborative Network (CZCN).

AI is for the Birds in a New Computer Science Project

Bird species usually are counted twice a year by wildlife surveyors: once during the breeding season and again during the .

New technology, however, is increasing the accuracy of bird population studies. A team of ϰٿ researchers is developing a model to recognize bird calls.

ϰٿ Brings NSF ‘Computer Science for All’ Program to Merced Schools

The technology world is punctuated by startups, and ϰٿ is “starting up” its own program to invigorate computer science education in the San Joaquin Valley.

The National Science Foundation awarded a $300,000, two-year grant to support START UP SJV, which stands for “STEM Teachers Alliance for Regional Tech thinking through Underrepresented Professional development in the San Joaquin Valley.”

ACTIVATE Bringing Telehealth Services to Vulnerable Merced County Residents

Researchers at the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute at the University of California have launched a new public-private pilot initiative to bring telehealth services to underserved rural residents in Merced County.

Public Conference Presents COVID-19 From Different Angles

Everyone will have opportunities to learn about collaborative research at the intersections of COVID-19 and topics related to the environment, health and equity through a series of online conference sessions this fall.

Past Wildfires Offer Future Roadmap for Forest Management’s Effects on Water

Forest restoration is often associated with mitigating wildfire risk and improving ecosystem health throughout the Sierra Nevada. But restoration also dramatically affects water use within forests and the amount of runoff that flows downstream.

Professor Tracey Osborne Taking on Complex, Grand Challenges in Climate and Social Justice

The world is a complex place, and humanity faces major challenges. Climate change mitigation might be the most difficult, in large part because of the interdependency of living things and their ecosystems.

How do people transform economic systems so they are also sustainable for people and the planet?

“If we don’t consider how everything connects from a systems perspective, we’re not going to solve grand challenges such as climate change,” Professor Tracey Osborne said. “Not even close.”

Alum Develops Device to Measure and Manipulate Invisible Force

As scientists build smaller and smaller machines, they need to understand the invisible forces that make those machines work.

Thanks to research and the initiative of then-ϰٿ graduate student Jake Pate, some of those forces can now be measured and manipulated.