Facebook Fans Can Now Find UC Merced’s Official Page

Official presence on popular social networking site offers links, video, info, open forums


MERCED – It’s rare to find a college student who’s not connected with friends on Facebook.

The University of California, Merced, now provides an official presence on the popular social networking site including links, photos, videos, and the chance to talk freely with others interested in the goings-on at the newest UC campus.


“This is a natural way to reach out to current and future students, not to mention families and friends who want to stay current with what’s happening at UC Merced,” said Patti Waid Istas, executive director of communications for the rapidly growing campus. “There are already dozens of UC Merced-focused groups and events listed on Facebook. Our official page provides a great starting place on the site for people interested in our campus.”


Many universities, including UC Davis and UCLA, have found Facebook to be a natural fit for them – which makes sense, considering the site was started as a student networking tool at Harvard University.

Only recently, Facebook has begun to allow the general public to join up. That means you don’t have to be officially associated with UC Merced to follow its Facebook page.

After joining Facebook, you can just type “UC Merced” into the site’s search box, click “UC Merced Official Page” and choose to “become a fan.” It’s an easy way to follow university news, link to other official campus Facebook pages and groups, get a glimpse of what’s happening on campus, and connect with other people interested in UC Merced.

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Media Contact:
Tonya Luiz, UC Merced Communications

Toyota Donates $600,000 and Five Hybrid Vehicles to Expand Education Programs at Yosemite and UC Merced

Representatives from Toyota visited the UC Merced campus today to present a check for $600,000 and five hybrid vehicles to support environmental education programs at Yosemite National Park and the university.

The donation was facilitated through the park’s nonprofit fundraising partner, The Yosemite Fund. The park will use Toyota’s contribution to support the Yosemite Leadership Program (YLP), a partnership between Yosemite, UC Merced and California State Parks. The internship program provides students with work experience in a park, wilderness education, a living stipend and the opportunity for possible future employment with the park. In addition, Toyota funds are being used to refurbish cabins in the park to be used as dorms for the interns.

Media Inquiries:
Brenda Ortiz
Office of Communications
(209) 228-4203

New Equipment at UC Merced Will Help Examine Robot-human Interactions, Complex Robot Tasks

$476,500 NSF grant will buy two advanced robotic units for cognitive science and computer science study at Central Valley research campus starting next year

MERCED - Real robotics isn’t like an old sci-fi movie where robots are out to take humans’ jobs and run the world.

Instead, say the scientists who will use newly funded robotics equipment at the University of California, Merced, the humanoid robots that will be developed in the next 20 years will serve as helpers for people. They may step in on jobs that are too dangerous for human hands, like defusing bombs, or too tedious for our taste, like washing the nightly dinner dishes.

But the science of robotics needs to take some big steps to create the machines that can both manage those kinds of tasks and interact effectively with people. That’s where the new UC Merced robotics equipment – funded with a new $476,500 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation program – will come in.

“This is a significant boost for our Computer Science and Engineering program and will have strong positive impact for our both our teaching and research programs,” said Dean Jeff Wright of the UC Merced School of Engineering. “Professor Carpin and his colleagues are developing a facility that is truly unique and innovative among top Engineering programs in the country; our current and future students will be the real beneficiaries of this vision.”

A team of five investigators in computer science and cognitive science at UC Merced are now ordering the equipment – a humanoid robot that will run on its own, as well as advanced, three-fingered robotic arms that they will connect with a torso and head to be built on by UC Merced graduate students. The NSF funds will also be used for state-of-the art motion capture cameras, which will allow mapping motions from people to the robots. The team expects the equipment to arrive around the beginning of 2009.

“With these two systems, we can study a wide range of problems in robotics,” said Professor Stefano Carpin, the robotics expert who led UC Merced’s team to a second-place finish in the worldwide RoboCup virtual rescue robot competition last summer. “The small humanoid robot will be ideal for studying human-robot interactions, and the arm-torso-head assemblage will help us investigate complex tasks, gestures and hand-vision coordination.”

Such a broad array of tasks requires a talented team of researchers. Professors Marcelo Kallmann, a computer motion specialist; Teenie Matlock, a cognitive scientist specializing in language and embodied cognition; Shawn Newsam, who studies computer vision; and David Noelle, a cognitive neuroscientist, are also principal investigators on the new grant. With distribution of expertise through these fields in engineering and cognitive science, they are poised for deeply interdisciplinary research in robotics.

