uc merced magazine fall 2013
DESCRIPTION
Explore the newest University of California campus and see what our faculty researchers are working on -- from archaeology in Tibet to climate change, cognitive science and drones in California!TRANSCRIPT
THEMATTER OF
INSIDE:
What you need to know aboutCLIMATE CHANGE
Having Coffee withPROFESSOR MICHAEL SPIVEY
SIERRA VIEWS – a look at UC Mercedresearch in the mountains
DRONES
THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED
Fall 2013
14
FEATURES
Leadership Perspectives
with Chancellor Dorothy Leland
Donor Spotlight
The Wallace family is leaving a
lasting legacy on our campus
The Matter of Drones
Go inside the MESA Lab
as researchers take drone
technology into the
private sector
California and Climate Change
How our state and our campus
are searching for answers
Sierra Views
UC Merced research in
the Sierra Nevada
Our World
A peek into UC Merced research
that has gone global
ON THE COVER:
Student Brendan Smith is one
of the MESA Lab researchers
working on unmanned aerial
vehicles, or drones.
DEPARTMENTS
3 FAST FACTS
Admissions data
8 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
A recap of our latest news stories
and videos
10 SHELF LIFE
A listing of recent faculty
publications
12 HAVING COFFEE
with cognitive science Professor
Michael Spivey
17 FACULTY FINDINGS
See the top five research grants
from each of our schools
26 ALUMNI CORNER
Catch up with what UC Merced
alumni have been up to as
entrepreneurs
27 SPORTS UPDATE
Several new teams are hitting
the courts and fields this year
28 WHAT’S NEW
A glimpse of how our campus
is growing
CONTENTS
6
18
4
22
24
THE MAGAZINE OF THEUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED
Fall 2013
1 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
UCMERCED MAGAZINEFall 2013
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Lorena AndersonSenior Public Information RepresentativeUniversity Communications
PHOTOGRAPHY
Elena ZhukovaVeronica Adrover
ILLUSTRATION
Gail Benedict
PUBLISHED BY
University Communications
UCMERCED LEADERSHIP
Dorothy LelandUC Merced Chancellor
Thomas PetersonProvost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Kyle HoffmanVice ChancellorDevelopment and Alumni Relations
Patti WaidAssistant Vice ChancellorUniversity Communications
Cori LuceroExecutive DirectorGovernmental and Community Relations
n thinking about how best to serve you, we
decided each issue’s two main stories – this
time on climate change and unmanned
aerial vehicles, or drones – will be written
by professional journalists, who offer a fresh
perspective and an objective eye that will give
you a well-rounded look at big topics.
But our staff has been working hard, too,
bringing you up-close looks at campus research
with international reach; a donor spotlight
highlighting the Wallace family, longtime campus
benefactors; a peek at what’s going on at our
research stations in the Sierra Nevada; a coffee
chat with Professor Michael Spivey, who recently
returned from an important cognitive-science
convention in Germany; gorgeous pictures of
our growing campus; and much, much more.
UC Merced Magazine will be distributed each
fall and spring, and we hope you look forward
to getting your next copy. In the meantime, please
explore these highlights of what UC Merced has to
offer, and anytime you want to know more, visit
us on the web at ucmerced.edu or in person!
We welcome your feedback on this issue.
Please email the editor at ucmercedmagazine@
ucmerced.edu.
UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Letter from University CommunicationsWelcome to the first issue of UC Merced Magazine!
We’re so proud of developments and achievements at our campus.
We thought this would be a good way to share our news with you.
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 2
I
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 3
After evaluating a record application pool of
more than 18,000, UC Merced enrolled 1,757
new undergraduate students for the 2013 fall
semester — reflecting immense demand for
a UC Merced education.
Students continue to come from a wide variety
of backgrounds and regions. About 37 percent
of all undergraduate students are from the
Central Valley, 34 percent from the greater Los
Angeles area and 27 percent from the Central
Coast and San Francisco Bay Area.
UC Merced leads the UC system in the percent-
age of students from underrepresented ethnic
groups, low-income families and families whose
parents did not attend college.
5,837UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
358GRADUATE STUDENTS
TOTAL STUDENTS BY CLASS LEVELTotal enrollment is 6,195 students
this fall, up from 5,760 a year ago. 6,195
FASTFA
CTS
Engineering 1,169
Natural Sciences 1,851
Social Sciences, Humanities 2,061and Arts
Undeclared 756
TOTAL 5,837
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS BY SCHOOL
ETHNICITY NUMBER
African-American 6.3%
Asian/Pacific Islander 26%
Hispanic 43.9%
Native American < 1%
White 15.2%
Nonresident Alien 2.9%
Two or More Races 4.1%
Unknown/Declined to State 1.3%
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS BY ETHNICITY
ETHNICITY NUMBER
African-American 2%
Asian/Pacific Islander 10.1%
Hispanic 13.1%
Native American < 1%
White 38.5%
Nonresident Alien 28.8%
Two or More Races 3.6%
Unknown/Declined to State 3.1%
GRADUATE STUDENTS BY ETHNICITY
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS BY GENDER
GENDER NUMBER
Female 3,004
Male 2,797
Unknown 36
TOTAL 5,837
GRADUATE STUDENTS BY GENDER
GENDER NUMBER
Female 149
Male 208
Unknown 1
TOTAL 358
UC Merced is well into its ninth year as the newest campus in the UC system and the first ever in the San Joaquin Valley. Many people
said it couldn’t be done in a Valley setting – and certainly the state’s prolonged economic struggles haven’t helped. Yet here you are, a
thriving research university with more than 6,000 students and a beautiful campus widely recognized as one of the greenest in the
country. How have you managed to get to this point in the face of such difficult circumstances?
There are dozens of factors and thousands of people whose efforts have turned the impossible into the inevitable, but it really
comes down to three things — the worthiness of the mission, the commitment of strong-willed people and the
support of the community.
Bringing UC-caliber research and educational opportunity to the Valley simply makes sense. California cannot return to pros-
perity if much of its population is left behind. A rising San Joaquin Valley is vital to the state’s long-term health. Strong research
programs addressing the Valley’s most pressing issues, coupled with a better-educated workforce and education are the necessary
catalysts. Our mission here is exactly right for the times, and that has created a strong foundation for success.
Dedicated, deeply committed people have also been essential. Faculty and staff members who work here understand the
importance of our mission and feel compelled to be part of it. We simply could not have made it without their steely resolve
and problem-solving skills.
Finally, the support we’ve derived from the community that welcomed us here means everything. This community fought for
us long before the campus had a name or a location. The relationship offers extraordinary two-way benefits and will only get
stronger as the campus grows.
Student applications to UC Merced last fall grew at nearly double the rate for the UC system as a whole, with strong demand from all
over the state. What does UC Merced offer that makes it an increasingly attractive choice to today’s aspiring young scholars?
UC Merced represents excellence in the great UC tradition, but in a different kind of environment that students help define and
lead. Our small size provides opportunities for contribution and personal growth that simply don’t exist on larger campuses.
The diversity and widely varied backgrounds of our student body are also strong attractions. Students from all over California
see in us a reflection of themselves and the future of our state. They feel welcome here, and they quickly come to realize they can
pursue their dreams as freely and openly as they wish.
Each issue, we will feature a Q&A with campus leaders
to give our readers extra insight into the operations
of UC Merced, leadership’s plans and the future of the
campus. This time, Chancellor Dorothy Leland talks
about what it has taken for the campus to reach this
point, the 2020 Project, enrollment and more.
4 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
ChanCellor
perspectivesleadership
Dorothy lelanD
Q
Q
A
A
with
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 5
The downside of strong demand is the inability to add physical capacity fast enough to keep
pace. The “2020 Project” was your creative response to this dilemma. Where does this initia-
tive stand today?
Modifications to our Long-Range Development Plan were approved by the UC Board
of Regents in May. The changes allow us to add capacity on campus more rapidly and
cost-effectively than initially planned. We’ll build new facilities in clusters, rather than
individually, and on a smaller footprint, which will eliminate many of the infrastructure
costs inherent in our earlier plans. In addition, we’ll move many of our administrative
staff to off-campus office buildings, which will free up additional space on campus for
academic priorities. Together, these steps should allow us to keep growth on track.
UC Merced’s faculty has attracted more than $131 million in research grants and awards
since the campus began operations. Why is the university’s research mission so important to
the campus and the people of California?
Research prowess is a hallmark of the University of California. Entire industries have
been created or transformed as a result of technical innovations, scientific discoveries
and other breakthroughs emerging from UC laboratories. Countless lives have been
saved or dramatically improved as a result of research conducted in UC medical facil-
ities. The acquisition and application of new knowledge may be the UC system’s most
enduring contribution to California and society as a whole. UC Merced was created in
that mold. We’re extremely proud of the work we’re doing on climate change, air and
water quality, health disparities and so much more that’s critically important to the
Valley, the state and the world.
Two-and-a-half years into your tenure as chancellor, what stands out as the toughest
challenge the campus faces in its quest to become the world’s next great research university?
Building a major research university in a resource-constrained environment is our most
difficult challenge. Despite recent improvements in the state’s economic picture, we sim-
ply can’t count on state funds to provide the facilities we need for student growth and
high-end research. We all have high hopes for UC Merced and know what it can become,
but we’ve had to find creative new avenues to take us there.
What can employees, alumni, friends and supporters do to help UC Merced achieve its goals?
