University of California, Merced - Lorena Anderson

Two ��Ƶ��APP Researchers Among This Year’s AAAS Fellows

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:08:28 +0000

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

March 26, 2026

Being named an AAAS Fellow is one of the most prestigious honors awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Professors Asmeret Asefaw Berhe and Ming-Hsuan Yang have been named 2025 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

They are among the nearly 500 scientists, engineers and innovators who have been recognized this year for their distinguished scientific and social achievements.

Being elected as an AAAS Fellow is one of the most prestigious honors awarded by the association.

Berhe is recognized for her distinguished contributions to soil sciences and for her exemplary leadership in scientific organizations, leading to a more equitable and innovative scientific culture.

"Being elected as a Fellow of AAAS is a deeply meaningful recognition, not just for the science I have worked on, but for the journey that brought me here, from growing up in Eritrea to studying how soil shapes our climate and our collective future,” Berhe said. “The work that I do, with my mentees and collaborators that I share this honor with, has always been rooted in the belief that improving our understanding of the soil system, through basic soil science research, is what equips us to address the most significant challenges humanity faces, from soil health to food security to climate change. I also hope it encourages young scientists who might not always see themselves reflected in spaces like this to keep going.”

Among her many accomplishments, Berhe is a renowned professor of soil biogeochemistry in the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences in the School of Natural Sciences; the Ted and Jan Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology; a member of the National Academy of Engineering; the director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute; and has served as interim associate dean for Graduate Education. She was also confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the federal director of the Office of Science for the Department of Energy during President Joseph R. Biden’s administration.

Berhe is known for her advocacy for inclusion, anti-harassment and anti-bullying. She previously served as the chair of the U.S. National Committee on Soil Science at the National Academies; was a leadership board member for the Earth Science Women’s Network; and is a co-principal investigator in the ADVANCEGeo Partnership — a National Science Foundation-funded effort to empower geoscientists to respond to and prevent harassment, discrimination, bullying and other exclusionary behaviors in research environments.

Yang, who joined AAAS in 2021, is being recognized for distinguished contributions to the field of computer vision, particularly for visual tracking, low-level vision and visual learning. He has appeared on Clarivate’s list of highly cited researchers for the past eight years, demonstrating the influence of his research.

“I am deeply honored to be named a Fellow of the AAAS and sincerely thank the AAAS for this recognition. My research focuses on vision and learning, aiming to develop robust and scalable methods for visual understanding and generation. This honor reflects the collective efforts of my students, collaborators and colleagues,” he said. “I am especially grateful to my students, whose creativity and dedication have led to impactful contributions, including impactful publications, open-source work, and advances in visual tracking, low-level vision and multimodal learning. I also thank my collaborators for their invaluable insights and continued support.”

Yang, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the School of Engineering, is known for his seminal work in face detection, object tracking and representation learning. Now, his group is pushing into vision‑language models — systems that connect images and text and increasingly power generative tools and reasoning engines. He was elected a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 2025; and was previously named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery; and a Fellow in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

A tradition dating back to 1874, election as an AAAS Fellow is a lifetime honor, and all Fellows are expected to meet the commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity, the society said in a press release. Distinguished past honorees include Ellen Ochoa, Steven Chu, Grace Hopper, Alan Alda, Mae Jemison and Ayanna Howard.

The AAAS Fellows program recognizes individuals whose efforts to advance science or its applications have been deemed scientifically or socially distinguished by their peers. Fellows are selected from a broad range of disciplines — from biology and physics to engineering, education and public policy. The honor reflects a career of impactful contributions to research, leadership and service to the scientific community.

The 2025 class comprises engineers and innovators across 24 AAAS disciplinary sections.

“This year’s AAAS Fellows have demonstrated research excellence, made notable contributions to advance science, and delivered important services to their communities," said Sudip S. Parikh, Ph.D., AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher of the Science family of journals. “These Fellows and their accomplishments validate the importance of investing in science and technology for the benefit of all."

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CalTeach and Local Schools Team Up to Energize Learning across Merced County

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 18:06:08 +0000

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

March 23, 2026

Undergraduate students serve as leaders and work with younger students during CalTeach's Bobcat Summer STEM Academy camps.

��Ƶ��APP’s CalTeach program is opening new pathways for younger students to experience hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning, academic support and early exposure to a college environment.

The CalTeach program, present at every UC campus that offers undergraduate education, primarily focuses on preparing highly qualified STEM teachers for the California education system. Over the program's 20 years of existence, however, the academic portion of CalTeach has been supplemented by a large outreach component that directly impacts K-12 students.

Through major summer and after-school initiatives — including fully funded STEM camps, increased tutoring capacity and immersive learning opportunities — ��Ƶ��APP’s CalTeach program and the Merced City School District are working together to strengthen the community’s educational pipeline.

For Chelsea Arnold, director of CalTeach at ��Ƶ��APP, the mission is simple: Get students excited about learning.

“Our goal is to show them what's possible,” she said. “If you can get a kid excited about something, that switch gets turned on, and they want to continue learning more.”

The Bobcat Summer STEM Academy, running since 2016, now serves about 950 students each summer, a dramatic increase from its original 100 participants. Camps range from one-day workshops to weeklong sessions, all designed to immerse K-12 students in creative, hands-on STEM activities led by ��Ƶ��APP undergraduates, graduate students and faculty partners as well as community college students.

This summer, a new Merced City School District grant will transform access: 600 students — 100 per week for six weeks — will attend the STEM academy free of charge, lifting a major financial barrier for local families. A successful pilot last year brought 100 middle schoolers to campus at no cost; the new commitment expands participation sixfold.

“We want the whole county to know that this is a resource,” Arnold said. “Kids can come to campus and have a blast doing different STEM camps all summer.”

CalTeach staff see early engagement as essential. Younger students experience exploratory academies such as nature studies or engineering play, while upper elementary students begin experimenting with programming and electronics. Middle schoolers engage in activities designed to keep them invested in math and science, and high school students dive into applied skill-building, including data science for conservation using tools such as Python and R.

The academies have already changed academic trajectories — including one student who, after discovering a passion for physics at a CalTeach camp, moved from a non-college-prep track into AP Physics, earned an A and eventually transferred to ��Ƶ��APP, said Melissa Amarillas, student services advisor for CalTeach.

Arnold said the experience opens doors for students early.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to connect their kids to a world-class research university,” she said. “It’s our job to show them that this is their university and their place.”

Beyond summer learning, the program is also widening its year-round academic impact. CalTeach recently finalized an agreement with Merced City School District to supply 32 after-school tutors for K-8 students starting this fall, in addition to its current 45 in-school tutors.

Amarillas said the additional support will benefit students, schools and parents.

“Right now in Merced, there’s a waitlist of 400 to 500 kids who could be in after-school programming, but the schools don’t have enough staffing,” she said. “This expansion of tutoring services is a win all the way around. Our students get work-based learning experiences with stipends, parents get a safe learning environment for their children after school and it takes a little bit of the burden off the schools, too.”