The team is now in the process of finding the right spot for the equipment at UC Merced. Fortunately, their space needs – always a consideration on this rapidly growing campus – are modest, especially in view of the potential for discovery using the new equipment.

The humanoid robot measures up at about two and a half feet tall – “more the size of a monkey than a human,” Carpin said. Its small size may seem cute and friendly to people, but the real advantage is that smaller is cheaper – not to mention easier to store.

The robotic arms in the lab are expected to be under high demand. Carpin noted that a lab at Stanford, housing only one arm of the same type as the two he is ordering for UC Merced, is busy with researchers around the clock.

Made by Barrett Technology in Massachusetts, the arm has three fingers compared with only two on most others. Carpin said it is the most advanced device of its type available.

“This will help us attract and retain students and faculty,” he said.

Student involvement will be an important piece of the new robotics lab, as it is for most research occurring at UC Merced. Grad students built the head that will top the arm assembly, and many grad students will use the new lab. Carpin said the next step will be bringing in undergraduates – possibly through another NSF program for which he will be applying in the spring – to program software simulations that will allow pre-testing of different protocols before researchers try them on the actual lab equipment.

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CONTACT:
Professor Stefano Carpin
UC Merced School of Engineering

Ana Nelson Shaw
UC Merced Office of Communications
(209) 228-4406

Toyota Gift Benefits Yosemite and UC Merced

On Monday, Sept. 29, Toyota will present a check totaling more than $600,000 and five hybrid vehicles to The Yosemite Fund to be used by Yosemite National Park to support a number of environmental education programs at Yosemite and UC Merced.

Media inquires:
Brenda Ortiz
Office of Communications

Crowded House: UC Merced Solar Symposium Fills Up

On Friday, Sept. 26, experts in the solar energy field will converge on the UC Merced campus to present to a full house at "Solar Energy: Today and Tomorrow."

The goal of the symposium, jointly sponsored by the UC Merced Energy Research Institute (UCMERI) and the Dan David Foundation, is to promote public knowledge about present and future solar energy technologies.

At the newly-created UCMERI, more than a dozen UC Merced professors from the Schools of Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts are conducting cross-disciplinary research.

In the area of solar energy alone, UC Merced researchers are studying: thermodynamically efficient (nonimaging) solar concentration for photovoltaic, solar thermal, and solar daylighting; carbon nanotube solar cells and quantum dot semiconductors for solar energy conversion; and the combination of satellite and radar data with ground-based solar irradiance measurements to forecast solar irradiance.

Read more

Media contact:
Brenda Ortiz
Office of Communications
(209) 228-4203

UC Merced on Verge of Greek Life

When it comes to creating a robust network of student clubs and organizations, planning is key. The other key to student networking is Greek life, something the UC Merced Office of Student Life has researched almost since the campus opened. With the recent application of a group of young men who seek to become the newest chapter of Alpha Sigma Chi Omega, UC Merced is on the cusp of going Greek. Nick Nakamura, who led the student initiative to colonize a Sigma Chi chapter on campus, says his group should receive its charter next semester.

Read more.

Media Contact:
Tonya Luiz
Office of Communications
(209) 228-4408

UC Merced Senior Focuses on Environment

UC Merced was the perfect choice for senior Sunny Grunloh, who studies environmental sciences. She was attracted to the university’s thriving Sierra Nevada Research Institute and connections with Yosemite National Park.

In fact, she spent her summer learning about black carbon – soot and char, for example – in Yosemite.

Read more.

Contact:
Ana Shaw
Office of Communications

'Soft Matter' Researcher Focuses on Human Health

In between liquid and solid, there’s a kind of matter that we see much more than we realize. Soft matter includes everything from gels to rubber to most of the human body. That means understanding soft matter is important for human health as well as for technology applications like liquid crystal displays, or LCD monitors.

Professor Linda Hirst specializes in soft matter physics as it’s applied in human health, materials science and technology. She studies how soft matter is assembled and how it changes under different conditions such as heating and cooling or electric fields.

Read more.

Contact:
Ana Nelson Shaw
Office of Communications

UC Merced Hosts Yosemite Lake Cleanup

Merced may not have the climate of a coastal community, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a coast. UC Merced neighbors Lake Yosemite, which is a freshwater reservoir built in 1888 for irrigation purposes and a popular recreation area for locals.