Continue to believe in our mission and provide whatever support they can, in whatever
form they can. We’ve come a long way in just a few years, thanks to the dedication and
commitment of people inside and outside the university. We will need their continued
help to navigate the road ahead. That’s all we can ask.
Q
Q
Q
Q
A
A
A
A
“
”
We’re extremely proud
of the work we’re doing
on climate change, air
and water quality, health
disparities and so much
more that’s critically
important to the Valley,
the state and the world.
CHANCELLOR DOROTHY LELAND
fter graduating with bachelor’s
degrees in business admin-
istration and transportation
from Golden Gate University in San
Francisco, Joel Wallace returned to
Merced and took over the family business
— Wallace Transport Corp. — expanding
it to a statewide operation. He later cre-
ated several other commercial trucking
and property management companies
and became known as a leader in the
transportation industry. He was chosen
to serve on the boards of several trucking
and commercial agriculture associations.
As president and CEO of Red Rock
Properties, a land and commercial build-
ings investment firm, Elizabeth Wallace
used her strong entrepreneurial skills to
spearhead the development of Red Rock
Winery. No task was too small, and she
did everything from marketing to payroll
before the opportunity to sell the winery
to a major conglomerate presented itself.
While the Wallaces have donated to
historic preservation and the arts locally,
their passion is education.
“Education is the most important
thing you can give to your children,”
said Elizabeth Wallace, who was born in
China and schooled primarily in Brazil.
“Education can change the world.”
While providing a solid education for
their two children, Lillian and Nicholas,
was their top priority, they were drawn
to helping other students achieve their
higher-education goals, too.
Long before UC Merced became a real-
ity, the couple had a hand in its future.
As a member of the University Com-
mittee, Elizabeth Wallace passionately
advocated for the 10th UC campus to be
built in Merced. She believed in the cam-
pus and its mission long before the plans
were drawn up, the first pad of concrete
was poured and students arrived.
Similar to their diverse business
ventures, the couple saw the potential in
the pioneering campus and helped build
something great in the town Joel Wallace
has called home all his life.
The Wallaces’ commitment to future
educational excellence is reflected in their
multifaceted philanthropy to the young
campus.
In 2005, they made their first major
donation, and the campus’s dining facil-
ity was named to honor their support.
The Yablokoff-Wallace Dining Center has
become a campus icon, building a sense
of community where students, facul-
ty, staff and community members can
connect while sharing meals together. As
one of the social hubs of the most diverse
UC campus, the dining center provides a
meeting ground for people from across
the globe.
The couple’s generosity in 2008 es-
tablished the Joel and Elizabeth Wallace
Terrace and Elizabeth’s Garden. The
landscaped terrace features a culinary
herb garden with the dual purpose of
educating students while providing
dining center chefs with organic ingredi-
ents such as rosemary, basil and thyme.
Naming of the terrace and garden further
reflects the couple’s deep commitment
to education and providing a positive
student experience.
Earlier this year, the Wallaces leveraged
the benefits of a planned gift of real estate
to UC Merced. The proceeds of the sale
of property will help students while also
affecting the greater community.
A portion of the funds will be used
to build on the Class of 2009’s gift to
Donor Spotlight
Passion for Education Inspires Giving
JOEL AND ELIZABETH WALLACE are no strangers to building something from the ground up.
A
6 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
BY BRENDA ORTIZ | University Communications
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 7
construct an amphitheater on campus.
The graduating seniors sold bricks that
are now installed in the sidewalk by the
amphitheater. The Wallaces initially
supported the class’s gift by purchasing
granite slabs in honor of their children.
“It is a great pleasure to be part of this
vibrant campus’s continued growth, and
we are so happy to bring the dream of the
Class of 2009 to reality with the creation
of a campus amphitheater,” Elizabeth
Wallace said.
The revamped area will provide a
much-needed venue for outdoor events,
including concerts or movies for up to
2,000 people. A sign reading “The Wal-
lace-Dutra Amphitheater Celebrating the
Class of 2009’s Vision,” named after their
grandchildren, will be installed at the site.
In addition to fostering community
on campus, the Wallaces’ support will
help expand partnerships between UC
Merced researchers and Mercy Medical
Center Merced. The Yablokoff-Wallace
Health Science Research Endowment
will support collaborative research that
targets health issues plaguing the San
Joaquin Valley.
Through this endowment, UC Merced
will initiate one to two research projects
with hospital staff every year, aimed
at improving health in Merced and its
surrounding communities.
The Wallaces remain visionaries who
are committed to building a sense of
community on the UC Merced campus
and beyond.
“As one of Merced’s leading philan-
thropic couples, it is fitting tribute that
the Wallace and Yablokoff family names
will be etched into the campus for gen-
erations to come,” said Vice Chancellor
for Development and Alumni Relations
Kyle Hoffman. “Donors like the Wallaces
ensure that UC Merced will carry out its
mission and make this campus and our
local community a better place.”
Their family legacy is rooted in the
campus’s landscape forever.
“I travelled across oceans and never
really had a permanent home until Mer-
ced,” Elizabeth Wallace said. “This is also
home. We live close to the campus and
can see it and hear it as it develops into
something extraordinary.”
THE AMPHITHEATER | Class of 2009 Campus Gift
“
“
”
”
AS ONE OF MERCED’S LEADING
PHILANTHROPIC COUPLES, IT IS
FITTING TRIBUTE THAT THE
WALLACE AND YABLOKOFF FAMILY
NAMES WILL BE ETCHED INTO THE
CAMPUS FOR GENERATIONS TO
COME. DONORS LIKE THE
WALLACES ENSURE THAT
UC MERCED WILL CARRY OUT
ITS MISSION AND MAKE THIS
CAMPUS AND OUR LOCAL
COMMUNITY A BETTER PLACE.
KYLE HOFFMAN
Vice Chancellordevelopment and alumni relations
IT IS A GREAT PLEASURE TO BE PART OF
THIS VIBRANT CAMPUS’S CONTINUED
GROWTH, AND WE ARE SO HAPPY TO
BRING THE DREAM OF THE CLASS OF 2009
TO REALITY WITH THE CREATION OF A
CAMPUS AMPHITHEATER.
ELIZABETH WALLACE
in CaSe yoU MiSSeD it
New Blum Center at UC Merced to Focus on Valley Prosperity
Thanks to a $400,000, two-year
seed grant from the Universi-
ty of California Office of the
President, UC Merced is forging
the newest branch of the Blum
Center for Developing Econ-
omies, focusing on “Global
California: The World at Home.”
The initiative is affiliated with
the Blum Center at UC Berkeley,
which was founded by a gift
from investment banker and UC Regent Richard C. Blum.
Many of the developing world’s challenges can be seen
right here in the San Joaquin Valley, and researchers will
work on three main goals:
y Community-inspired innovation – examining ways to engage communities and the region in their own long-term success;
y Sustainable solutions – taking environmentally, economically and socially sound approaches to growing prosperity;
y The analytics of prosperity – using scientific measures to ensure that our activities actually improve quality of life.
UC Merced Professor’s Research Helping People Get Well
Professor Miriam Barlow is
using her many years of research
on antibiotic resistance to help
people get well. She started
Project Protect, a Facebook and
Twitter campaign that allows
her to funnel information about
the latest news on antibiotic re-
search to the public, and allows
the public to directly ask her
questions.
Bacteria are evolving antibiotic resistance so quickly – and
pharmaceutical companies are not inventing new antibiotics –
soon, none will be effective.
Barlow helped one woman avoid foot amputation, and has
helped many others recover from infections faster. Project
Protect participants also better understand about taking an-
tibiotics, which are over-prescribed or given for illnesses they
cannot cure; and antibiotics can actually make people sick by
killing all the bacteria in our intestines – including the ones
that fight illness – and allowing other bacteria to invade.
8 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
UC President Tours UC Merced, First Campus Visit
University of California President Janet Napolitano toured
UC Merced this fall, her first visit to a campus upon being
named the system’s leader.
“I came here first because this campus is really important
— not only for the UC system as a whole but for the Valley
and for the state,” Napolitano said. “We want to do every-
thing we can to make sure it not only succeeds but thrives
moving forward.”
Napolitano met with various people including faculty
and students, toured labs, classrooms, the library and other
campus buildings and facilities.
VIDEO ALERT: Burning Biomass for Energy. An Impact video, created for KVIE public television, shows researchers at
UC Merced working to increase efficiency and reduce emissions from the burning of biomass for energy.
Check it out at bit.ly/1cnGk14.
PRESIDENT NAPOLITANO
HUDDLES WITH THE UC MERCED
WOMEN’S BASkETBALL TEAM.
in CaSe yoU MiSSeD it
Six more students with close ties to the San Joaquin Valley
are on track to becoming physicians as part of the UC Merced
San Joaquin Valley Program in Medical Education (PRIME).
The group, which began medical studies recently in
Sacramento and represents the third cohort in the program,
includes:
y Andrew Davoodian, who grew up in Turlock and is a UC Berkeley graduate;
y Muninder Dhaliwal, who was born and raised in Turlock and is a CSU Stanislaus graduate;
y Fernando Rios, who was raised in Winton, and is a Columbia University graduate;
y Miguel Ruvalcaba, who was raised in Fresno and is a UC Merced graduate;
y Joseph Trujillo, of Merced, who attended Merced College and graduated from UC Davis; and
y Luisa Fernanda Valenzuela-Riveros, who went to high school in Merced, attended Merced College and graduated from UC Davis.