About 140 more students can receive after-school assistance because of the new agreement, said Isabella Jaurique-Pouncey, communications specialist for the Merced City School District.

Amarillas said the presence of college students has a powerful influence on younger learners.

“Younger students see college students who look like them and want to know more,” she said. “They start to see themselves as college students, too.”

The district shares that enthusiasm for the expanded partnership. Jaurique-Pouncey said the collaboration will help reduce the strain on after-school programs.

She said this is the first time CalTeach tutors have joined the district’s after-school program.

“They’re shadowing members from the ASSETS (After School Student Education: Teamwork for Success) team using the same curriculum, so they can get an understanding of their role, and then they’ll begin doing it on their own,” she said.

The benefits extend both ways. Younger students work with role models who look like them and demonstrate what college can do for them, while ��Ƶ��APP students receive paid, work-based learning opportunities, classroom experience and resume-building credentials.

The CalTeach program gives students majoring in STEM fields, as well as other subjects, the ability to explore teaching as a career option and to earn their teaching credentials if they choose. Students who enroll in the program attend Natural Sciences Education (NSED) classes that equip them with knowledge of best teaching practices and innovative learning strategies. These students are also paired with mentor teachers in area school districts. Each year, ��Ƶ��APP students spend a combined 6,000 hours observing and teaching lessons in local schools.

Tutors don’t have to be in the Natural Sciences Education minor, but they often are because students seeking teaching credentials must demonstrate classroom experience.

“Currently, almost a third of all newly credentialed math and science teachers statewide are alumni of UC CalTeach program,” said Professor Mayya Tokman, a faculty director of ��Ƶ��APP CalTeach and an executive chair of the system-wide CalTeach program, “and the outreach component of CalTeach is a win-win collaboration between the UC and school districts, providing undergraduates with early opportunities to explore careers in education as well as directly benefiting K-12 students.”

CalTeach leaders call the tutoring expansion a critical step in strengthening the region’s college-going culture and developing future math and science teachers.

The third program enhancing learning opportunities for area children this summer is CalTeach’s residential Yosemite camp for middle schoolers, offering three days of environmental science exploration in partnership with NatureBridge and Merced City School District at the National Environmental Science Center in Yosemite National Park in late August. Students live in the new dorms, learning about forestry, fire ecology and environmental science, and spend a day in Yosemite Valley. The program is free of charge to participants and includes transportation and meals

Across all initiatives, CalTeach leaders say all these exposure experiences build confidence, curiosity and academic momentum.

As Arnold put it: “Our goal is not just to fill their buckets of knowledge, but to get them to ask questions, to think deeper and to have fun while doing it.”

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Ants, Endurance and a Ph.D. at the Finish Line

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:05:37 +0000

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

March 18, 2026

��Ƶ��APP graduate student Reo Maynard studies a carpenter ant from one of his many ant colonies.

On most days, Reo Maynard’s life swings between two ecosystems: the microscopic world inside an ant’s gut and the sprawling one that stretches from Fresno to the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The 51-year-old Navy veteran, dad of two, screenwriter-in-waiting and newly minted Fresno City College faculty member is in his eighth year at ��Ƶ��APP, earning his Ph.D. in Quantitative Systems Biology.

“I’ll be defending in May. The end is here,” he said, with the equal parts relief and wonder of someone who kept moving when the ground shifted beneath him.

Maynard’s work with Professor Gordon Bennett explores host-symbiont interactions, the intimate partnerships between animals and the bacteria that live inside their cells. His specialty is carpenter ants — “about as long as a penny,” he said — whose digestive tract houses endosymbionts that help process nutrients. Some of them are only found at higher elevations.

Fieldwork took him to Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks — until COVID-19 shut the gates.

“I was twiddling my thumbs for two years and lost so much time,” he said. But the parks eventually reopened, and his projects evolved. Bennett said Maynard’s resilience helped him rebuild a dissertation in real time.

“He had to completely revise his dissertation after COVID. Ants were the only centerpiece that stayed,” Bennett said. “But he brought back cool projects and ideas and distilled nature to mechanisms — and he did it with a sunny disposition.”

From Virginia Beach to the Central Valley

Maynard’s path to science began far from the Sierras. He attended two years of college in Virginia right after high school, which he said was too soon for him.

“I just kind of screwed around and I ended up basically flunking out. They disinvited me to register for the next semester,” he said. He worked in the family insurance business for a while and then joined the Navy, determined to earn a degree the second time around.

He trained as a hospital corpsman, went to the School of Surgical Technology at the Naval School of Health Sciences, worked at the VA hospital in Chicago, picked up obstetrics and gynecology and trauma skills at Camp Pendleton and San Diego clinics, and specialized as a surgical assistant in obstetrics and gynecology at the Naval Air Station in Lemoore.

“That’s where I found my love for biology,” he said of his time in the Navy.

Before he went back to college, he worked for Kaiser Permanente for several years in surgical operations management, giving in to the lure of a six-figure salary.

He used his GI Bill to carry him through a bachelor’s in human anatomy and physiology and a master’s at Fresno State, where he worked with carpenter ants in a neuroscience lab. He interned for a summer in ��Ƶ��APP Professor Fred Wolf's lab, working with fruit flies. He met Bennett through Wolf.

Bennett said that as a student, Maynard “has got a really wide-open mind about science, particularly the things we're interested in, like natural history and organismal biology.” He’s motivated, loves to be part of all kinds of discussions, brings new insights because of his diverse background and always wants to learn more, the professor said.

During his time in Bennett’s lab, Maynard earned the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s coveted three-year Gilliam Fellowship, which supported his research and connected him with a national network of scientists.

“It was a good time — seminars, training, presenting our work in D.C. I really miss those days,” he said.

In Bennett’s lab, Maynard broadened his focus beyond ants to the bigger story of insect-microbe partnerships. He recently published his first paper on the genome of a carpenter ant endosymbiont he sequenced from high-altitude Sierra populations, above 7,000 feet. The finding: Even bacteria that should be near-clones, passed from ant mothers to daughters and sealed inside cells, accumulate tiny differences over time — differences that can change which nutrients and other services they provide their hosts.

“We think of mountaintops as islands,” Maynard said. “These ant populations are isolated, but their symbionts diverge in little ways that matter.”

If ants are Maynard’s muse, their microbes are the story. Endosymbionts — bacteria that live inside host cells — can shrink their genomes over time because life inside a cell is cushy. They shed genes they no longer need, becoming specialists that supply key nutrients their hosts can’t make or get from food. In isolated populations, those bacterial toolkits can diverge just enough to change an ant’s biology.

“Population A’s symbiont might provide a vitamin; population B’s might have lost that function and does something else,” Maynard said. “They should be clones, but random mutations add up. Our analyses are detailed enough to pick out those differences.”

Commuter, Caretaker, Closer

Through it all, Maynard lived and raised a family in Fresno — and commuted to Merced. When the parks closed, his kids were in grade school.

He and his wife, Deborah Bernal, Fresno County’s literacy coordinator, have two sons, Abram and Isaac, now teens juggling decisions about their futures: law or finance for Abram; engineering or acting for Isaac.