The UC Merced Office of Student Life is partnering with Sigma Chi and the Green Club to clean up the accessible areas of Lake Yosemite from 9 a.m. to noon on Sept. 20. Volunteers will meet at 9 a.m. at the Lake Yosemite Sailing Association, 5714 N. Lake Road.

The local initiative is part of California Coastal Cleanup Day, a statewide volunteer event that has collected more than 12 million pounds of trash and recyclables from beaches, lakes and waterways since its inception in 1985.

Contact:
Tonya Luiz
Office of Communications
(209) 228-4408
tluiz@ucmerced.edu

‘The Political Mind’ Author to Visit UC Merced

The political mind is a complicated thing, says George Lakoff, an acclaimed UC Berkeley cognitive scientist who has written numerous books on the subject. It’s complicated because how we think isn’t just emotional; it’s also physical, which Lakoff says explains why conservatives and liberals respond so strongly to their differences – even if they live nowhere near each other.

Lakoff will discuss politics and the mind at UC Merced on Sept. 23. His talk begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Lakireddy Auditorium. It is free and open to the public

To read more, click here.

Contact:
Tonya Luiz
Office of Communications
(209) 228-4408

It's Official: UC Merced News Has Launched

In case you didn't know, UC Merced News is a living, breathing news blog.
Tell your friends.
Click here for all the details or e-mail tluiz@ucmerced.edu.

UC Merced Housing, LRDP at UC Regents Next Week

UC Merced officials will present two items at the meetings of The Regents of the University of California on Tuesday, Sept. 16, at the UC Irvine campus.

First, the approval of design for Student Housing Phase 3 is anticipated. This year, on-campus housing was able to accommodate about 1,075 students. With an anticipated student population of 4,000 by 2010-11, demand for on-campus housing could reach 1,900 beds. Student Housing Phase 3 will help meet that need. Construction will begin later this year, and the new facility will open August 2010.
To read more, click here.

Next, an update on the proposed revision of the campus’ Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) and necessary environmental permits for development of the campus beyond its existing 104-acre footprint. This update precedes the Fall 2008 release of the Draft LRDP/Draft Environmental Impact Report.
To read more, click here.

Live audio Internet broadcasts of the open sessions are available during the open session meetings of the UC Regents. Click here to connect to the audio stream during the meeting.

Information about the September Regents meeting can be found by clicking here.

For information about the two UC Merced items, contact:
Patti Waid Istas
UC Merced Office of Communications
pistas@ucmerced.edu
(209) 228-4483

Pope's Scientific Advisor Anchors UC Merced Solar Symposium

Amid concerns about rising gas prices and the growing need for environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuels, the University of California, Merced, will host a solar symposium, “Solar Energy: Today and Tomorrow,” at 8 a.m. Friday, Sept. 26.

Italian physicist Nicola Cabibbo, president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, will present the keynote address. He will provide insight into how solar technology is being implemented in Europe and describe how advances in solar technology can help to shape the global energy discussion.

The symposium, jointly sponsored by the UC Merced Energy Research Institute (UCMERI) and the Dan David Foundation, was designed to promote public knowledge regarding present and future solar energy technologies, and to examine the current state of the solar energy industry.

To read more, click here.

Planning Office Established to Finalize UC Merced Med School Proposal

Chancellor appoints Vice Provost for Health Sciences, hires Washington Advisory Group

University of California, Merced, Chancellor Steve Kang today announced the appointment of Maria Pallavicini as vice provost for health sciences. Pallavicini, who is dean of the School of Natural Sciences and has led the campus’ medical school planning process, will now function in a dual capacity for UC Merced. She will divide her time serving as vice provost to continue plans to establish a new School of Medicine and, as dean, she will continue to oversee the School of Natural Sciences.

“When we received approval in May from the UC Board of Regents to continue planning for a medical school, our next step was to put in place leadership that will move our medical school proposal forward to completion,” said Kang. “Maria Pallavicini has spearheaded this project from the beginning. She possesses the expertise, the vision and the background needed to finalize the proposal by continuing to work in close consultation with the faculty, our academic and community partners, UC Davis and UCSF, and the UC Office of the President to obtain consensus.”

Pallavicini's appointment, and the hiring of the Washington Advisory Group, enables UC Merced to move forward with its medical school proposal and the goal of presenting a finalized plan to the UC Board of Regent in July 2009.

To read more, click here.