UC Merced San Joaquin Valley-PRIME combines the
strengths and resources of UC Davis School of Medicine,
UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program and UC Merced to
train physicians interested in practicing in the San Joaquin
Valley. The program represents a cost-effective and expedient
way to ramp up medical expertise in the San Joaquin Valley
by integrating it with health sciences research to address the
unique health issues in the region.
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 9
UC Merced San Joaquin Valley PRIME Announces Third Class of Students
UC Solar Extends UC Merced’s Reach Across the Pacific
Professor Roland Winston’s work has
helped take UC Merced and UC Solar
global – this time to Singapore, as lead-
ers there use a light-permeable building
material Winston designed to bring
more natural light into buildings, cutting
energy costs and keeping office workers
more content.
Collectors embedded in the concrete
at the ends of open channels in the walls
actually make concrete light-permeable,
taking advantage of one natural resource
the equatorial country has an abundance
of – sun. The collector filters out ultravi-
olet light, which is bad for your skin, and
infrared light, which is hot.
Singapore is a green, progressive
place, and is always looking to use solar
energy in new and inventive ways.
Nanyang Technical University also
plans to use one of Winston’s designs to
implement a solar-powered thermal cool-
ing system similar to the one used at the
Castle Research Facility where UC Solar is
headquartered.
VIDEO ALERT: Understanding
How Children Learn Language. An
Impact video shows UC Merced
research delving into how children
learn and understand words. View
the video at bit.ly/1bCE4nf.
Building Earns Campus 11th LEED Certification
When UC Merced says it’s green
from the ground up, it’s no joke. The
U.S. Green Building Council awarded
platinum LEED certification to the Social
Sciences and Management Building,
an honor that also preserves UC
Merced’s streak — every building project
on campus has already or is expected
to attain LEED (Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design) certification,
meaning it meets or exceeds standards
for sustainability.
The campus LEED scorecard so far is
one silver certification, eight gold certi-
fications and two platinum certifications,
with five platinum certifications pending.
The campus completed the Student Ac-
tivities and Athletics Center last fall, and
has several new buildings opening over
the next two to three years: Half Dome
student housing, which opened with the
start of the Fall semester; the Student
Services Building; Science and Engineer-
ing Building 2; and the Classroom 2 and
Academic Office Building – all of which
are expected to achieve LEED platinum
status.
VIDEO ALERT: Empowering
Students to Succeed. An Impact
video explains how Merced County
Project 10% places UC Merced stu-
dents in eighth-grade classrooms to
relate their own struggles in school
and the importance of a high school
diploma. Find the video at
bit.ly/199BnWs.
“Más: español intermedio,”by Virginia Adan-Lifante, lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. Her research focuses on second-language acqui-sition; Hispanic women’s literature; Hispanic culture; and Puerto Rican literature and culture.
This second edition of intermediate Spanish was published in January 2013 by MacGraw-Hill as part of its acclaimed M Series. MÁS is a content-based intermediate Spanish program created in response to student feedback on the look and function of their learning materials. With integrat-ed multi-media content from around the Spanish-speaking world, MÁS exposes students to the importance of culture with many opportunities for open-ended conversation, while offering a review and expansion of language structures ap-propriate for the second year. One of the highlights of MÁS is the stunning collection of short films integrated into the program from Mexico, Spain, Uruguay and Costa Rica, avail-able for student viewing online and on DVD for instructors.
“Reimagining National Belonging: Post-Civil War El Salvador in a Global Context,” by Professor Robin DeLugan with the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. Her research interests include community; collective identity; the nation-state; migration and transna-tionalism; and political anthropology.
Published in December 2012 by the University of Arizona Press, “Reimagining National Belonging” is called the first sustained critical examination of post–civil war El Salvador. It describes how one nation – El Salvador – after an extended and divisive conflict, took up the challenge of generating so-cial unity and shared meanings around ideas of the nation. In tracing state-led efforts to promote the concepts of national culture, history and identity, DeLugan highlights the sites and practices — as well as the complexities — of nation-building in the 21st century.
DeLugan demonstrates how academics, culture experts, popular media, and the United Nations and other interna-tional agencies have all helped shape ideas about national belonging in El Salvador. She also reveals the efforts that have been made to include populations that might have been overlooked, including indigenous people and faraway citizens not living inside the country’s borders.
“The Southwest Climate Assessment Technical Report,” Chapter 8: Natural Ecosystems, by Professor Anthony Westerling with the schools of Engineering and Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. His research interests include applied climatology; climate-ecosys-tem-wildfire interactions; statistical
modeling for seasonal forecasts; paleofire reconstructions; climate-change impact assessments; and resource manage-ment and policy.
Collaborating with several other scholars on the book pub-lished by Island Press in May 2013, Westerling contributed a chapter for the report that was prepared for the 2013 Nation-al Climate Assessment. The book looks at the climate today and in the past, and how it is projected to change over the 21st century – and how those changes will affect water resources, ecosystems, agricultural production, energy supply and delivery, transpor-tation, human health and a host of other areas.
“The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru,” by Professor Ignacio López-Calvo, with the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. His primary area of study covers 20th and 21st-century Latino and Latin American narratives, with an emphasis on the cultural pro-duction by and about Asians in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In “The Affinity of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru,” López-Calvo rises above the political emergence of theFujimori phenomenon and uses politics and literature to provide one of the first comprehensive looks at how the Japanese assimilated and inserted themselves into Peruvian culture. Through contemporary writers’ testimonies, essays, fiction and poetry, López-Calvo constructs an account of the cultural formation of Japanese migrant communities.
With interviews and comments, he portrays the difficulties of being a Japanese Peruvian. Despite a few notable examples, Asian Peruvians have been excluded from a sense of belong-ing or national identity in Peru, which provides López-Calvo with the opportunity to record what the community says about its own cultural production.
10 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
shelf life A sampling of books published by UC Merced faculty members in the past year:
“Before L.A. Race, Space, and Municipal Power in Los Angeles, 1781-1894,” by Professor David Torres-Rouff with the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. Torres-Rouff studies race and ethnicity; urban history; Latina/o history; comparative borderlands; social insti-tutions; community formation; public policy; California; and the U.S. West.
“Before L.A.” was published in September 2013 by the Yale University Press, and is part of the Lamar Series in Western History. Torres-Rouff’s book significantly expands border-lands history by examining the past and original urban infrastructure of one of America’s most prominent cities; its social, spatial and racial divides and boundaries; and how it came to be the Los Angeles we know today. It is a study of how an innovative intercultural community developed along racial lines, and how immigrants from the United States engineered a profound shift in civic ideals and the physi-cal environment, creating a social and spatial rupture that endures to this day.
“Sacred Darkness: A Global Perspective on the Ritual Use of Caves,” by Professor Holley Moyes with the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. Moyes studies the archaeology of religion; cave archae-ology; Mesoamerica; geographic infor-mation systems; and spatial cognition.
The University Press of Colorado pub-lished the book Moyes edited in September 2012. The book details how caves have been used in various ways across hu-man society. Despite the persistence within popular culture of the iconic caveman, deep caves were never used primarily as habitation sites for early humans. Rather, in both ancient and contemporary contexts, caves have served primarily as ritual spaces.
In “Sacred Darkness,” contributors use archaeological evidence as well as ethnographic studies of modern ritual practices to envision the cave as place of spiritual and ideo-logical power and a potent venue for ritual practice. Cover-ing the ritual use of caves in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, Mesoamerica, the U.S. Southwest and Eastern woodlands, this book brings together case studies by prominent scholars from a variety of disciplines whose research spans from the Paleolithic period to the present day.
“Fundamentals of Soft Matter Science,” by Professor Linda Hirst with the School of Natural Sciences. Hirst focuses her research primarily on membrane biophysics, protein network assembly and novel liquid crystal mate-rials and composites.
Published in January 2013 by CRC press, the textbook “Fundamentals of Soft
Matter Science” focuses on the soft materials such as liquid crystals, polymers, biomaterials and colloidal systems that touch every aspect of our lives. The past few decades have seen an explosion of soft-matter research groups worldwide. This book introduces and explores the scientific study of soft matter and molecular self-assembly, covering the major classifications of materials, their structure and characteristics, and everyday applications.
“Condensed-Phase Molecular Spectroscopy and Photophysics,” by Professor Anne Myers Kelley with the School of Natural Sciences. Kelley is a founding faculty member who uses laser-light-scattering tech-niques to study the atomic-level details of how materials interact with light, including the mechanisms of fast photochemical reactions such as those
involved in human vision, photography, xerography and solar energy conversion.
Published in November 2012, Kelley’s textbook is an introduction to one of the fundamental tools in chemical research — spectroscopy and photophysics in condensed-phase and extended systems.
A great deal of modern research in chemistry and materi-als science involves the interaction of radiation with con-densed-phase systems such as molecules in liquids and sol-ids, as well as molecules in more complex media, molecular aggregates, metals, semiconductors and composites. “Con-densed-Phase Molecular Spectroscopy and Photophysics” was developed to fill the need for a textbook that introduces the basics of traditional molecular spectroscopy with a strong emphasis on condensed-phase systems.
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 11
C
Having Coffee with Michael SpiveyBY SCOTT HERNANDEZ-JASONUniversity Communications
12 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
ognitive science Professor Michael
Spivey balanced a plastic coffee cup
lid on top of his sunglasses, which
were perched atop his coffee cup.
