This is the final entry of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2025 semester.
Adriana Ponce Mata spent the last two summers working in one of the largest and oldest companies in the Bay Area. This fall, she joins UC Merced to begin her next chapter. Through Project SEED, she gained hands-on research experience testing fuels in an oil refinery, sparking her passion for science and helping others.
A daughter of San Joaquin Valley immigrant farmworkers has earned the opportunity to study alongside a nationally prominent health researcher and energize her mission to improve the well-being of agricultural laborers.
In addition to being used recreationally, marijuana and cannabidiol, or CBD, one of the cannabinoids produced by the marijuana plant, are thought to have medical benefits such as helping with chemotherapy-induced nausea, treating epilepsy, relieving pain and helping with a variety of mental health issues.
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Chris Amemiya, former interim director of the Health Sciences Research Institute, has been honored by the Pan American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology (PASEDB) with the Service Award.
Please cast your vote for your nominee to represent the School of Natural Sciences on the HSRI Executive Committee. We received two nominations for one vacancy on the EC. Only full HSRI members from the School of Natural Sciences are eligible to vote. Please see nominees' HSRI website biographies – including links to their research websites – and CVs below.
Linda Hirst, Professor, Department of Physics (HSRI member since 2012)
More than 100 million land mines remain buried around the world, posing a threat in approximately 70 countries and territories, and killing or injuring about 5,000 people, most of them civilians, every year.
As the world’s geopolitical landscape shifts, nine scientists studying different aspects of warfare ecology from seven countries — Poland, Ukraine, Norway, Spain, the United States, Finland and Croatia — are warning against the growing deployment of land mines as countries bordering Russia withdraw from global conventions restricting their use.
Professor Andy LiWang knows what makes us tick, at least at a cellular level.
His research into the mechanisms of the oldest biological clock known to humankind has led him to understand how proteins — and hence cells — can tell time.
It has also led the UC Merced biochemist to become this year's recipient of the prestigious Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin award, sponsored by the Rigaku Corporation and given by The Protein Society (TPS).
The National Institutes of Health are backing Professor Clarissa Nobile ’s mission to understand the mechanisms by which microbes form biofilms, specifically those that can be hazardous to human health.
Mass deportation of California's undocumented residents would open a $275 billion hole in the state's economy, cripple industries ranging from agriculture to hospitality, disrupt countless small businesses, and lead to $23 billion a year in lost tax revenue.