Perhaps a little envious of all the time they have ahead of them to make those decisions, Maynard is also considering law school.

Maynard laughs at his own willingness to give up free time.

“I’m a glutton for punishment, but it’s a challenge,” he said. “I can’t let them down. I want them to see I don’t give up.”

That commitment shows up in his classroom, too. Hired last fall to teach human anatomy, physiology and human biology at Fresno City College, he tells freshmen he started where they sit.

“We have Transfer Wednesdays,” he said. “Faculty wear their alma mater shirts so students can see there’s something beyond. I like pulling students aside, asking their goals, then holding them to it.”

Bennett said the match fits.

“He delivered one of ��Ƶ��APP’s core courses — evolution — as instructor of record over the summer,” he said. “He modernized it, connected content to contemporary examples. The students really liked it.”

Next Chapters, Plural

The son of two teachers, Maynard’s life resists a single lane, though education, whether formal or self-taught, is a throughline.

He took four years of Latin in school and taught himself to speak fluent Spanish so he could communicate better with his in-laws. He is conversational in German, Italian, Japanese, French and even some Hebrew. His love for languages started when a middle-school friend from Israel wrote out the Hebrew alphabet for him. He later translated the entire Old Testament from the original Hebrew to English.

He also loves to scuba dive, a hobby he picked up while trying to get past a childhood phobia of open spaces.

He, Deborah and the boys travel widely and dream about Maynard taking a summer stint teaching at the American University in Berlin, where courses are in English and the city is a family favorite. They’ve been to Mexico, Hawaii, Germany, Italy, France, England and Japan, and as soon as this semester is over, they are going to Georgia and Armenia.

There’s also that potential next career as an attorney. The idea of building a practice with his son is attractive, and Maynard is considering San Joaquin College of Law’s evening program.

“When I was leaving my hometown, I flipped a coin between law and medicine,” he said. “I still wonder how life would be different if I chose law.”

And then there are the screenplays he has written — six or seven full drafts and a stack of fragments, from a rom-com presidency-reveal to historical drama and a “Star Wars” story. Once the dissertation is done, he plans to finally produce and direct a 30-minute short he’s scoped and budgeted.

Through it all, the ants keep marching. In his office at FCC, Maynard maintains 13 colonies and a single queen who has yet to lay eggs.

He keeps writing, teaching and parenting on a schedule that would flatten most.

When asked what drives him, Maynard said he thinks he has some anxiety about not getting things done, plus a love for personal challenges.

“I have to make sure that I don't fail myself. I don't fail my sons. I don't fail my family, you know?” he said. “Plus, if I can do this, what else can I do, you know? Why ever stop? I just want to keep going. What else can I do?

How Maynard does it all, Bennett said he does not know, but he is inspired to try and do as well with his own two boys.

“They are always his first priority,” Bennett said.

Bennett counts Maynard as one of his friends, and said he is actively looking for projects to keep the two of them collaborating.

One thing he knows for sure is that Maynard will be missed in the lab when he graduates in May. Bennett has no doubt his student will succeed.

“His resilience is really an inspiration for other students in the lab community,” Bennett said. “He is hungry for knowledge about everything. Everything. That kind of curiosity is rare.”

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Ocean Chemistry Now Substantially Shaped by Humans

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:04:40 +0000

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

March 16, 2026

Human-caused contamination has reached every part of the world's oceans, researchers have found. Image courtesy of KPBS.

Although the oceans are the least explored places on the planet, even their depths are not untouched by humans.

Drawing on more than 2,300 seawater samples collected across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, researchers found that hundreds of synthetic chemicals — many of them rarely monitored and originating from everyday products — are now woven into the fabric of marine organic matter.

The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, suggest that industrial and consumer compounds are far more pervasive and persistent than scientists realized, raising urgent questions about their role in carbon cycling, ecosystem health and the true extent of humanity’s chemical footprint on the sea.

“The ocean does not contain just a handful of these artificial compounds — marine organisms could be swimming through a mix of dozens or hundreds of human-made compounds in any given location,” said ��Ƶ��APP environmental sciences Professor Michael Beman, a collaborator on the study.

The international analysis, led by biochemists at UC Riverside, allowed the researchers to capture a global perspective. The findings reveal an important insight: Industrial chemicals, many of which are rarely monitored, are far more abundant and widespread than previously recognized.

“For decades, scientists have tracked plastic debris floating on the ocean’s surface and measured rising temperatures that signal climate change,” said Daniel Petras, the biochemistry professor at UC Riverside who led the study. “But another, largely invisible human footprint has been quietly accumulating in the sea: thousands of synthetic chemicals. Even in places we consider relatively pristine, we found clear chemical fingerprints of human activity. The extent of this influence was surprising.”

Even remote coral reef systems, often viewed as among the least-touched marine environments, showed clear chemical signatures of nearby human activity — from agricultural and coastal development to tourism, the researchers said.

Beman said he was surprised because many of the samples were collected well out into the open ocean, in seawater that seemed pristine. He and UC San Diego researchers Irina Koester and Professor Lihini Aluwihare were interested in natural carbon compounds and didn’t intend to find artificial contaminants.

“But the chemical imprint was evident in essentially every sample,” Beman said.

The researchers found that in coastal waters, human-made organic chemicals account for 20% of the total measured signal in their datasets. In the most extreme cases — such as river mouths impacted by untreated or poorly treated wastewater — that figure exceeded 50%. Even open-ocean samples consistently contained a few percent of artificial compounds. Overall, across all the samples analyzed, 248 human‑related compounds together accounted for about 2% of the total detected signal.

While pesticides and pharmaceuticals were expected to be most concentrated near shorelines, the study found that industrial compounds — including substances used in plastics, lubricants and consumer products — make up the bulk of the human-caused chemical signal in the ocean.

Petras said some human-made compounds sit at the boundary between traditional organic molecules and nanoplastics, blurring the line between chemical and plastic pollution.

“These chemicals contribute substantially to the ocean’s organic matter pool. That means they may play an unrecognized role in marine carbon cycling and ecosystem function,” he said.

The researchers also found that anthropogenic chemicals persist well beyond the coastline. Even more than 20 kilometers offshore, human-derived compounds accounted for roughly 1% of detected organic matter.

“At a global scale, that’s a huge amount of material,” Petras said.

The study represents one of the most comprehensive chemical meta-analyses of coastal oceans to date, drawing on samples collected for various research purposes, including coral reef health, algal blooms and carbon cycling.

A key innovation used by the research team was the combination of consistent, high-resolution mass spectrometry methods across multiple laboratories, along with scalable computational tools developed at UC Riverside. These technological advances allowed the group to combine and analyze thousands of samples from unrelated studies as a single, unified dataset.

“The technique that was used is new and powerful, so it detects a wide range of natural and artificial compounds,” Beman explained. “Although some human-made compounds may have no effect at all or may break down, a major concern is whether they negatively affect marine life.”

Despite the dataset's size, the researchers note that large parts of the world remain understudied. Data were heavily concentrated in North America and Europe, with limited coverage in the Southern Hemisphere and almost no representation from regions such as Southeast Asia, India and Australia.