We sat at a booth in the Lantern Café, sur-
rounded by the hum of students talking about
their classes, social life and other parts of the
college experience.
“When you design an experiment, you’re
asking the universe a question,” Spivey said,
pointing to his model. “You’re setting up a bal-
ancing act in the world. The way that thing falls,
left or right, is generally not going to be affected
by your personal biases.”
He knocked the lid off to emphasize his point.
For nearly 20 years, Spivey has been asking the
universe questions.
First it was at Cornell University, and since
2008 it has been as one of 11 core Cognitive and
Information Sciences professors at the Univer-
sity of California, Merced. The cognitive science
group is rapidly earning distinction among its
peers and is an expression of the campus’s focus
on interdisciplinary research.
Cognitive science is about 30 years old – a
relatively young research area. It’s the study of
thought and behavior using methods and ap-
proaches from linguistics, psychology, philoso-
phy, neuroscience and computer science.
In other words, Spivey is trying to unlock the
brain’s secrets.
Spivey’s journey to UC Merced is one of
intellectual exploration that took him to the
northeast for his graduate training and first
professorship, and ultimately led him back to his
home state of California, where he helped build
a distinctive program that’s training the next
generation of cognitive scientists.
A CROSS-COUNTRy JOURNEy
Raised in the Sacramento area, Spivey devel-
oped a fascination with the brain in high school
and learned about the interview-based work of
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. He was pursuing
a degree in psychology at UC Santa Cruz when
he took an undergraduate class with Professor
Dominic Massaro. Spivey discovered the power
of scientific research and the interdisciplinary
bedrock of cognitive science.
“I was just blown away as a freshman to
realize that you could ask how the brain works in
a way that’s pretty removed from your subjective
biases,” Spivey said. “That’s when I fell in love
with it and realized I wanted to be a cognitive
scientist.”
After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 1991,
he began looking at graduate schools where he
could pursue master’s and doctoral degrees with
a focus on language and vision. He applied to
Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Oregon
and University of Rochester. He selected the
University of Rochester because he mentally
synchronized with his potential adviser Michael
K. Tanenhaus.
Though he suffered through long, snowy
winters and was thousands of miles away from
family and friends, the research he was conduct-
ing made the five years melt away and the job
search seem to arrive too soon.
When you design an experiment, you’re
asking the universe a question. You’re setting
up a balancing act in the world. The way that thing falls,
left or right, is generally not going to be affected by your
personal biases.MICHAEL SPIVEY
Spivey’s Higher Education
1991Graduated from UC Santa
Cruz with a bachelor’s in
psychology
1995Earned a master’s in
psychology from the
University of Rochester
1996Earned a Ph.D. in brain and
cognitive sciences from
University of Rochester
Became a professor at
Cornell University
2008Arrived at UC Merced
2010Awarded the 2010 William
Procter Prize for Scientific
Achievement
“
”
Spivey was offered jobs at a couple institu-
tions and in 1996 picked Cornell University,
which was just an hour and a half away
from Rochester. He was part of the campus’s
cognitive science program and eventually led
it during his tenure there.
However, at Cornell he found the profes-
sors in the prestigious and well-established
academic silos — linguistics, computer sci-
ence, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience
— were hesitant to be part of a cognitive
science program or listen to visiting speakers.
“That broke my heart, year after year,”
he said.
Across the country, Professors Teenie
Matlock and Jeffrey Yoshimi were busy de-
veloping a cognitive science program at the
nation’s first 21st century research university
and actively recruiting top faculty members
to help establish it.
Spivey had been reluctant to leave Cornell
for a startup university, though he began to
take it seriously as Matlock and Yoshimi
recruited some of his colleagues, including
David C. Noelle and Christopher T. Kello,
and succeeded in keeping their cognitive
science from being folded into another
program.
“There was my chance. I could see it,”
Spivey said, pausing to hold back tears.
“This was an opportunity to genuinely do
cognitive science the way I wanted.”
Spivey accepted an offer in 2006, though
wasn’t able to be on campus until 2008
because of personal and professional
commitments.
Since arriving on campus, Spivey has
continued his research into the interaction
of language and vision, and how their total is
more than the sum of their parts.
One project with graduate student Eric
Chiu looks at how the brain processes a
complex computer
display filled with visual
distractions.
A person who is told
to look for a red, vertical
bar in a picture filled
with red horizontal bars
can more efficiently
find the target if they’re
looking at the picture
while the instructions
are spoken to them, they
found.
“If you shift the
speech stream so you
hear it beforehand,
you’re now looking for a
conjunction of red and
vertical, and the distrac-
tors will slow you down
a lot,” he said. “People’s
brains are faster at
simultaneous integration than you realize.”
The brain, Spivey said, begins to process
the key information — “red,” then “verti-
cal” — as it hears it, so the visual system is
already searching for redness even before the
word “vertical” is heard.
The findings could prove important
for people designing computer software,
instructional videos or other interfaces that
require human interaction.
EARNING DISTINCTION
Cognitive and Information Sciences (CIS)
at UC Merced has maintained its inter-
disciplinary focus by keeping and hiring
professors with a wide range of specialties.
This past year the group hired a philosopher
and a neuroscientist.
This past summer, CIS was the top pro-
gram represented at the discipline’s premiere
conference, Cognitive Science in Berlin.
There were 25 presentations from the
program’s faculty members, researchers,
graduate students and undergraduates — the
most from any one university — according
to conference data. Indiana University had
21 presentations; UC San Diego had 20; and
Stanford University had 19.
Spivey explains the success by drawing
a parallel between how language and the
vision interact. The cognitive science group’s
culture supports collaborations and has
graduate students sharing advisors and de-
veloping connections throughout the group.
The group meets weekly and the atmosphere
is like one of a big family, he said.
“The magic is when you get those compo-
nents to interact,” Spivey said. “The interac-
tions produce more success and smartness
than the individual components.”
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SPIVEy’S WORK, CHECK OUT HIS WEBSITE:
ucmerced.academia.edu/MichaelSpivey
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 13
PROFESSOR MICHAEL SPIVEY’S RESEARCH INTO LANGUAGE AND VISION INCLUDES THE USE OF EYE-TRACkING
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE TO UNDERSTAND HOW THE BRAIN IS PROCESSING INFORMATION.
COGNITIVE AND INFORMATION SCIENCES AT UC
MERCED WAS THE TOP PROGRAM REPRESENTED THIS
SUMMER AT THE DISCIPLINE’S PREMIERE CONFER-
ENCE, COGNITIVE SCIENCE. NEARLY ALL OF THE
PROGRAM’S 21 GRADUATE STUDENTS PRESENTED
RESEARCH THERE.
C Merced engineering Professor YangQuan Chen lets the machines do the talking
when he invites budding engineers to his program in unmanned aerial vehicles,
the flying machines better known to the public as drones.
Well, they don’t really speak.
But Chen knows a sure-fire way to recruit a curious engineer is to let a student get hands-on
experience building, programming and testing small flying vehicles at UC Merced’s mechatron-
ics lab.
The offer hooked Sean Rider, who found Chen’s program as a senior last year and returned
this fall as one of the school’s first homegrown graduate students in unmanned systems.
“I had a great time and I wanted to do more,” he said.
Rider is joining an industry poised for takeoff as researchers and entrepreneurs dream up
new uses for a technology most often associated with the military.
California alone stands to gain some 12,000 jobs in the field through 2017, according to
projections recently published by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
Advocates of the technology say the next generation of unmanned aircraft will help farmers
make the best use of their irrigation resources, enable environmental agencies to count rare
animals in the wilderness and support fire crews looking for advantages against sprawling
wildfires.
Count Chen among them.
He says the possibilities for doing good with small, affordable unmanned vehicles are
“endless, just limited by your imagination.”
‘UAVS ARE GOING TO BE EVERyWHERE.’Chen and his students face a challenge at UC Merced that goes beyond creating cutting-edge
machines, however. They’re working in a field that conjures up images of deadly military strikes
in the Middle East, or a step toward total surveillance in the manner of Big Brother at home.
His students, accordingly, have to be ambassadors for the technology.
“Privacy is a big issue because unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are going to be everywhere,”
Rider said. “Like any technology, you have to be careful how you use it.”
All over the country, local and state governments are setting the parameters for how public
agencies and private businesses can employ unmanned aerial vehicles in coming years.
They’re trying to get ahead of the Federal Aviation Administration, which is preparing to
open the skies to more UAVs by 2015.
Seattle’s police department earlier this year received a license to fly unmanned aircraft and
bought two of the machines, only to ground the operation when residents raised concerns
about officers misusing them. Similarly, several state legislatures, including California’s, are
considering laws that would set clear guidelines for when, where and how unmanned aircraft
could be flown.
“Surveillance is nothing new; what’s new is that we have a new medium to do it,” state Sen.
Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, said at an August hearing on possible UAV restrictions. He wrote one
of the proposals to define how unmanned aircraft can be used. >>
D R O N E ST H E M A T T E R O F
BY ADAM ASHTONPHOTOS BY ELENA ZHUKOVA
ABOUT THE WRITER
Adam Ashton is a professional journal-
ist with more than 12 years’ experience
as a reporter and editor including at the
Merced Sun-Star and the Modesto Bee.
He works for the Tacoma News-Tribune
covering military affairs at Joint Base
Lewis-McChord in Tacoma.
