Imagine driving down a road in an electric vehicle with no charging stations in sight. Do you want only an estimate of how many more miles your car can go before the battery dies?
As electric vehicles proliferate throughout much of the world, it's never been more important to know precisely how much charge is left in their batteries.
UC Merced is no stranger to solar panels. The campus, built to be sustainable from the beginning, is home to thousands of them, and they provide a good chunk of the electricity that powers the university.
But one very special panel was recently installed on the top of the Science and Engineering 2 Building.
The panel was crafted by Tandem PV, a Fremont company that uses perovskite-silicon tandem technology to make high-efficiency solar panels that integrate into existing manufacturing supply chains.
This is part of a series of profiles of new UC Merced Bobcats enrolled for the fall 2026 semester.
Anthony Savala Alvarez comes to UC Merced this fall with several accomplishments under his belt: He graduated high school with a grade point average of 4.1, earned the California Seal of Biliteracy, and took part in several sports, including varsity soccer, cross country and track and field.
An artificial intelligence-powered system to ensure the safety of the elderly while still providing privacy. Wearable muscle monitoring to speed recovery from injury. A chemical-free method of putting out fires. A more effective way to detect methane leaks.
These were just some of the projects highlighted during the innovators showcase at Merced 2 Market, an event on campus where products resulting from research are highlighted for the community and potential investors.
Services are set Sunday afternoon for Professor YangQuan Chen, whose contibutions to UC Merced's School of Engineering and to the university as a whole will endure through programs he helped build, the research he advanced, and the many students and colleagues he inspired.
Chen, a professor of mechanical engineering, died April 27. He was 59.
It's time to think bigger about mitigating climate change.
Measures such as recycling, turning off lights and reducing energy use are great, but making a real impact is going to take systemic change, said Leah Stokes, a political scientist, energy expert and climate communicator from UC Santa Barbara.
What started as a premise in a UC Merced lab culminated with a commemoration of Project Nexus, California's first solar canal project.
On Wednesday, state leaders gathered at the Project Nexus sites in Hickman and Keyes to celebrate the completion of the construction pilot, which demonstrates how covering operational irrigation canals with solar panels can help save water, generate clean energy, and conserve natural lands.
Mechanical force can do more than just push things around - it can also trigger chemical reactions. A new review by researchers at UC Merced and Penn State brings together decades of work to explain how these reactions occur and why they matter for technologies ranging from pharmaceuticals to the materials in everyday products.
A semi-automated washing system for bins at a tomato-processing facility and a mobile app for hikers earned big wins at the Fall 2025 I2G, or Innovate to Grow, event at UC Merced.
I2G is a unique "experiential learning" program that engages external partner organizations with teams of students who design systems to solve real-world engineering and computer science problems.
The team "Let's Get Saucy" won the F3 Innovate Engineering Award for its project with Kagome, a Los Banos-based tomato processing and food manufacturing company.
Kevin Arrieta got into robotics to avoid getting into trouble.
Arrieta said he joined the robotics club at Dominguez High School in Compton high school after Gloria Esiobu, the teacher who ran it, gave him an ultimatum.
"I had gotten in with the wrong crowd," he said. "I had a physics teacher who told me, 'Join my robotics club or I'm calling your mom.'"
In the club, Arrieta found he loved working with sensors and doing programming, and he was good at it.
"You have an engineering mind and you don't even know it," his teacher said.
