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JUNE 2009 |
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A Message from the Dean
Maria Pallavicini
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Natural Sciences students have been accepted into the following professional schools in 2009:UCSF – School of Pharmacy UCSF – School of Medicine UOP – Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton Virginia Commonwealth University – School of Medicine California Northstate School of Pharmacy Touro University – College of Pharmacy Texas Tech University – School of Allied Health Sciences, DPT program San Diego State University – School of Public Health University of Alabama at Birmingham – School of Health Professions, M.S. in Health Administration |
Natural Sciences Group,
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Make A Gift to the School of Natural Sciences
Your gift to the School of Natural Sciences supports diverse activities, such as research, graduate student fellowships, undergraduate research opportunities, and equipment that are critical to success of our students, faculty and school.
Click here to Donate Online to the School of Natural Sciences
Thank you for your support!
Student Spotlight
Heather Orell, Undergraduate Student
UC Merced Female Athlete of 2009 and graduating senior Heather Orrell came to Merced from Thousand Oaks, CA after attending the University’s first Bobcat Day in 2005. Orrell said she was persuaded to pass up a full-ride softball scholarship from Virginia Tech because of the warmth and personal interaction she had with faculty on that day.
Starting her sophomore year, Orrell began working in a research position in Professor Ajay Gopinathan’s lab, studying ways to optimize the transcription of proteins from RNA. [more]
Did you know...
that math and lasers might be the key to diagnosing tissue health?
Associate Professor Arnold Kim and Assistant Professor Jay Sharping
Arnold Kim |
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Jay Sharping |
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Scientists and engineers are developing technologies that use lasers to investigate and monitor tissue health and detect early stages of cancer in non-invasive ways. Currently, scientists use ultra-short pulses of laser light to record several different types of microscope images simultaneously. By combining these image types they can differentiate between healthy and unhealthy tissues. Each light pulse contains about 10 billion “light particles” called photons, but only a very small fraction of the photons in each pulse contribute to imaging because light scatters in tissues. The rest of the photons contribute to heating and background noise in the image, or damage the sample. [more]
A Foundation for Excellence in Math
Senior Paul Tranquilli is the campus’s first recipient of the Applied Mathematics Prize. The new award, made possible by a generous donation from Dan and Jan Mendenhall, was created to recognize the achievements of the most outstanding undergraduate student in applied mathematics.
Tranquilli received the award and $250 check in March as part of the Math Society’s Pi Day festivities. He qualified for the prize by earning the highest GPA in the math program and for consistently excelling in upper division math courses. [more]
Merced K-12 Teachers Enthusiastic about the Science and Math Initiative
Left to right, Maria Pallavicini, Krista Venecia, and Mayya Tokman |
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Hands on experience helps UC Merced undergraduate students decide if teaching is a potential career path for them. Students participating in the Science and Math Initiative (SMI) are assigned to work in schools with K-12 teachers who mentor them on designing in-class presentations, and understanding the demands and rewards of teaching.
The program is as popular with UC Merced students as it is with their mentors. Sheila Whitley, a math teacher at Merced High School who worked with biology majors Yogesh Narayanan and Nicole Masuoka, wrote enthusiastically, “Both students were exceptional! They were punctual, prepared, professional, eager to learn, and soon became an integral part of the classroom experience for my high school students. They answered questions about college and they also became role models for our students. The high school students looked forward to Thursdays every week.” [more]
Student Spotlight
Chris Ferri, Undergraduate Student
Chris Ferri came to UC Merced from Sacramento three years ago to study physics. Ferri says motivation to apply to UC Merced was to increase his chances to do research as an undergraduate on a smaller campus. Ferri was able to get his wish at the beginning of his freshman year when a position became available in Professor Sayantani Ghosh’s lab. A two-time recipient of the Golden Bobcat Scholarship, Ferri has also been using this paid position to help defray the costs of his education.
In the Ghosh lab, Ferri has been focusing his research on condensed and soft matter physics, which includes manipulating matter using light and exploring how energy transfer works in quantum dot systems. [more]
Did you know...
that atoms are minute engines of chaos?
Assistant Professor Kevin Mitchell
Whether zipping around in a gas, trapped by intense laser beams, or placed next to a strong magnet, the motion of atoms (and the electrons inside them) shows strong chaotic behavior. Shifting the position of an atom ever so slightly can have an enormous impact on its future location, even just a second later. This makes the atomic motion very hard to predict, even for the world's most powerful supercomputers.
Understanding chaos in such “simple” examples as atoms helps us understand the roll of chaos in all sorts of other systems, like the mixing of fluids and the behavior of the weather. [more]
The Dean’s 21st Century Club for Natural Sciences
Meeting the needs of research, innovation, and student success in the 21st Century is a challenge. When Professor Sayantani Ghosh and an interdisciplinary group of physics, chemistry, and engineering faculty applied for an advanced microscope from the National Science Foundation and needed match funding for the grant, Dean Pallavicini knew it couldn’t wait. The team of 9 faculty, with the addition of the match funding from the School of Natural Sciences, won the competitive instrumentation grant last year.
Timely response to the needs of faculty and students is imperative. For Dean Pallavicini, philanthropic gifts are the keys that unlock so many doors at UC Merced. They provide resources for equipment to help make the next scientific discovery, help compete with top universities, like Harvard when recruiting faculty and assisting students in their research. [more]
Student Spotlight
Hui Zhu, Graduate Student
International students help the campus enrich research, cultural and education programs and broaden our perspectives on the global community. UC Merced hosts a number of international students working on their postgraduate degrees. Hui Zhu from Beijing is one of these students. Zhu found UC Merced through an online search of the University of California system. He already knew he liked the California sunshine and said, “I thought UC Merced was interesting because it just got started."