14 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
U
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 15
UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES, OR DRONES, ARE BEING DEVELOPED FOR AGRICULTURAL AND
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH APPLICATIONS. BY EQUIPPING THESE FLYING ROBOTS WITH
CAMERAS AND SENSORS, HIGH-RESOLUTION MULTI-SPECTRAL IMAGERY CAN BE OBTAINED
FOR LAND SURVEYING, INVASIVE SPECIES MONITORING, CROP YIELD ESTIMATIONS AND MANY
OTHER APPLICATIONS THAT CAN DIRECTLY BENEFIT THE CENTRAL VALLEY.
Padilla that day heard from a string of
public safety officials seeking permission to
fly unmanned aircraft, industry representa-
tives looking for new markets and privacy
advocates asking legislators for tight restric-
tions on the technology.
Much of the discussion focused on law en-
forcement agencies, which some fear might
use unmanned aircraft without warrants
to gather information that could be used
against people in court.
“When you have a nearly silent drone,
one might simply not be aware that surveil-
lance is going on,” UC Davis law Professor
Elizabeth Joh told lawmakers.
Chen spoke at the hearing, too. He has led
discussions at the San Joaquin Valley campus
about how to respect privacy in an era that
could see the use of low-cost unmanned
aircraft explode to the point where
anyone could afford them.
The collision between technology
and privacy appears inevitable as
the price of new technology plum-
mets while its quality improves.
“Today you just point and click”
on personal computers, he said.
“The technology (for UAVs) will
mature to a point where you can
just put it in the air and use it.”
The right path, he said, is to be
transparent about what any given
agency or business will and will not do with
drones.
For example, agricultural cooperatives
employing unmanned aircraft to assess their
crops could announce that they won’t be
approaching towns. They might stress to res-
idents of their communities that the aircraft
would not retain any videos from the flights
beyond a certain amount of time.
“It does take a lot of us being proactive
saying ‘we don’t fly over people, we don’t spy
on people. That will never be our goal,’” said
Brandon Stark, a doctoral student in un-
manned systems at UC Merced who helped
Chen launch the lab.
TURNING POINTThe summer ended with a powerful exam-
ple of state agencies turning to unmanned
aircraft for help in an emergency.
With the Sierra Nevada burning through
one of its most severe wildfires ever this fall,
a Predator drone with a 55-foot wingspan
piloted by the California National Guard
kept a watch on the 200,000-acre Rim Fire.
Its reports gave fire commanders up-to-the-
minute information on the fire’s movements
without putting firefighters’ lives in danger.
Multimillion dollar Defense Department
drones likely will remain outside the realm
of what local governments can afford as they
experiment with unmanned aircraft over the
next few years.
Instead, they’ll turn to less expensive
options to help them work through hostage
situations or assess natural disasters.
Chen and his students want a hand in
creating those tools. The professor in a
2011 research paper showed someone could
purchase, program and pilot an unmanned
aerial vehicle for less than $500.
From there, he said, researchers could de-
velop “swarms” of low-cost UAVs that could
fly into fire zones or airborne toxic events to
gather data.
Losing one wouldn’t break a budget, and
with many aircraft collecting information on
the same incident, officials would be empow-
ered with a full picture of events.
Those are the kinds of problems that
motivate Rider, Stark and the rest of the
students in UC Merced’s unmanned systems
program. They’re getting plenty of company
as word gets out about the research taking
place in the drone lab.
“Attracting people is not an issue with
us,” said Stark, who came to UC Merced as
Chen’s only student in the Fall 2012. More
than 40 students joined the lab a year later.
“People flock to us because we offer this real
exciting hands-on opportunity for research
on all sorts of exciting projects.”
Rider’s senior project looked at how
PG&E might use UAVs to spot gas leaks in
remote locations. It made a lasting im-
pression on Mark Hendrickson, Merced
County’s director of commerce, aviation and
economic development.
“The research being carried out at UC
Merced right now is nothing short of ex-
traordinary,” said Hendrickson, who helped
UC Merced’s School of Engineering evaluate
student projects in unmanned systems for its
annual Innovate to Grow contest in May.
Hendrickson liked the “real-world prac-
ticality” he noticed in the gas-leak detecting
UAVs Rider’s team designed.
For his graduate work, Rider’s thinking of
studying ways to develop unmanned vehicles
that could monitor their own systems so re-
searchers on the ground know when they’re
in danger of falling from the sky.
His experience in Chen’s lab
opened his eyes about what he
wanted to do with his career, and
showed him where he wanted to get
his start.
“Because of this program, UC
Merced is the only grad school I
want to go to,” he said.
16 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
The research being carried out
at UC Merced is nothing short
of extraordinary.
MARk HENDRICkSON
Merced County director of commerce, aviation and economic development
”
“
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 17
y Professors Michael Dawson and Michael Beman received a $1,369,982 grant from the National Science Foundation for work on biodiversity issues.
y Professor Rudy Ortiz received an $857,175 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for his research into diabetes.
y Dean Juan Meza and Professor Mike Colvin received a $749,998 grant to connect UC Merced with a network for computational nanotechnology.
y Professor Fabian Fillip received a $746,997 grant from the National Institutes of Health for his research into cancer metabolism.
y Professor Katrina Hoyer received a $732,809 grant from the National Institutes of Health for her work on autoimmune anemia.
y Professor Alberto Cerpa received a $539,539 grant from the National Science Foundation for his work on wireless sensor networks.
y Professor Ariel Escobar received a $113,685 grant from Gilead Sciences, Inc., for his work on atrial arrhythmia.
y Professor Ariel Escobar received a $97,790 grant from Electronic BioScience, Inc., for his work on a nanopatch system for ion recordings.
y Professor YangQuan Chen received a $71,661 grant from Utah State University for his work on unmanned aerial vehicles.
y Professor Gerardo Diaz received a $45,000 grant from UC Irvine for his work on solar energy.
y Professor Ruth Mostern received a $110,381 grant from the National Science Foundation for her work in historical information and analysis.
y Acting Graduate Dean Chris Kello received a $49,520 grant from the National Science Foundation for a workshop and summer school course on dynamics of language and music.
y Robert Ochsner, director of the Merritt Writing program, received a $34,535 grant from the UC California Writing Project for “No Child Left Behind #9.”
y Professor Jan Goggans received a $25,000 grant from the UC Human Research Institute for her work on working-class cultural labor in the Central Valley.
y Robert Ochsner, director of the Merritt Writing program, received a $20,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education for leadership development.
Faculty Findings
SCHOOL OF
NATURAL
SCIENCES
SCHOOL OF
SOCIAL SCIENCES,
HUMANITIES
AND ARTS
SCHOOL OF
ENGINEERING
UC Merced faculty members rely on grants and gifts
for their work. Here’s a list of the top awards from
each school this calendar year.
esearchers at California’s newest public
university are looking deep into the
past to study how climate change will
influence the state’s future, from the fre-
quency of catastrophic wildfires to the availability
of water for its reservoirs.
They’re breaking down barriers that tradition-
ally separated fields of scientific study to create
a full picture of what global warming means for
ecosystems from the sea level farms at the base of
the San Joaquin Valley to the airy alpine meadows
that inspired John Muir on his walks through the
Sierra Nevada a century ago.
“If California can’t solve the world’s problems,
who can?” asked Professor Roger Bales, director
of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute (SNRI)
at UC Merced.
Faculty researchers with SNRI – UC Merced’s
first and still-premier research institute – con-
tinue delving deep into the puzzle that is climate
change. They examine as many pieces as they can,
using data from the last ice age to the present to
model increases in wildfires, the Sierra snowpack
– California’s natural reservoir – the shifting of
species and even how climate-change science and
information is communicated.
These are questions that will affect
everyone.
BY JASON M. RODRIGUEZILLUSTRATION BY GAIL BENEDICT
Bales is confident the answers will come
from California, and that the state has a
bigger responsibility than just to itself.
Engineering Professor Elliott
Campbell agreed.
“When it comes to solving
environmental problems, California
leads and the world follows,”
Campbell said. “Climate change is the
biggest threat we’ve seen yet, so a lot rides on California’s success.”
FIRE AND WATERUsing the latest information and a new system of modeling,
engineering Professor Anthony Westerling looks at monthly data to
chart and predict how wildfire will affect California and other parts
of the Southwest.
His layered Google Earth maps show the probabilities and
odds for California and Nevada on a monthly basis using cli-
mate conditions observed to date. The models also use historical
lightning-strike data gathered from a network of sensors around
the country to offer a variety of scenarios for people who manage
wildfires, state and national parks and air-quality issues.
“It’s a more sophisticated way of modeling,” said Westerling, an
SNRI member. “We can compare where the fire risks are with where
large concentrations of biomass are, so early steps can be taken.”
Those who manage wildlands might choose to conduct controlled
burns before the fire danger increases, or might choose to use wild-
fire for biomass control, for example. >>
CALIFORNIAANDCLIMATECHANGE
Westerling has said there is no doubt the
increase in temperatures coming over the
next century will give rise to more and
more intense wildfires, but there are other
factors to consider, too.
“In the southern coastal areas, fires are more
wind-driven regardless of how they are ignited,
so in the Fall, the Santa Ana winds contribute
greatly to how large and fast a fire grows.”
Not only is his data important to fire and
park officials and the state’s residents – espe-
cially as the urban-wildland interface expands,
it will also be important for those who manage
other resources – like the state’s dwindling
water supply.