The absence of data doesn’t mean the problem isn’t there; it means scientists have not looked closely enough yet, the team said.

The authors acknowledged that this analysis serves as a first overview, and detailed analyses with precise quantification are still needed. Further, the effects of the cumulative chemical concentrations and their long-term ecological impacts remain largely unknown.

“The fact that hundreds of compounds are found around the world in varying amounts means that this isn't an easy problem to study and solve,” Beman said.

By making the data public, the researchers hope to accelerate research and enable a more complete understanding of human chemical impacts on the ocean.

All data from the study are publicly available, allowing other researchers to reanalyze the results or integrate new datasets as they emerge.

The findings also highlight a broader, often overlooked reality: everyday activities — driving, cleaning, food packaging and personal care — contribute chemicals. Washed down drains or carried by rainwater, they move through rivers and wastewater systems and eventually reach the ocean.

“Some of the artificial compounds detected in the ocean are household names,” Beman said. "Although it can take extra effort, reducing plastic use and properly disposing of chemicals and pharmaceuticals can only help."

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Researchers Rebuild Microscopic Circadian Clock That Can Control Genes

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 17:03:19 +0000

By Mario Aguilera, UC San Diego, and Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

February 10, 2026

Blue-green algae in flasks are used by researchers at ��Ƶ��APP and UC San Diego to further the understanding of circadian clocks. Image courtesy of UC San Diego.

Our circadian clocks play a crucial role in our health and well-being, keeping our 24-hour biological cycles in sync with light and dark exposure. Disruptions in the rhythms of these clocks, as with jet lag and daylight saving time, can throw our daily rhythms out of whack.

But a group of researchers is getting closer to understanding how these clocks operate.

��Ƶ��APP biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang and his colleagues have solved how the circadian clocks in microscopic bacteria precisely control when different genes are turned on and off during the 24-hour cycle.

In the new study, the researchers identified the minimal elements needed to control circadian gene transcription, the first phase of gene expression, in cyanobacteria.

“Circadian biology is often framed in terms of sleep, jet lag and human health, yet the same principles govern the lives of tiny photosynthetic bacteria,” LiWang said. “By reconstituting the clock with its transcriptional machinery in a test tube, we can see the design rules that allow biological clocks to generate an internal representation of time and use it to control metabolic processes in anticipation of sunrise and sunset.”

The researchers made their discovery in cyanobacteria, tiny aquatic organisms also known as blue-green algae. They uncovered the links between core components of cyanobacteria’s 24-hour clock that direct the rhythmic expression of genes.

By understanding how circadian clocks control genes at the molecular level, researchers can develop biological tools to biosynthesize target molecules at specific times of day.

“We were able to show how a single signal from the clock can turn one set of genes on and another set off, generating opposite phases of gene expression. In that cell, that means some cellular processes are peaking at dusk and others at dawn,” said UC San Diego biological sciences Distinguished Professor Susan Golden, senior author of the study.

Circadian clocks have drawn increased interest in recent years because of their central role in health and medicine. Medications and vaccinations are more effective when taken at specific times to align with our circadian rhythms.

The research team’s cyanobacterial clock discovery is notable because it is distinct from the clocks found in humans and other organisms known as eukaryotes. The study is detailed in a new paper in the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.

LiWang, a member of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the NSF-funded CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines and the Health Sciences Research Institute, has worked with cyanobacteria for years to delve into the puzzles of circadian clocks. He and his fellow researchers have now built a clock that times transcription using purified components. They also developed a synthetic gene expression system that may be portable to other bacteria, such as the workhorse of biotechnology, Escherichia coli (E. coli), and showed that it can turn on a test gene rhythmically with a predictable phase of expression.

“These are practical biological tools that can be expanded to control the synthesis of desirable biological products in cyanobacteria or in other kinds of microbes used in biotechnology,” Golden said.

The research was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

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Unlocking the Secrets of Tiny, Living Clocks Could Revolutionize Science

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:03:09 +0000

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

February 2, 2026

Biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang

Biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang has spent much of his career studying how life keeps time. His work on the circadian clock of cyanobacteria — tiny, ancient organisms that share the planet with us — has shed light on one of biology’s most elegant systems.

But his newest research project, supported by a prestigious $1.2 million grant from the William M. Keck Foundation, pushes that inquiry into bold, uncharted territory.

LiWang and his collaborators believe they may have uncovered a universal mechanism that explains how bacteria, and potentially many other organisms, adapt to changes in temperature. At the heart of this idea is a rare, mysterious category of proteins known as metamorphic proteins — shape‑shifters that can flip between two distinct structures, each with its own function.

If their hypothesis holds, the discovery could open the door to a new scientific field and help rewrite long‑standing assumptions about how proteins work.

The project began with a puzzle: Cyanobacteria, like all organisms with a circadian clock, must generate an accurate biochemical representation of time regardless of environmental conditions.

“Circadian clocks have to tell time at a constant pace,” LiWang explained. “They can’t run faster on warm days and slower on cold days.”

Mechanical clocks once struggled with this same problem. Before engineers learned to combine metals with different rates of thermal expansion, a clock’s ticking could drift significantly depending on the weather.

Nature’s solution, LiWang suspected, might be just as clever.

His lab discovered that one of the core clock proteins in cyanobacteria, known as KaiB, behaves in an astonishing way: It switches between two folds — an active shape and an inactive one. At higher temperatures, the protein shifts toward its inactive form, counteracting the natural tendency of reactions to speed up. At lower temperatures, it leans toward its active form, helping the clock maintain steady function.

This temperature-dependent shape shifting, LiWang realized, might not be unique in helping organisms adapt to fluctuating environments.

Only a handful of metamorphic proteins have ever been identified, and nearly all were discovered by accident. Historically, researchers lacked a reliable method to determine whether a protein could adopt multiple folds. Each known metamorphic protein seemed to have a different trigger — a change in pH, salt concentration or binding partner.

But LiWang’s team noticed something all these proteins shared: One of their folds is inherently more stable at high temperatures, the other at low temperatures. That insight led to a provocative hypothesis — a single, universal trigger for all metamorphic proteins.

Temperature.

If true, this offers a way to detect shape‑shifting proteins at scale for the first time.

The Keck-funded project aims to put that idea to the test. Working with collaborators at Caltech and the University of Maryland, the team is exposing the E. coli proteome to different temperatures, partially digesting it with enzymes, and analyzing the cut patterns using mass spectrometry. Proteins that change shape at different temperatures will show different digestion profiles.

Those candidates will then undergo targeted structural analysis — particularly through nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, the gold standard for confirming metamorphosis.

Once the team identifies bona fide metamorphic proteins, it will genetically modify E. coli so that those proteins can no longer change shape. If the bacteria struggle to survive temperature swings compared to unmodified strains, that would strongly support the idea that those metamorphic proteins help E. coli adapt to thermally changing environments.

“It’s definitely high‑risk, high‑reward,” LiWang said. “It could open a whole new field — or we could find out we were wrong. But that’s science.”

