Staff Members Support University’s Research Mission

While UC Merced’s outstanding faculty members are always front and center as the primary movers of the university’s research mission, the campus also relies heavily on a large corps of staff members whose remarkable commitment to that mission shows clearly in their work. While it’s not possible to credit every staff member supporting research on campus, a sampling of those staffers reveals long hours dedicated, years of training put to work, and innovative thinking applied to the unique challenges of pursuing university-level research at a start-up campus.

Winning a Grant: A Case Study

When Dean Maria Pallavicini and Professor Michelle Khine recently received wide recognition for winning a $4.36 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) for a Stem Cell Instrumentation Foundry to be housed at UC Merced’s Castle facility, contributions from several staffers made a vital difference. These aspects of the proposal were instrumental in convincing CIRM that UC Merced could indeed get the foundry up and running in the allotted two years by relying on efficient ways to rehabilitate and reuse existing space... [more]

Staff Researchers Keep Knowledge Moving Forward

Staff researchers and postdoctoral researchers are vital to the advancement of knowledge at UC Merced. These researchers apply their own knowledge and training – most often at the Ph.D. level – to a team effort led by a faculty member, often with significant autonomy and responsibility... [more]

Office of Research Offers Various Forms of Support

UC Merced’s Office of Research has several forms of support in place for faculty researchers and their staff colleagues.

Thea Vicari, director of the Sponsored Projects Office, and her staff track and receive research grant funding for faculty members – administering sometimes complicated accounts and ensuring that various needs for the faculty and the university are met appropriately from that funding... [more]

Governor’s Revision, Student Fee Hike Bring UC Budget Closer to Balance

The May budget revision from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office restores $98.5 million of UC funding that the January budget proposed cutting but still falls short of covering the university's operational needs for 2008-09. The UC Office of the President said that both spending cuts and increased student fees will be needed to address the shortfall.

"We very much welcome the governor's proposal to restore some of the funding for public higher education that had been proposed for cuts," President Robert C. Dynes said. "However, the May Revision still does not meet all of the university's needs for the upcoming year. Our enrollment is growing, and our costs, like everyone's, are increasing with inflation... [more]

Yudof Prepared to Hit the Ground Running

When former University of Texas Chancellor Mark G. Yudof steps into his new role as University of California president on June 16, he will hit the ground running. In his first year, he plans to evaluate the UC system, cut unnecessary spending and re-allocate funds – all while examining each department individually.

“I think there are some things we do at the system level that we shouldn’t be doing at all,” Yudof said in an April 29 teleconference for campus news organizations. “I ask myself, ‘Do we add value to what the campuses are doing or is it something they can handle on their own?’”

Yudof projects significant budget cuts for the Office of the President and intends to re-allocate funds to the UC campuses to help cover costs like faculty salaries and scholarships... [more]

Nature Medicine Spotlights Bioengineering Professor and Students

How do Shrinky Dinks make it into one of the biggest medical science publications out there? There’s only one path so far, and it goes through the lab of Professor Michelle Khine of the School of Engineering. Khine and two of her students, Anthony Grimes and Chi-Shuo Chen, were spotlighted in the May 7 issue of Nature Medicine for their work designing microfluidic devices using Shrinky Dinks, a laser printer and a toaster oven. Khine said the article has generated worldwide interest in their techniques, which they have also shared on JOVE, an online platform for videos of science procedures.