Bales is mapping the Sierra snowpack and
observes that as the average temperature rises,
more precipitation falls as rain – rather than
the snow the state has come to depend on in
the Sierra.
That means less in reserves.
Bales said the state is moving toward the
“three ‘I’s of water” needed in addressing cli-
mate change — infrastructure, institution and
information.
“In the context of providing an acceptable
quantity and quality of water at the right time
and the right place, California is going in the
direction of evaluating what infrastructure
improvements are needed to provide water se-
curity,” he said. “What institutional changes can
facilitate better water security and can provide
water when and where it is needed?
“The foundation, though, is that you really
have to have better information, because many
of our water institutions have operated with
very limited data in the past.”
Bales said water institutions have been able
to do that because the climate has been relative-
ly stable and the demands have been commen-
surate of the availability of water.
But that’s changing.
“We can’t necessarily use past history,”
Bales said. “We also have increasing population
that’s trying to make use of the same resources
that a smaller population made use of in
the past.”
He advocates for a unified, statewide water
monitoring system and has been working with
colleagues to develop a low-cost system of
sensors. They have already been placed in
the American River watershed area and are
in use now.
That technology is just some of the research
UC Merced has been working on.
“Our research is really focused on what do
you about it,” Bales said. “How we respond
to build some resiliency into the state’s water
systems or forest management and so forth.”
‘LIKE NOTHING WE’VE SEEN IN THE PAST’
Paleoecology Professor Jessica Blois, studies
how species and communities have responded
to climate change over the past 21,000 years –
since the height of the last ice age.
Blois uses data on how life responded in the
past to try and understand how biodiversity
might respond to future climate changes. But
the climate is changing so rapidly now, it’s “like
nothing we’ve seen in the past,” she said.
“Ideally we would have something in the past
that we could use as an analog for the future,”
she said. “But one of the problems is
that the future is without analog,” she said.
The number of people and the ways they are
modifying the world’s landscape — through
emissions and other activity — is drastically
changing the course, and the rate, of the Earth’s
climate, she said.
“One thing that’s of concern to me is range
shift. In the past, species shifted their geograph-
ic distributions quite a bit,” she said. “They
shifted where they were found on the landscape
as climates changed.”
The worry is that the rate of current and
future climate change is more than species can
handle naturally, and they won’t be able to shift
to new locations on their own.
“We are seeing responses in many species,”
she said, including plants that have never been
found before in certain climates – such as spe-
cies of palms found in Sweden – and in animals
moving to higher elevations as their habitats
grow too warm for them.
Researchers don’t know if species can move
or track those new environs quickly enough.
There also might be situations where there is
no habitat for them to move to, she said.
20 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
ABOUT THE WRITER
Jason M. Rodriguez is a profes-
sional journalist with more than a
dozen years’ reporting and editing
experience. He hails from the
Chicago area, and has worked for
Crain’s Chicago Business, the Chi-
cago Sun-Times and was a video
editor for CNN during the 1996
Democratic National Convention.
He currently covers county gov-
ernment for the Sun News in the
Myrtle Beach, S.C., area.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Gail Miles Benedict is a fine-
arts painter who moved from her
hometown of San Diego to Merced
in 2001 to be a part of the new
University of California campus.
She co-founded the arts program
Arts UC Merced Presents . . .,
coordinates the annual UC Merced
Bobcat Art Show, is a member of
the Merced County Performing
Arts Presenters Coalition and the
Contemporary Humanitarian Artists
Association, comprising artists
who meet regularly to discuss art,
critique each other’s work, inspire
each other and put together group
shows. Her painting style incorpo-
rates surrealism and symbolism and
sometimes collage.
JESSICA BLOIS AT WAGON CAVES IN THE LOS PADRES
NATIONAL FOREST. PHOTO BY SETH FINNEGAN, UC
BERKELEY
SNRI scientist Lara Kueppers, who studies
ecosystem feedbacks to climate change, said
one of the big projects she has worked on
since joining UC Merced is trying to un-
derstand what the consequences of climate
change could be for high-elevation species in
ecosystems.
Her work has been primarily in high-ele-
vation forests and in alpine meadows, where
she has been conducting artificial warming
experiments, raising temperatures by 4 to 5
degrees, similar to projected warming for the
latter part of the 21st century.
“We can’t change the whole ecosystem in
our experiment. We’re focusing on one piece
of the puzzle and that is forest regeneration
and where forests might be able to establish
themselves in the future, using seedlings.
“We think this is a really important piece
of the puzzle because in order for a tree to
move uphill into new places… it needs to
get its seeds there and those seeds need to
be able to become established in that new
place.”
And part of the question comes back to
water.
“What we’re finding is that there’s actually
a big problem. It’s not just temperature,”
Kueppers said. “When climate changes, tem-
perature is not the only thing that changes.
Another big part of climate is precipitation
and, really, water availability. Plants don’t
care about how much it rains or snows,
per se. What they care about is if they have
enough water in the soil when they need
to grow.”
WHERE TO GO FROM HEREKueppers said how the world addresses
climate change rests on the shoulders of
California’s top researchers.
“Just like everywhere on the globe, Cali-
fornia really has a big challenge on its hands.
California is a really incredibly ecologically
diverse place,” she said. “California citizens
place a high value on the natural environ-
ment and the species that live here and it’s a
strong part of California’s identity.”
She said a challenge when it comes to
climate change, research and policy is that
the world is already committed to a certain
amount of climate change that’s pretty
significant on historical and even geological
time scales.
“I think there’s a lot to do to figure out
how we adapt our approach to conserving
natural systems to this reality,” she said.
“Right now we have parks and reserves set
aside to protect certain places. But if the spe-
cies that are currently living in those places
need to be somewhere else, under future
warmer climates, that’s a real challenge.”
California has encouraged more regional
approaches to conservation planning issues
it faces, she said.
“I think there’s a lot of brainpower in
California that wants to help figure this
out, but a lot of times scientists direct their
research efforts toward what they can get
funded. That may or may not always be
aligned with what’s needed for policy or land
management and I think there can be ways
to work on that.”
A lot of that brainpower is at UC Merced.
Researchers aren’t just focused on under-
standing the impacts of climate change in
California, but also on renewable energy,
sustainability and engineering solutions,
using everything from basic chemistry and
physics to learning how to design or regulate
buildings so they don’t use more energy than
necessary.
A way to strengthen UC Merced’s effect on
climate change would be to centrally locate
researchers examining the various issues.
One of UC Merced’s hallmarks is its
interdisciplinary research, and SNRI is an
example of that, attracting faculty affiliates
from all three of the university’s schools –
Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Social
Sciences, Humanities and Arts. That enables
researchers to draw upon each other’s
strengths to accomplish more.
But being a new university has its chal-
lenges, too, Blois said.
“Because UC Merced is still growing, we’re
still a small school and we’re really space
constrained, so we’re not all located on the
main campus,” she said. “I just sit back and
think, we’re really doing some good work
already – imagine what we could do if we
were all housed in the same building.”
RELATED LINKS:y The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, “Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers,” at bit.ly/1dWL8s6
y The U.S. National Climate Assessment: 1.usa.gov/1dWL6AK
y The Sierra Nevada Research Institute: snri.ucmerced.edu/
y Anthony Westerling’s publications on wildfire and climate change: bit.ly/1c5Yvbw
y Wildfires in California and the Western United States: bit.ly/18Qu1Fh
Ideally we would have
something in the past that
we could use as an analog
for the future, but one of the
problems is that the future is
without analog.
PROFESSOR JESSICA BLOIS
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 21
PROFESSOR JESSICA BLOIS DOES HER SHARE OF FIELD
RESEARCH TRYING TO HELP MODEL WHAT HUMANS
CAN ExPECT FROM CLIMATE CHANGE BASED ON
WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE PAST. HERE SHE’S Ex-
PLORING SAMWELL CAVE IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.
PHOTO BY XUE FENG
“
”
22 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
UC Merced researchers take advantage of
the university’s proximity to the beautiful
Sierra Nevada mountain range through
research in Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings
Canyon national parks.
In Yosemite this summer, Professors
Stephen Hart and Michael Beman and
Yosemite Field Station Director Becca
Fenwick hosted eight students from
around the state and the country as they
lived in the park for nine weeks and worked
closely with scientists from UC Merced, the
National Park Service and the U.S. Geologic
Survey through the Research Experience for
Undergraduates program (REU).
Hart said the goal was to give students
who wouldn’t otherwise have it the oppor-
tunity for real scientific research experience.
“It went fabulously,” Hart said. “The
eight REU students, all were exceptional
students and they gave outstanding oral
presentations of their research in Yosemite
Valley at the end of the program to park
personnel and other guests.”
Of course, a highlight for the students
was actually living in the park – not
something everyone gets the chance to do.
In their time off, he said, they took full ad-
vantage of their location to hike, backpack,
swim and camp. They also took part in
interactions with other, non-mentor re-
searchers in the park on Science Mondays,
and occasionally on weekend trips like an
overnighter to Mono Lake led by Chris
Swarth, director of UC Merced’s Vernal
Pools-Grassland Natural Reserve Project.