If metamorphic proteins turn out to be widespread sensors of temperature in living systems, the implications ripple across biology.

Plants, for instance, cannot move to escape heat or cold. If metamorphic proteins help them survive fluctuating climates, researchers might someday design crops better suited for warming environments or for agriculture in new regions.

The same could apply to fungi, insects and other cold‑blooded organisms that rely on external temperatures.

Biotechnology, too, could benefit. Industrial microbes could be engineered for more efficient fermentation, pharmaceutical production or biofuel synthesis under changing conditions.

Even the search for new ways to counter invasive species or pathogenic bacteria could benefit.

“If temperature truly is the universal trigger, then metamorphic proteins could be far more common than we ever imagined,” LiWang said.

The project is also a story of scientific perseverance. LiWang first proposed the concept of a “metamorphome” — the complete set of metamorphic proteins in an organism — in a Keck proposal back in 2016. It was rejected. At the time, the idea lacked the evidence and clarity that now underpin the team’s strategy, he said.

The second time turned out to be the charm. Last year, LiWang, a member of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the NSF-funded CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines and the Health Sciences Research Institute, brought new data and a stronger vision: a way to systematically uncover an entire class of proteins long overlooked because their shape‑shifting nature was nearly impossible to detect.

“Now we have a targeted approach,” he said. “Before, it was like waiting for someone to stumble on one by accident.”

Whether the metamorphome proves to be vast or surprisingly sparse, the work promises to deepen scientific understanding of how life adapts, survives and keeps its internal rhythms steady against the changing world.

And if LiWang is right, a quiet revolution in protein science may already be taking shape.

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��Ƶ��APP Scientists Among Global Elite Shaping AI, Climate and Health

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 19:05:04 +0000

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

January 26, 2026

Five ��Ƶ��APP researchers were named among the most often cited by other researchers, demonstrating the importance of their work.

��Ƶ��APP continues to demonstrate its growing influence on the global stage.

Several faculty members landed on Clarivate’s 2025 list of the world’s most‑cited researchers. The honor is reserved for the top 1% of scholars whose work has shaped their fields over the last 10 years. Clarivate, which produces journal impact factors and other analytics, says the award identifies the world’s most influential researchers.

Researchers have always advanced scientific understanding by building upon the discoveries of those who came before them. Today, they publish in peer‑reviewed journals. Their work is evaluated by experts before it is shared with the wider community. In every new paper, authors show how their work fits into the larger scientific story by citing earlier research, then clearly laying out the fresh insights and contributions their latest study brings to the field.

For ��Ƶ��APP, the Clarivate recognition reflects a mature and fast‑advancing research enterprise rooted in Central Valley priorities — water, wildfire, climate resilience and equitable innovation — and extending into frontier areas such as artificial intelligence.

Recognition on the Highly Cited list is a marker of ��Ƶ��APP’s trajectory: a young campus now operating at top‑tier research intensity, producing scholarship that shapes its fields and its region.

As Clarivate’s President of Academia and Government Bar Veinstein put it in announcing the 2025 list, the honorees “advance innovation and inspire the global research community to tackle society’s greatest challenges with creativity and ingenuity.”

For the Valley, that means world‑class research rooted in local needs. Merced’s labs thrive on close student‑faculty collaboration, often with undergraduates contributing to published research — an opportunity that can be rarer at older, larger institutions.

Ming‑Hsuan Yang, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has appeared on the Highly Cited list annually since 2018, helped by seminal work in face detection, object tracking and representation learning. Now, his group is pushing into vision‑language models — systems that connect images and text and increasingly power generative tools and reasoning engines.

Making the list again, he said, shows he has not peaked.

“I’m still doing the work,” he said. “I’m still making a good impact. I’m glad people use my work and build on top of it. On the other hand, I also build on other people’s work, so it goes both ways.”

Yang maintains an active research role in industry while leading ��Ƶ��APP students in cutting-edge computer vision.

Distinguished Professor Martin Hagger, the only recipient from the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, is recognized on the list for a sustained body of work in social and health psychology spanning self-control, determinants of health behavior, and theory integration. Hagger’s lab at ��Ƶ��APP focuses on how beliefs, motivation and habits translate into real world behavior change.

Hagger made the list for the fourth consecutive year. In 2025, Hagger was promoted to distinguished professor, received ��Ƶ��APP’s Senate Award for Distinction in Research and was elected a fellow of the American Psychological Association.

One of Hagger’s most cited papers examines ego depletion—the idea that people’s self-control is limited and depletes, leading to lapses in impulse control. His work challenged that idea and received widespread attention, including media coverage in 2016.

“Highly cited authors might contribute to a department’s research reputation — having authors whose research is highly cited is a hallmark of a research-intensive culture at a university and suggests that the department and the university conduct very high-impact research,” Hagger explained. “As the department and ��Ƶ��APP more broadly have moved toward achieving very high research intensity status, including reaching R1 status last year, the reputation of the research produced by its faculty is important.”

��Ƶ��APP’s cross-field recognition also extends to biochemistry and public health through Emeritus Distinguished Professor Henry Jay Forman, a pioneering scholar in free radical biology and redox signaling. Forman, one of the campus’s founding faculty members, has served in national leadership roles and continues to contribute to research and publishing.

In a year when Los Angeles was devastated by wildfires, climate experts John Abatzoglou, a professor in management of complex systems, and Professor Crystal Kolden, director of the campus’s Fire Resilience Center, were sought after by media and highly cited by their peers.

Both appear on the 2025 Highly Cited list. Abatzoglou is listed in both environment and ecology and geosciences, reflecting the breadth of his climate science portfolio. His lab develops datasets and tools that help communities, agencies and land managers understand climate variability and anticipate impacts.

Kolden, a pyrogeographer, focuses on the human environment dimensions of wildfire, from prescribed fire and mitigation to recovery planning. She is a recognized expert in community-focused resilience strategies.

“We’re public servants to the people of California first and foremost, especially at a school like ��Ƶ��APP,” Kolden said. “It’s always an honor when your peers cite your research, because it means your work has impact. But my goal is always to reduce the potential for the wildfire disasters that destroy peoples’ lives.”

Yang’s AI work positions ��Ƶ��APP at the frontier of a field transforming health care, agriculture and education; his students and collaborators help fuel a growing California talent pipeline. Hagger’s research informs interventions tied to chronic disease and mental health — key concerns in the Central Valley — and his international collaboration in Finland brings global insights back to campus.

Clarivate emphasizes that citation activity is only the starting point. The list is refined using quantitative metrics, qualitative analysis and expert judgment, with explicit attention to research integrity. That approach reflects how ��Ƶ��APP faculty describe their work — impact rooted in collaboration, mentorship and openness.

“I have had a lot of great graduate students, and I really have to thank them,” Yang said. “They’re doing well, and I hope that making this list and helping raise the university’s profile draws even more highly qualified graduate students to our labs.”

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COSMOS Expands to ��Ƶ��APP, Opening Doors for California’s Brightest Young Scientists

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 19:06:18 +0000

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

December 11, 2025

High school students will have a wider array of research opportunities through COSMOS starting next summer.