Tip! Citizen Academy at UC Merced

College students aren't the only ones going back to school this fall. As part of its ongoing outreach efforts, the UC Merced Police Department is hosting its first-ever Citizen Police Academy this semester. The 10-week class will begin Sept. 17 and is open to the public, but space is limited.

There are 20 seats available for the class, which will meet from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. every Wednesday in Room 260 of the Classroom and Office Building. Registration will be based on first come, first served, with priority given to UC Merced students.

Topics to be discussed include the law enforcement hiring process, the criminal justice system, DUI investigations, high-tech crimes and domestic violence. Those who attend will participate in group activities and scenario-based training to teach participants how law enforcement functions.

Public contact: Officer George Gongora, (209) 228-2677 or ggongora@ucmerced.edu.

Tip! Agreement with Korean university tomorrow!

Tomorrow (Sept. 9) at 10 a.m., the UC Merced School of Engineering will be signing an agreement for cooperation with Korea’s Chungbuk University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The agreement opens the way for cooperation in the following areas:

• Exchange of faculty
• Exchange of students
• Joint research activities and publications
• Participation in seminars and academic meetings
• Exchange of academic materials and information
• Short-term academic programs
• Joint projects at senior and graduate levels

Journalists are welcome to attend. For more info, please contact:

Ana Nelson Shaw
UC Merced Office of Communications
ashaw@ucmerced.edu

A New Perspective on Yosemite: Under the Rocks, Little Creatures

Alejandro Miró Co remembers his parents, both doctors, telling him not to play in the dirt – he’d get sick. He’s come a long way from those days to his current work in the UC Merced Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, turning over rocks in the Merced River in Yosemite National Park, looking for aquatic macroinvertebrates to catalog using ultra-modern DNA barcoding techniques.

To read more, click here.

New Professor Thinking Big on Sustainable Biofuels, Index Crop Insurance

Professor J. Elliott Campbell and his new employer – UC Merced – have one big thing in common: They may be the rookies on the block, but they don’t let that keep them from making a global impact.

Campbell, a new assistant professor in the School of Engineering, has already received nationwide attention for a recent study completed during his postdoctoral appointment at Stanford, concluding that the United States could meet up to 6 percent of its energy needs with biofuels produced on “marginal” ag land.

To read more, click here.

What Makes Humans 'Human'?

Anthropology professors study past, present to determine why do we what we do

MERCED – As UC Merced welcomes its fourth freshman class, the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts introduces its newest major course of study: Anthropology.

A social science dedicated to understanding humankind’s diversity and what makes humans “human,” anthropology is an ideal academic program for the new and growing university that seeks to prepare students for personal and professional success in a globalizing world.

To read more, click here.

UC Merced Reaches Out to Community

Campus Fair Offers Opportunity for Groups to Meet Students

MERCED – The University of California, Merced, Office of Student Life invites Merced-area organizations to participate in the 2008-09 Community Involvement Fair, which will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 17.

The annual event offers students a chance to everything the community has to offer its college-age residents. The fair allows civic organizations, nonprofit groups and businesses the chance to reach out to students by hosting information booths. In past years, booths have offered information on local dining, shopping and volunteering opportunities that are geared toward UC Merced students.

The fair be set up outside the Leo and Dottie Kolligian Library, which is on the UC Merced campus at the end of Scholars Lane. Visitor parking (permit required) is available at the bottom of the hill in the Lake lot

For information on participating in the fair as a vendor, contact Student Life Coordinator Jim Greenwood, 209-205-0873 or jgreenwood@ucmerced.edu.

Major New Sculpture to Reflect UC Merced’s Mission in Central Valley

MERCED, CA -- The hopes and aspirations of the rapidly growing University of California, Merced campus will be captured metaphorically in a major new piece of sculpture – a gift to the university – to be erected in the central courtyard this academic year.

“Beginnings,” inspired by former Acting Chancellor Rod Park in 2006 and conceived by noted American sculptor Aris Demetrios, will consist of two gently curving, vertical arms, each about 40 feet high, rising from a large circular base. The enfolding arms are a metaphor for the embrace of a caring university that values its students and its community and the germination of a seed representing the growth and ever-increasing potential of UC Merced. This work is unique among university sculptures in that it says, “this is what we are and what we do.”

The burnished stainless-steel sculpture will be located at the open end of the quad in the academic core of campus, facing the city of Merced.

To read more, click here.