Sierra VieWS:
What was most surprising to me
was how well they all got along
with each other. They all shopped
for groceries and cooked togeth-
er, and did non-research activities
together. I never expected such
a cohesive group. I am sure that
some lasting friendships were
formed this summer.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN HART
reSearCh in the MoUntainS
y microbial ecology and biogeochemistry in mountain lakes with Beman, a microbial ecologist;
y rising snowlines and water availability for park resources in a warming climate with Professor Roger Bales, a hydrologist, and Jim Roche, a hydrologist with Yosemite;
y hydro-ecological implications of buried volcanic ash in the meadows of Yosemite with Professor Teamrat Ghezzehei, a soil hydrologist;
y effects of physical perturbations in the environment on soil organic matter dynamics with Professor Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, a soil biogeochemist;
y the role of biotic and abiotic controls over conifer seedling establishment in subalpine meadows in Yosemite with scientist Lara Kueppers and USGS ecologist Rob Klinger;
y Yosemite Valley’s riparian habitat with Yosemite biologist Sarah Stock and Yosemite social scientist Todd Newburger;
y the giant sequoia population’s demographic structure and impacts of fire and soil biology and nutrient cycling with Bill Kuhn, a Yosemite landscape ecologist and Hart, an ecologist;
y and anthropogenic and biogenic fluxes of greenhouse gases in Yosemite with Professor Elliot Campbell, an environmental engineer, and Leland Tarnay, a Yosemite physical scientist.
DURING WORK TIME, THE STUDENTS INVESTIGATED:
“
”
The students came from Bakersfield
College, Eckerd College in Florida, Montclair
State University in New Jersey, City College
of San Francisco, Knox College in Illinois,
UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz and of course, UC
Merced.
“What was most surprising to me was
how well they all got along with each other,”
Hart said. “They all shopped for groceries
and cooked together, and did non-research
activities together. I never expected such a
cohesive group. I am sure that some lasting
friendships were formed this summer.”
The program had 130 applicants for eight
slots this year, and Hart said he expects many
more applicants next year. Additionally,
the annual Ecological Society of America
meeting is scheduled to happen in Sacra-
mento during next year’s REU program, so
Hart said he hopes to take the students to the
conference.
“It would be great if we could take them
to a day or two so they can experience what
it is like to attend a major scientific meeting,
and perhaps network with other ecological
scientists and undergraduate researchers
from elsewhere in the U.S.,” he said.
Down in the Southern Sierra Critical Zone
Observatory (CZO), a site run by Professor
Roger Bales, who is also the director of UC
Merced’s Sierra Nevada Research Institute
and Professor Martha Conklin, a mead-
ows expert and biogeochemist, researchers
worked on water issues.
How do you best manage water in a state
like California? This state, which has one of
the largest state populations in the country,
and produces 25 percent of the produce for
the country, has to balance multiple compet-
ing claims for water.
The economy, livelihoods and environ-
ment depend on judicious allocations.
“To complicate the situation, precipitation
is highly variable from year to year,” said Erin
Stacy, the CZO’s education and outreach co-
ordinator. “Even in a wet year, more precipi-
tation may fall as rain than as snow resulting
in a smaller snowpack. In turn, that means
less natural storage and a greater challenge
for water managers.”
Without that natural storage in the snow-
pack, downstream managers and water users
have to rely solely on reservoirs for water
storage.
There are many ways to address the prob-
lem through infrastructure like dams, reser-
voirs and hydropower installations; institu-
tions like the Department of Water Resources
or irrigation districts; and information like
historical records and current measurements
of snow pack and water stores.
The CZO’s goal is to improve information.
As part of a nationwide network, the South-
ern Sierra CZO investigates questions
of climate, land management, and ecohy-
drology in the critical zone from bedrock
to the atmosphere boundary layer – critical
because it’s vital to life on Earth.
The National Science Foundation recently
funded the Southern Sierra CZO for five
more years.
“Planning for five years from now can
be a challenge for anyone, but when that
plan involves six research institutions, seven
investigators, and countless collaborators
and cooperating researchers, that challenge
grows,” Stacy said.
Over the summer, 26 members of the
Southern Sierra CZO team gathered in
Fresno for an annual two-day meeting
featuring science presentations and in-depth
discussions of research questions and
collaboration.
The outcome is a plan to consolidate
current knowledge of forest and water man-
agement in the Sierra Nevada for improved
modeling and prediction, Stacy said.
“Specifically, the work will clarify the
timing and amount of runoff, the distribu-
tion, density and activity of the forests, and
options available to resource managers to
enhance forest and water management,”
she said.
The flux towers are a way Southern Sierra
Critical Zone Observatory researchers mon-
itor weather and gas fluctuations. Running
from 400 m to 2,700 m in elevation, the
transect anchors the CZO research. Each site
also monitors soil moisture, matric potential
and temperature. The data allows researchers
to quantify the water balance on the western
slope of the Sierra Nevada, where precipi-
tation transitions from a rain-snow mix to
predominantly snow.
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 23
Specifically, the work will clarify
the timing and amount of
runoff, the distribution, density
and activity of the forests, and
options available to resource
managers to enhance forest
and water management.
ERIN STACYCZO education and outreach coordinator
“
”
A SAMPLING OFUC MERCED RESEARCH WITH GLOBAL REACH
24 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
MARK ALDENDERFERThe Himalaya is a cold, unforgiving
place. Home to some of the Earth’s highest
peaks, including Mount Everest, the Asian
mountain range separating the plains of
the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan
Plateau is known for extreme weather.
It’s here where archaeologist Mark Alden-
derfer peers into the mystery of highland
dwellers. Why live here when lower lands
are more fertile and abundant with resourc-
es? How did they adapt to environments as
high as 16,000 feet?
“Although high-elevation environments
may appear forbidding, there are a num-
ber of instances in human history when
they were likely seen as very attractive,”
Aldenderfer said. “Periods of warming,
documented by painstaking paleoclimat-
ic research in the Himalayas and other
mountainous regions, would have allowed
familiar low-elevation species to migrate
into the mountains, creating new, fertile
niches for hunting and gathering. People
took advantage of these opportunities and
began to exploit the new environments.”
Aldenderfer, the dean of UC Merced’s
School of Social Sciences, Humanities and
Arts, has turned his research attention to
the Mustang district of Nepal.
In places it seems only birds could reach
lie man-made caves carved deep into the
rock. National Geographic, which has
funded his exploration into Mustang, refers
to these sky caves as one of world’s greatest
archaeological mysteries.
The thousands of caves have served three
major uses: burial chambers 3,000 years
ago; dwellings from 1100-1600 AD; and in
more recent times, as places for meditation,
military observation and storage.
Aldenderfer’s quest is to search the sky
tombs for human remains, from which
members of his team can extract DNA in
hopes of identifying the genetic changes
that allowed people to survive the seeming-
ly uninhabitable region.
“Our species evolved at low elevations —
oxygen- and resource-rich environments.
But to live permanently above 7,500 feet
requires both physiological and cultural
adaptations for survival,” Aldenderfer said.
“I want to recover data that may help to
resolve these questions.”
Aldenderfer returned to the Tibetan
Plateau this fall to reexamine archaeological
sites thought to date between 20,000 and
30,000 years ago. Understanding the age of
these sites is crucial to evaluating arguments
about the peopling of the plateau and the
antiquity of the genetic changes that had to
take place to make it possible to live there.
BY TONyA KUBOUniversity Communications
OUR WORLD:
THE TIBETAN PLATEAU HAS BEEN THE SITE OF SOME
HUGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES.
FORTY-THREE HUNDRED FEET ABOVE THE VALLEY
FLOOR, DEAN MARk ALDENDERFER STANDS AT A
CHUSANG, NEPAL, ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE THOUGHT
TO BE AS OLD AS 20,000 YEARS.
TOM HARMONProfessor Tom Harmon, another of
UC Merced’s prestigious founding faculty
members and an environmental engineer, is
part of a major international study funded
by the National Science Foundation and the
Inter-American Institute for Global Change
Research (www.iai.int).
The project, Sensing the Americas’ Fresh-
water Ecosystem Risk (SAFER) is a collabo-
rative effort among researchers in Argentina,
Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Canada and the
U.S.
Harmon outfits bodies of water with
sensor networks and uses the sensor output
to interpret ecosystem change in response
to environmental factors like weather and
pollution. This allows researchers to assem-
ble more information and identify changes
faster than possible using more conventional
sampling methods.
Rather than exhausting resources by send-
ing scientists to collect individual field sam-
ples over months or years, embedded sensors
allow large amounts of data to be collected
on a number of variables simultaneously.
Even subtle changes can be identified and
tracked over time with more comprehensive
recorded information.
“This is a coordinated research effort to
examine issues that affect aquatic ecosystems
from North America all the way to South
America,” Harmon said. “The benefit here is
that for the first time, we can compare water
quality and climate response in relatively
pristine areas of Patagonia with places like
the San Joaquin River that have a long histo-
ry of human disturbance.”
Comparing data sets from various areas
only scratches the surface of what Harmon
and his fellow scientists are doing.
They are also engaging stakeholders along
the way. Meeting with locals in each country,
the team asks questions to sort out the
critical services provided by the monitored
ecosystems and to discuss the effects of var-
ious policies on fishing, building dams and
agricultural practices along the waterways.
“Our goal is to build an understanding
of the fragility of these ecosystems, and to
provide support for sound resource man-
agement decisions across a wide range of
environmental, socioeconomic and cultural
settings,” he said. “There are places in the
world where lakes are changing, even drying
up and threatening livelihoods.