After further research and corresponding with Professor Matt Meyer, Zhu decided that UC Merced was the right place for him. His first visit to the U.S. was when he arrived on campus in summer 2006. It meant big changes in language, culture, and climate, but Zhu has taken it all in stride. [more]
Did you know...
that you have a clock in your brain?
Professor Andy LiWang
Importantly, it keeps you asleep at night, awake during the day, and helps you wake up in the morning. If your ‘clock’ is not working, due to a disease, an accident, or old age, you will have difficulties sleeping well at night and staying awake during the day. Your internal clock is made of proteins that keep track of time. Scientists have known about these proteins for a long time, however, how these proteins work together is poorly understood. Professor Andy LiWang studies clock proteins in bacteria to learn the mechanisms of how they work. His lab uses nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), a technique that provides information about the structure of organic compounds, to look at how the atoms of clock proteins interact with each other. Their interactions are like the gears of an old fashioned watch. It is anticipated that once we understand how the gears of clock proteins fit together, this will be a step forward in diagnosing sleeping problems in the future.
Visionary Supplements State Funding in Stem Cell Research
Jane Vilas |
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In 2006 California voters ensured that state funding would be used to advance the field of stem cell biology for regenerative medicine. Funded by voter-approved bonds, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) supports stem cell researchers in California. The first US based clinical trials with stem cells are authorized to begin this summer at a University of California lab.
Four of UC Merced’s stem cell faculty experts have received research awards from CIRM. These grants allow researchers at UC Merced to develop approches to study and manipulate stem cells, and are anticipated to contribute to understanding stem cell therapy for asthma, heart disease, cystic fibrosis, AIDS, breast cancer and leukemia. [more]
Student Spotlight
Gyami Shrestha, Graduate Student
Gyami Shrestha, a graduate student working on her PhD in environmental systems, likes to give back. “I have been active in the Graduate Student Association of UC Merced (GSA) because I want to help the campus meet student needs.” Shrestha said.
Working with the GSA, Shrestha helped establish the first conference travel award that reimburses graduate students for up to $400 per meeting attended. “Grad students come to us with their issues and questions," she said. “We communicate those to administrators directly or at committee meetings. We offer our insight and candid observations to them.” [more]
Did you know...
that fairy shrimp can fly?
Assistant Professor Andres Aguilar
The rare and sometimes endangered fairy shrimp that inhabit the Central Valley’s many vernal pools actually have the ability to move around. Though adult fairy shrimp are exclusively found in aquatic environments, the resting eggs that they produce are adapted to withstand the long dry seasons we experience in the Central Valley. While fairy shrimp can’t move themselves on their own, other organisms (like waterfowl) that feed on fairy shrimp can actually move their eggs long distances.
Professor Aguilar’s lab is using molecular genetic techniques to better understand how often fairy shrimp ‘move around’ and at what geographic scales movement of genes among fairy shrimp populations occurs. [more]
Family Leaves its Legacy in Student Success
Jefferson Jennings Doolittle received a Bronze Medal for his service in the U.S. Army Air Force during the invasions of North Africa and Normandy |
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UC Merced’s location in the San Joaquin Valley near the Sierra Nevada’s offers an excellent and diverse real-world laboratory to study the natural environment.
Jean Doolittle Henry, recognizing the many academic opportunities that the region provides to carry out outstanding research in environmental sciences, established an endowed scholarship in honor of her father, the late Jefferson Jennings Doolittle founder of the La Grange Gold Dredging Company. The Jefferson Jennings Doolittle Endowed Scholarship Fund was created in 2008 with a pledge of $70,000 to support San Joaquin Valley students interested in earth systems and environmental sciences. [more]
School of Natural Sciences
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Student Spotlight
Basha Stankovich, Graduate Student
UC Merced’s first PhD student in stem cell biology graduated on May 16 with the inaugural class. “It’s been fun to watch the University grow,” said Basha Stankovich, who was part of the first group of students and faculty at the University.
With a B.S. in biochemistry from Westmont College in Santa Barbara and a masters in biochemistry from California State University, Hayward, Stankovich spent a few years working at biotech firms in the Bay Area and Davis before deciding to pursue her doctorate at UC Merced. “I felt that I had to go back to school if I wanted my career to move forward,” she said. [more]
Did you know...
that many of the genes associated with human diseases were first discovered in the fruit fly?
Professor Mike Cleary
The same fly buzzing around rotten bananas in your kitchen has been an important research tool for over fifty years. It is very easy to genetically manipulate the fly and discover genes that are necessary for processes , such as nervous system development. When researchers discover a new gene they assign a name that reflects the function of that gene. For example, mutation of the gene "big brain" causes too many neurons to form and mutation of the gene "amnesiac" makes flies that cannot remember anything. More often than not, genes that control critical processes in flies are often related to similar genes in humans. [more]
Gift for Health Sciences Makes Positive Impact
Business leaders and philanthropists Ronald Lee Walker and Jacqueline Carter Walker recognized the tremendous need for medical research and delivery to the underserved San Joaquin Valley. Knowing that the newest UC Campus will have a significant impact on the region, the Walkers wanted to make a gift that will play a role in expanding research and improving delivery of medical outreach, professionals, and care to the Valley. The Walkers have graciously decided to donate their Merced property for the benefit of the UC Merced Foundation to establish a fund that will provide resources for medical research.
Research is a defining feature of a UC quality medical school and the Ronald and Jacqueline Walker Health Science Research Fund will be instrumental as the campus works to develop strong programs in health sciences, with stellar faculty and state-of-the-art research facilities.
The Walker’s generous gift demonstrates a creative alternative during the economical downturn.
