Patty Guerra

Measurements and data collected from space can be used to better understand life on Earth.

Helping diplomats navigate new cultures, removing mircroplastics from stormwater and automating raisin processing: These are some of the projects awarded winning scores at UC Merced's fall Innovate to Grow event.

Innovate to Grow, or I2G as it's known on campus, is a twice-a-year showcase for UC Merced engineering and computer science students to demonstrate projects they have been developing.

Teams of students work to address challenges presented to them by clients, then present their results to judges who are experts from around California.

As water becomes an ever more precious and unpredictable resource, particularly in the Central Valley, finding ways to precisely irrigate crops is a valuable tool in the fight against climate change.

Climate shifts have triggered more frequent and more severe droughts that have reduced the amount of water available for farming in key agricultural regions. Current methods to check the water needs of crops are costly and inefficient, making it difficult to use precision irrigation techniques that can save water while maintaining or improving crop yield.

It took Lilly Uvalle a few tries to complete her education at UC Merced.

Uvalle started her collegiate career in the fall of 2010 after graduating from Buhach Colony High School in Atwater.

"I did two years, my freshman and sophomore years," she said. "Then I withdrew. I tried coming back once in 2013 and withdrew again. Then I tried coming back in 2017."

Family obligations, mental health concerns and feeling overwhelmed by what it would take to get back to school got in the way. Then, in 2022, something changed.

Innovate to Grow, or I2G as it’s known on campus, is a twice-a-year showcase for UC Merced engineering and computer science students demonstrating projects they have been developing.

Students compete on teams that are judged by experts from around California. People can see the fall showcase Dec. 19, when teams display the results of their work.

These capstone projects are the culmination of students’ undergraduate careers, but the impacts are far more than academic: Teams work together to tackle real-world problems brought to them by clients.

Here's a nifty use for AI: Turning photographs and other images into Cubist art.

A team of UC Merced researchers developed a project to do just that, using artificial intelligence to transform images into the style of art created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque that reduces and fractures objects into geometric forms.

One of those researchers, Edric Chan, is still in high school.

Mushrooms are pretty amazing. They are light and porous yet have a high strength-to-weight ratio. They are absorbent. They can serve as filters.

Manufacturing a material that mimics mushrooms and other fungal structures could provide opportunities in any number of areas, ranging from aerospace engineering to clothing production.

A new program aimed at training people to be community health workers has already gotten an important boost: a grant to cover scholarships for some attendees.

The first four faculty members named to UC Merced's Agricultural Experiment Station look to make a big impact on farming in the San Joaquin Valley and beyond.

As wildfires grow in intensity and frequency, it's vital that agencies and local stakeholders work together to rehabilitate and restore resilience to wildlands in California.

This finding is underscored in a paper in the journal Restoration Ecology published in October by UC Merced researchers.