“That realization opens the door for us
to have a deeper conversation about how
people and institutions can adapt to reverse
or slow these changes by adopting more
sustainable practices.”
The circle of life Harmon’s team members
discuss with stakeholders is at the crux of
UC Merced’s international research efforts:
Whether in the remote highlands of Tibet or
in battle-scarred Central American nations,
climate change, civil unrest and resource
mismanagement affect more than just those
living in the immediate area.
These are real-world problems that don’t
just live in the past, they linger today and
how we deal with them leaves a legacy inher-
ited by the future.
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 25
ROBIN DELUGANFast-forward a few hundred years and
shift west on the globe, and you’ll find your-
self squarely in the realm of Professor Robin
DeLugan’s research.
The anthropologist and founding faculty
member is passionate about social justice,
especially as it relates to the building of
nation-states.
She has spent her academic career im-
mersed in the study of the aftermath of El
Salvador ’s civil war, from 1980 to 1992, and
has written a book about it.
Using post-civil war El Salvador as the
example, “Reimagining National Belong-
ing” looks at efforts to create social unity
and construct shared identity following an
extended, divisive conflict.
Now DeLugan is taking her research on
contemporary nation-building a step further
by looking at 1930s massacres in similar
countries to compare how the past is recalled
today by government leaders and citizens.
Her hope is to construct a comprehen-
sive picture of what shapes social memory
and how that affects nation-building and
cohesion among citizens, especially when it
comes to equality and justice.
“This type of research provides a rare
lens into the dynamics of nation-building,”
DeLugan said. “There are few people in the
world studying how national memories
emerge after decades of silence.”
DeLugan’s work is rare enough that she
was invited to deliver the keynote address
this fall at an international forum focused on
memories of the Salvadoran war.
“What we’re finding is that memory work
allows for the strengthening of democracies,”
she said. “And in the 21st century, govern-
ment is not the only entity that can control
how nations take shape.”
In El Salvador, for example, it has been the
people — namely academics, activists and
human rights organizations — who have led
the charge in recalling past violence against
indigenous people.
The public outcry has grown loud enough
that the government is considering rewriting
a portion of the constitution to finally recog-
nize the existence of the native population.
PROFESSOR ROBIN DELUGAN IN OUANAMINTHE, HAITI,
THIS SUMMER. OUANAMINTHE IS AT THE BRODER
BETWEEN HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, AND
WAS THE SITE OF A 1937 MASSACRE OF HAITIANS OR-
DERED BY DOMINICAN DICTATOR RAFAEL TRUJILLO.
PROFESSOR TOM HARMON, THIRD PHOTO FROM LEFT, WORkS ON AN INTERNATIONAL FRESHWATER-ECOSYSTEM PROJECT.
26 FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE
ne of the hallmarks of a
UC Merced education is the
opportunity to help build the
campus – forming student organizations,
athletic groups, student government — and
paving the way for future generations of
students.
UC Merced encourages students to take on
the challenge of starting up new enterprises,
so it’s no surprise that several of our students
took that entrepreneurial attitude and put it
to work.
AJ WATKINS Take AJ Watkins, for example. As a student
at UC Merced, she had big dreams to travel
but struggled to find a job that would help
her save money to fly across the country.
Watkins created her own business – Candy
Lei Industries – making and selling candy leis
to graduating students at high schools and
junior high schools throughout the Bay Area.
Time and time again she sold out of leis
at each event – her customers seeking that
last-minute gift to honor their graduates at
an important milestone in their lives. At $5
per candy lei, her customers bought three or
four for their graduate, making demand far
outweigh her handmade supply.
Although she didn’t end up traveling to
New York, she did treat herself to a back-to-
school shopping spree in Las Vegas and took
notes to help her business grow even more
the next year.
Hiring two local junior high students the
following summer, Watkins visited 15 schools
and learned the importance of planning
ahead – as she continued to sell out of leis as
fast as she made them.
HARSIMRAN (SIMRAN) SINGHHarsimran (Simran) Singh is the founder
and president of Tiger Trans Inc., a transpor-
tation logistics company based in Turlock.
Singh tried a couple of different ventures
before attending UC Merced as a transfer
student from Modesto Junior College, but
when the opportunity to start Tiger Trans
presented itself while he was still a student,
Singh jumped. His father had been a truck
driver, and Singh knew the business, the
challenges and the opportunities well.
As the business began to grow, Singh
recruited fellow classmate David Lopez to
help him on the business-side of things, in
addition to his good friend Bhagdeep Gill,
who was also living in Turlock.
Since graduating from UC Merced, Singh
has further grown the business, working with
27 trucks to haul products across the country
and into Canada and expanding to hire UC
Merced students as summer interns.
He hopes to continue building an intern-
ship program for UC Merced students as part
of his business.
EFFERMAN EZELL, DERRICK GELLIDON, MATT SZETO
Another alumni venture came to fruition
this past summer in the form of a mobile
beverage company called Blendid.
Three friends, Efferman Ezell, Derrick
Gellidon and Matt Szeto, a UC Irvine gradu-
ate, set out to fill a gap they perceived in the
market.
Blendid specializes in dessert-inspired
drinks that offer a healthier alternative to ac-
tual sweets. With flavors like Banana Cream
Pie, Mango Sticky Rice and S’mores, it’s hard
to believe they might actually be good for
you, but they pack a punch of protein and
natural sweetness.
All the drinks are less than 300 calories
and are made with almond milk and ricotta
cheese to maximize protein and create that
creamy shake texture.
The owners also try to use fresh, local-
ly-grown produce from Central Valley- and
San Francisco-area farmers. For example,
they’ve contracted with J. Marchini Farms in
Le Grand for the pumpkin in their Pumpkin
Pie shakes.
Since their grand opening in August 2013,
the trio has already hired two part-time staff
members and hopes to hire even more to
help them meet the growing needs of their
small business.
They’re also planning trips back to Merced
to share their product with UC Merced
students.
UC Merced is proud of the dozen or so
alumni who have ventured out to start their
own businesses around the Valley, the state
and the world.
ALU
MN
I CO
RNER
ALUMNI ENTREPRENEURS:
UDAy BALI
(environmental engineering/bachelor’s/2008)
owner of Bali Learning Center in Merced
KELVIN DO
(economics/bachelor’s/2009)
owner of The New Heart Café in San Jose
JOSE CARLO ELAMPARO
(world cultures and history/bachelor’s/2009)
co-founder of Stance Trader Inc., in Los Angeles
JAMES PUGH
(political science/bachelor’s/2010)
co-founder of Dad’s Jerky in San Diego
JANNA RODRIGUEz
(mechanical engineering/ bachelor’s /2012)
owner of J&R Tacos in Merced
ERIC SHORR
(environmental engineering/ bachelor’s /2008)
owner of Nameless Designs in Haifa, Israel
MATTHEW TOLBIRT
(political science/ bachelor’s /2010)
founder and managing partner of One Key Ventures in Tracy
KURT WINBIGLER
(literatures and cultures/bachelor’s /2009)
owner of Coffee Bandits in Merced
OUR ENTREPENEURS BY HEATHER BUCKNERdirector of alumni relations
O
UC forCalifornia
UC Merced has two new National Association of
Intercollegiate Athletics sports for students to
participate in and fans to be proud of: men’s
soccer and men’s basketball.
They, along with men’s cross country and volleyball and women’s basketball, cross country, volleyball and soccer, bring the young campus’s total to eight National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) sports teams.
Albert Martins is the new head coach of men’s soccer, while David Noble leads the men’s volleyball team.
Games go on through fall and winter, with cross coun-try meets in such places as University of San Francisco, Stanford, Santa Clara and Davis, leading up to the NAIA National Championship in Lawrence, Kan.
Soccer started in August and runs through the first half of November, with Bobcats taking on such opponents as Modesto Junior College, William Jessup University, Menlo College, Embry-Riddle and Marymount University.
Tickets are available for all games, as arefull schedules and player and coachinformation.
Visit ucmercedbobcats.com.
FALL 2013 | UC MERCED MAGAZINE 27
SPO
RTS U
PDA
TE
Make a Difference —
Support UC Merced
UC Merced is subject to changing state and federal laws that could impact
our students, faculty and staff members.
In recent years, the University of California and its supporters have fought hard in
Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to ensure the access, affordability and quality
of the university for current and future students, as well as on various policy issues
that could benefit or adversely affect its employees.
If you would like to join in the effort to advocate on behalf of UC Merced and the
University of California, please visit ucforcalifornia.org/merced to learn how
you can make a difference.
Wh
at’S n
eW
HALF DOME, THE NEWEST RESIDENCE HALL, REFLECTS NOT ONLY THE OPEN SkY AND BUILDINGS AROUND IT, BUT THE
COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY ON THE UC MERCED CAMPUS. MUCH OF THE BUILDING USES RECYCLED MATERIALS, FROM ITS CARPETS
TO ITS CEILING TILES, AND CAMPUS CONSTRUCTION PRACTICES ENABLED THE DIVERSION OF TONS OF WASTE FROM LANDFILLS BY
RECYCLING OR REUSING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE.
University Communications
5200 N. Lake Road
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FRESNO, CA
STUDENTS – INCLUDING UNDERGRADUATES AT ALL LEVELS – ARE A
VITAL PART OF THE RESEARCH CONDUCTED AT UC MERCED.
ONE LAST LOOK PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPERNovember 2013 | 19,400