Starting next summer, ��Ƶ��APP will join an elite group of University of California campuses hosting COSMOS — the California State Summer School for Math and Science — giving some of the state’s most talented high school students a new destination for exploring advanced STEM fields.

Established by the California Legislature in 1998, the prestigious program gives top students from across the state the chance to work with UC faculty, researchers and graduate and undergraduate students on advanced science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) topics that go far beyond the standard high school curriculum.

Current COSMOS sites are UCs Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Cruz. ��Ƶ��APP’s addition reflects both the growing demand for the program and the university’s mission to expand educational opportunities in the Central Valley.

“��Ƶ��APP’s addition mirrors the geographic and academic diversity the UC system offers,” said Niels Grønbech-Jensen, a UC Davis distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and mathematics who serves as executive director of COSMOS. “It is crucial for COSMOS to be geographically representative of California. ��Ƶ��APP, in the San Joaquin Valley, will serve a geographically important role in this representation.”

With nearly 9,000 applications for about 1,000 spots each year, COSMOS is among the most competitive pre-college programs in the state. The average GPA of accepted students is 4.0, and applicants rank among the top students at their schools.

Building Opportunity Close to Home

��Ƶ��APP’s COSMOS program will be led by Professor Michele “Nish” Nishiguchi, a molecular and cell biology faculty member, with Bobbi Henderson serving as assistant director. Together, they are developing an experience designed to inspire high-achieving students across California to pursue higher education in STEM.

“The program allows ��Ƶ��APP to provide research opportunities and exposure to college life for top-performing high school students across the state, including in our own community,” Nishiguchi said. “It’s an extension of our commitment to ensuring that academically excelling students in our region get the best possible preparation for success.”

Michael Findlater, interim dean of the School of Natural Sciences, said the program aligns perfectly with ��Ƶ��APP’s mission to uplift the region through education.

“By offering high school students hands-on research experiences and a glimpse into college life, we can inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, particularly from underrepresented communities in the San Joaquin Valley and beyond,” he said. “As a growing research institution, ��Ƶ��APP is thrilled to be part of COSMOS.”

How COSMOS Works

COSMOS is not the typical summer camp. Students live on campus for four weeks, taking part in research clusters, or focused academic groups, each led by UC faculty members and supported by graduate and undergraduate mentors.

Each cluster enrolls 20 to 25 students who dive deeply into STEM topics and work on real-life projects and challenges. They are in class from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and evenings and weekends are filled with team-building and social activities — from “lab Olympics” and pickup soccer games to field trips, possibly including Yosemite National Park.

By the program’s end, students present their results at a research symposium attended by faculty, peers and their families.

��Ƶ��APP is launching with seven clusters:

Experiments in Soft Matter at ��Ƶ��APP: Complex Fluids and Flows
Nanomaterials for Accelerating Chemical Reactions
Exploring Materials
AI at Scale
Glowing Partnership: Exploring Bacterial-Animal Symbiosis Through Bioluminescence
Digital Twins-Making Things Smarter
Quantum Materials & Light: Illuminating the Weird World of 0D and 2D Materials.

For faculty, the program is an opportunity to teach California’s most motivated high school students — and to design creative courses around their own research.

“It’s not an easy task,” Nishiguchi said. “Faculty had to think about big questions but narrow them down to one doable project at a high school level for four weeks. But it’s a great challenge.”

Nishiguchi and Henderson visited UC Davis’s clusters last summer and said they saw students building robots and atomic microscopes and modeling the spread of HIV as they wrote their own computer code to make the simulations function.

“I hope we get students applying from the Central Valley, but also from other places — like the mix we have on our campus,” Nishiguchi said.

At UC Davis and other campuses, faculty members have praised COSMOS students for their focus and capability. Many professors report needing to raise their game because the students perform at a much higher level than anticipated.

“These students want to be here,” Nishiguchi said. “That’s what makes the program enjoyable for everyone.”

Nishiguchi said the experience can be transformative for students.

“These kids are all such high achievers. They are used to being the smartest people in the room, and then they realize they’re in a room full of people who are just as smart. They learn to work together. It’s good for them,” she said.

A Legacy of STEM Leadership

Since its inception, COSMOS has played a vital role in cultivating California’s STEM talent pipeline. The program was modeled after the California State Summer School for the Arts and created by the Legislature to engage “the most creative minds of the new generation” in science and mathematics.

Data from other campuses show that COSMOS participants often go on to enroll at UC campuses and other top universities. The UC undergraduate application even includes a section for applicants to indicate they are COSMOS Scholars.

The COSMOS program not only prepares students for future academic success but also helps them build teamwork and leadership skills in a supportive, research-oriented environment, network and get a taste of college life.

Grønbech-Jensen said the classes help students connect their learning to real-world applications — and to each other.

“Academically, students experience a curriculum that addresses a complex problem that requires multiple STEM disciplines to comprehend,” he said. “Socially, COSMOS often fosters camaraderie that goes far beyond the four-week stay. The residential experience can also be very important for students who have never been away from their parents for extended periods, and it is a great trial run for what it is like to live on a campus.”

Support for Students and Faculty

The program’s cost is $6,000 to $7,000, which covers tuition, housing and meals. However, financial aid is available to ensure that all admitted students can participate, regardless of family income. Acceptance is only based on academics, Nishiguchi said.

Funding from UCOP will help ��Ƶ��APP launch its first year. ��Ƶ��APP’s first COSMOS session will begin July 5, 2026. The campus is working closely with UC Davis to ensure a smooth rollout.

Students will apply to the program in early January and will have a choice of clusters from all six campuses.

Both Henderson and Nishiguchi expect ��Ƶ��APP’s program to grow, and Henderson said ��Ƶ��APP might also have opportunities to host additional clusters in future years — particularly in 2028, when UCLA’s COSMOS program may pause due to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“We were thinking maybe some of their faculty could bring their clusters up here,” Henderson said. “That would give students more clusters to choose from and could lead to new collaborations between our faculty and UCLA’s.”

For ��Ƶ��APP, the arrival of COSMOS marks a major step in expanding access to high-level STEM education — not only for the state’s top high school students but also for the region’s future scientists and innovators.

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Professor and Environmental Champion Bales Retires, But Research and Advocacy Continue

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 17:03:15 +0000

November 10, 2025

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

Professor Roger Bales

Professors Roger Bales and Martha Conklin arrived in Merced in 2003, the first non-administrative faculty members at ��Ƶ��APP. They came with a vision: to create a research university that would serve California’s future.

Now, after more than 22 years of building institutions, mentoring and pioneering environmental research, Bales has retired from ��Ƶ��APP.

“Some people came here to build research programs and some to build departments. But we really came to build a research university, because we already had well-established research programs,” Bales said. “And with ��Ƶ��APP receiving Research-1 status this year, we feel that our goal has been realized. Our efforts and those of the other founding faculty provided the strong start that helped bring ��Ƶ��APP to where it is now.

