Patty Guerra

The American Society of Civil Engineers has awarded civil and environmental engineering Professor Siddaiah Yarra the Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award for Region 9.

The ASCE San Francisco Section Individual Awards aim to recognizepeople outstanding achievements or leadership in civil engineering, or who, through their work, support and advance the civil engineering profession.

From smartphones to medical devices, artificial intelligence is a part of much of everyday life. One of UC Merced's newest professors is working to make AI more explainable and more efficient.

Electrical engineering Professor Xiaofan Yu started at UC Merced this summer after graduating from UC San Diego with a Ph.D. Originally from China, Yu earned her undergraduate degree at Peking University. She said she is excited about the opportunities UC Merced offers.

An expo at UC Merced next week will bring together farmers, ranchers, researchers and community organizers to highlight what's possible when agriculture technology is designed for small farms.

The Small Farm Tech Expo, scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 2, will include hands-on demonstrations and panel discussions about the latest in ag tech innovations. There is no admission charge. Parking will be available in the Bellevue lot.

More than two dozen educators from kindergarten through college converged at UC Merced to discuss the challenges they're facing and the opportunities ahead.

Wildfires are growing more frequent and severe across the western United States, and California's Sierra Nevada is ground zero. Decades of fire suppression have left these forests overstocked and vulnerable to catastrophic fires, drought and pest outbreaks.

Beyond destroying homes and infrastructure, high-severity wildfires release massive amounts of carbon, degrade water quality, erode soils, reduce timber supply and fill the air with hazardous smoke that threatens public health.

BioSCape, a multinational research project co-led by UC Merced, the University at Buffalo and the University of Cape Town, which monitored Earth’s biodiversity from the air, has received a Group Achievement Award as part of the 2024-25 NASA Honor Awards.

A new documentary also showcases the project’s impressive results.

Nearly half of the world’s worst wildfire disasters have occurred in just the past decade, new research from UC Merced’s Fire Resilience Center shows.

Storing carbon in forests is an essential, nature-based buffer against climate change. Yet forests packed with too many trees increase the threat of severe wildfires, which are becoming all too common in warmer, drier conditions.

A team of UC Merced and collaborating researchers evaluated the tradeoffs between two seemingly opposing scenarios:

• Trees are critical because they pull carbon dioxide from the air and store it in their trunks, preventing carbon from adding to greenhouse effects that trap heat and warm the atmosphere.

An almond orchard in Parlier provides a look into the future of farming.

Researchers at UC Merced and the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources installed an irrigation system powered by artificial intelligence to deliver the precise amount of water needed and measure the results.

A new partnership focused on a popular snack nut will offer exciting opportunities for students, research potential for faculty and the latest technology for farmers.

Representatives of the University of California and the Almond Board of California signed a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, at the UC Merced campus on Sept. 10. The MOU calls for the entities to work together over the next five years in such vital areas as automation, sustainability and new almond varieties.