“It’s time to hand over the academic development to the next generation. We can be the senior scientists in the room, work, mentor younger colleagues, provide more service to the state, and advocate on behalf of the university and science. Those are sorely needed right now.”

A Career Rooted in Science and Service

Bales’ academic journey spans decades and disciplines. He earned a Ph.D. in environmental engineering science and an M.S. in social science from Caltech, an M.S. in civil engineering from UC Berkeley, and a B.S. in civil engineering from Purdue University. Before ��Ƶ��APP, he was a professor in the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Arizona, where he helped secure tens of millions of dollars in research funding.

At ��Ƶ��APP, Bales helped establish and raise awareness of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute and led efforts to integrate science with public policy and community needs. His work focused on hydrology, water resources and climate resilience — issues central to California’s future.

“I think the thing I’m most proud of in my time here is building the partnerships that have resulted in impactful research for the state,” he said. “We have a mission to serve the needs of the state. That includes knowledge building as well as our graduates.”

Building a University from the Ground Up

The early years at ��Ƶ��APP were marked by a kind of camaraderie and closeness between faculty, staff and students that can only be found at a young university. It also meant a heavy workload.

“What we did was what we anticipated doing, but there was just more of it,” Bales said.

Despite the challenges, Bales found enthusiasm and eagerness among the staff and faculty. He recalled his first day walking into the Castle research facility and being greeted by IT staff making a house call to help him get started.

“Can you imagine them doing that today?” he said. “They are way too busy now.”

“We really felt it was a good team,” he said.

That spirit of collaboration extended to hiring and mentoring new faculty. Bales helped recruit researchers such as Safeeq Khan, whose initial position was co-funded by the Forest Service and later transitioned to UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. Now, Khan is a professor in the School of Engineering.

“Roger is a one-of-a-kind mentor who deeply cares about your success,” Khan said. “We’ve worked on a range of projects, from helping local agency partners with data and analysis to advancing the fundamental science of Sierra Nevada hydrology.”

A Deep Commitment to the Sierra Nevada

Much of Bales’ research has centered on the Sierra Nevada, where he has integrated hydrology, soils, ecosystem science and resource management. He co-led the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory and worked with dozens of collaborators on projects that have shaped state policy.

“Our work in the Sierra Nevada wasn’t just Martha and me,” he said. “It was 50 or 100 people who over the years collaborated with us.”

Bales has advised agencies on forest fuels treatments, helping them understand how thinning small trees can reduce wildfire severity. He’s also conducted long-term evaluations of past treatments to determine their effectiveness.

And just because he’s retiring doesn’t mean he’s done working. He has plenty of ongoing projects.

“We’re doing a statewide valuation of the benefits of forest fuels treatments,” he said. “We need up to about $4 billion a year to do fuels treatments in California just to keep up with what’s going on. This year, the legislature appropriated but a fraction of that.”

His work aims to help agencies spend limited funds more effectively.

“They know what to do,” he said, “but if we can give them better, more usable data, they can make more effective decisions and engage other funding partners in forest restoration.”

Climate Advocacy and Innovation

Bales has long been a vocal advocate for climate action. He serves on the UC President’s Global Climate Leadership Council and was a member of the UC Fossil Free Task Force, which recently submitted its final report to the UC Regents.

He’s also helping launch “Campus as a Living Laboratory,” an initiative to decarbonize UC campuses and serve as models for broader climate solutions.

“It’s more than just swapping out natural gas for electricity,” Bales said. “It’s engaging the creativity of all of us. I feel encouraged that the next generation may be more successful than I was in engaging people actively. I don't think there's anything more important than being a good example for the energy transition.”

The initiative will explore practical solutions, such as using occupancy sensors to modulate ventilation and energy use in labs.

There are countless such changes that could bring the campus closer to full decarbonization. It’s a matter of assessing them and finding ways to implement them more broadly. That’s what the new initiative is about.

“We’re really trying to engage the whole campus community in what is the defining crisis of our lifetimes,” he said.

Even on vacation, Bales is thinking about how to make things better.

“On one trip, we visited the Sierra Nevada in Spain. I wanted to see some acequias from the 8th century, after the Islamic conquest. They built impressive water systems that recharge water high in the watershed, allowing it to flow underground and emerge as springs in villages needing water during the Mediterranean summer,” he explained.

“Later cultures abandoned these recharge channels, but they're starting to revive them because these villages are running out of water in late summer. I’ve been thinking about how such a system could be used here in California.

“In the bigger picture, building new dams is challenging, and just doesn’t pencil out economically. What is ripe for more investment is subsurface storage. We need a broader mindset for storing winter precipitation for dry-season and drought-year use. My initial advocacy will be for the science to investigate innovations and show whether we can make them work.”

Mentorship and Legacy

Bales’ influence extends far beyond his own research. He has mentored students and postdocs who now work across the country on climate-related challenges — from floodplain mapping in Tennessee and forest restoration in the Western U.S. to polar glaciology — and said he hopes faculty across the university will take the time to equip their students with the tools needed to address these challenges.

To that end, he is still working with one of ��Ƶ��APP’s recent Ph.D. graduates, project scientist Brandi McKuin. Their shared interest in climate solutions led to collaborative research on placing solar panels over canals, resulting in a pilot program called Project Nexus. The state allocated $20 million for the project, for which Turlock Irrigation District installed solar panels over its water canals, which are projected to save water by reducing evaporation, reducing maintenance needs, and avoiding repurposing valuable farmland or sensitive natural lands for energy production.

“It’s exciting to work with Roger because he’s a rainmaker,” McKuin said. “He’s a very positive person who focuses on the big picture. Besides being brilliant, I think optimism is one of his superpowers.”

McKuin credits Bales with teaching her how to build coalitions, communicate science effectively and approach research with interdisciplinary thinking.

“I’ve learned so much from him,” she said. “From systems thinking to navigating media requests, Roger has helped me become a more effective scientist.”

Khan echoed that sentiment, recalling a moment when Bales told him, ‘You can train a student or postdoc on how to do science, but you cannot teach them snowshoeing.’

“At the time, I thought that was ridiculous,” Khan said. “Now, as a PI, I get what he meant. We often ignore these soft skills when recruiting, but they can become bottlenecks when doing research in harsh terrains.”

Recreation and Reflection

Despite his demanding career, Bales has always made time for the outdoors. He’s an avid downhill and backcountry skier and backpacker, often combining recreation with fieldwork in the Sierra.

“Working in the Sierras cuts into my recreation time in the Sierra,” he joked.

Last summer, he and Conklin, who retired in 2023, hiked 32 miles through the High Sierra. This fall, he went on a backpacking and camping trip there by himself. Because they now live in the Bay Area, Bales said he and Conklin have been going to the beach more often and taking advantage of the region’s cultural offerings.

They've also been traveling a bit, but however far he ventures, California’s Sierra Nevada remains his go-to place.

A Rare Dual-Campus Status

Bales’ retirement from ��Ƶ��APP automatically meant he retired from the UC. But because he was an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, he is continuing to make contributions to both campuses as a professor emeritus.

“I’m doing research and teaching the same graduate water-resources course at Berkeley that I taught at Merced,” he said. “It’s a popular course because the students say they leave it knowing what to do when they get jobs. One year, I was not planning on teaching it, and a bunch of students came to my office and said, ‘Hey, we came to Berkeley to take your course. Will you please?’” he said.

He plans to continue teaching for another year or two and mentoring master’s students in Berkeley’s large graduate program.

He is continuing his work with the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Global Climate Leadership Council and other groups advancing evidence-based decision-making with greater scientific input.

He also has a project with Professor Jeanette Cobian, who just moved to UC Davis, and professors Steve Hart and Safeeq Khan on carbon balance in the Sierra Nevada.

“We want to try to sequester carbon in our forests. But we also want to provide wildfire safety, which means removing carbon from the forest. So we're trying to figure out how we satisfy those opposite objectives,” he said.

Healthy forests have long been a focus of Bales’ research and advocacy. He is still conducting research on thinning projects from 10 years ago and the efforts of agencies to remove fire fuels, such as undergrowth, from the forests.

Looking Ahead

As he transitions into a more senior-scientist role, Bales plans to focus on mentoring, advocacy and continuing his research collaborations. He’s excited about working with younger colleagues and helping them navigate the challenges of climate science.

“I’m looking forward to being able to do more advocacy for the things that I think will help the university and the state and the people of California,” he said. “I’m also excited to see what the university’s next chapters will bring.”

As Bales steps into this new chapter, his legacy continues to resonate with the people he’s mentored and the landscapes he’s helped protect.

Khan reflected on the depth and breadth of Bales’ journey.

“Roger is a curious wanderer who has journeyed 50-plus years in pursuit of hydrologic science, from Greenland to the Sierra Nevada, and making this planet better for everyone.”

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Unraveling Cancer’s Neural Connections: NIH-Funded Study Investigates How Stem Cell Regulation Influences Tissue Renewal, Cancer Development

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 17:02:33 +0000

By Lorena Anderson, ��Ƶ��APP

November 3, 2025

The National Institutes for Health are funding Professor Oviedo's research into the signals that regulate early cancer development.

The same cellular renewal that keeps our bodies healthy might also fuel the growth of cancer. A ��Ƶ��APP biologist has found that the brain could hold the key to stopping it.

Professor Néstor Oviedo, a molecular and cell biologist and affiliate of the Health Sciences Research Institute, received more than $2 million from the National Institutes of Health to investigate signals mediating the earliest stages of cancer development. His findings could one day change how doctors think about treating cancer and age-related diseases.

“Our initial data suggest that key cancer symptoms can be selectively removed by activating signals from the nervous system,” Oviedo said. “In other words, by turning down brain molecular switches, we can control cancer.”

The five-year project, funded through the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, focuses on a biological paradox: The same cell-renewal processes that keep tissues functioning also create endless opportunities for mutations to occur. Every day, the body replaces billions of cells, but with each division comes a chance for error.

That constant renewal is one reason more than 90% of human cancers begin in epithelial tissues, such as the skin or the lining of the gut — places where cells are replaced most frequently.

“Understanding how cancer emerges during this renewal process is extremely challenging,” Oviedo said. “Different tissues regenerate at different speeds, and the signals they receive from surrounding tissues can profoundly influence how cells behave.”

One of the earliest steps in cancer development is DNA damage, particularly double-strand breaks — the most dangerous type. But scientists still don’t fully understand how some damaged cells manage to survive, multiply and become tumors.

A Simple Organism, a Powerful Model

To tackle that question, Oviedo and his lab turned to an unlikely organism: planarian flatworms. These small, freshwater worms are famous for their regenerative abilities — cut one in half, and it can grow into two complete animals.

Planarians owe that regenerative power to their stem cells, called neoblasts, which can become any cell type in the body. Oviedo’s lab has spent years developing genetic tools to study how these cells behave — making planarians a surprisingly powerful model for understanding cancer.

By disrupting a tumor-suppressing gene known as PTEN — one of the most frequently inactivated genes in human cancers — the researchers can trigger a cancer-like condition in planarians within just 12 days.

“It was fascinating to see many traits of cancer evolution develop in less than two weeks,” Oviedo said. “Other models take much longer and are far more costly. The planarian model lets us induce cancer-like symptoms and track, in real time, how normal cells transition to cancerous ones.”

The changes were dramatic. Shortly after PTEN disruption, the worms showed unchecked cell growth, tissue invasion and tumor-like formations — all hallmarks of cancer.

Neural Signals That Stop Cancer

Then came the surprise: When the team interfered with neural signals, the worms’ cancer-like symptoms began to disappear.

“Remarkably, by altering communication between the nervous system and stem cells, we could suppress these cancer traits,” Oviedo said. “That finding opened an entirely new area of investigation — one where the brain itself may play a protective role against cancer.”

This discovery could help explain why some tissues are more prone to cancer than others and how stress, aging or neurological health might influence cancer risk.

The research team will now combine genetic, cellular and genomic analyses to study how damaged stem cells survive and proliferate, and how neural pathways might control that process.

“It’s still too early to apply these findings clinically,” Oviedo said. “But we expect to begin testing them soon in mammalian cancer models. To my knowledge, this is the first evidence showing that modulation of neural signals can specifically eliminate cancer cells without affecting normal cells.”

Beyond Cancer

While cancer remains the focus, Oviedo’s work could also shed light on degenerative diseases linked to aging, which may share underlying mechanisms with cancer.

“Many age-related conditions might be affected by DNA changes that can be targeted by disrupting specific neural signals,” Oviedo said. “We believe this approach could eventually be useful in addressing those conditions as well.”

In addition to the cancer project, Oviedo’s research group studies how stem cells are regulated during tissue regeneration and how the immune system responds to fungal infections. The new NIH grant will support that broader work, funding staff, graduate students and new experiments through 2030.

The project’s official title — “Mechanisms of Stem Cell Regulation During Tissue Renewal and Cancer Development” — reflects a wide-ranging exploration of life’s most fundamental processes.

From Basic Science to Big Possibilities

For Oviedo, who has long championed basic biological research, the NIH funding affirms the value of studying simple systems to answer complex questions.

“Planarians might seem like an odd choice for cancer research,” he said with a smile. “But nature often hides its best clues in unexpected places. These worms help us see the connections between systems — between regeneration, the nervous system and disease.”

Those connections, he believes, could ultimately reshape how scientists and clinicians approach cancer — not just as a disease of rogue cells, but as a breakdown in the communication networks that normally keep them in check.

“We are committed to understanding the molecular signals involved in this process,” Oviedo said. “If we can learn to restore the body’s natural balance, we may find new ways to prevent or reverse cancer altogether.”

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University of California, Merced - Lorena Anderson

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Unlocking the Secrets of Tiny, Living Clocks Could Revolutionize Science

������Ƶ����APP Scientists Among Global Elite Shaping AI, Climate and Health

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Professor and Environmental Champion Bales Retires, But Research and Advocacy Continue

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COSMOS Expands to ��Ƶ��APP, Opening Doors for California’s Brightest Young Scientists