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Three Professors Earn CAREER Awards
Three UC Merced professors earned National Science Foundation CAREER awards, bringing to 31 the number of university researchers to receive the prestigious honor. The award recognizes untenured faculty members’ achievements as teacher-scholars.
Professor Sachin Goyal
Goyal, a mechanical engineering specialist, was awarded for research into how arrangements of atoms and interatomic bonds affect the deformability of biological filaments such as those that control gene expression, and whether it’s possible to design them by changing the atomistic configurations. Goyal will receive $500,000 in support over the next five years.
Professor Xuecai GE
Ge, a developmental neurobiologist, was awarded for her research into the molecular mechanisms that direct brain formation and how errors in cell signaling lead to developmental disorders. Ge will receive $1.3 million in support over the next five years.
Professor David Strubbe
Strubbe, a computational physicist, was awarded for his research into improving the fundamental understanding of the interaction of light and vibrations in materials. Strubbe will receive $500,000 in support over the next five years.
Eye on the Environment
UC Merced’s research community is a leader in climate change research, making inquiries into everything from fires to food. We investigating how our planet works, giving communities and their leaders the knowledge necessary to improve their quality of life by monitoring and managing our resources.
Emergency management and health services require proper investments and adequate planning in underserved frontline communities. The agricultural identity of the Valley can become an important asset for mitigation and adaptation strategies, and to promote environmental and socioeconomic justice — if some regenerative-agriculture practices are incentivized with adequate policies.
Angel Santiago Fernandez-Bou |UC Merced postdoctoral researcher and lead author of Fourth California Climate Change Assessment on the San Joaquin Valley
UC Merced Report targets Valley’s Valley's unique Challenges
The effects of climate change on the San Joaquin Valley and actions that could reduce the impacts are the subject of a timely report authored by UC Merced researchers and affiliates and published by the California government.
The 76-page San Joaquin Valley Summary Report for the state’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment acknowledges some of the Valley’s unique challenges, such as access to safe drinking water, poor air quality and vulnerable agricultural water supply.
The report builds on the UC Merced connection to the Valley, a primary focus for research, , not just on climate change but in areas such as sustainability, water resources and health. It will be used by the state of California, nonprofit organizations and the general public as a resource for science and information about climate change’s effects on the Valley. The key solution to climate change in the Valley, according to the authors, is focusing on at-risk communities and the capacity to change their situation for multiple benefits. Climate change disproportionately affects Californians without sufficient infrastructure and economic resources — conditions common in numerous Valley communities.
Water for Ag, Ecosystems
A $10 million federal research grant – the largest in the university’s history – will drive a collaborative that focuses on water banking and trading, along with management practices for water-scarce regions in the United States.
Clouds and Climate Change
Professor Xuan Zhang is studying how emissions from pine trees help form clouds. Understanding the mechanisms of these atmospheric aerosols can help fine-tune climate change modeling outputs and knowing what is to come.
Watching the Trees
The rate of forest regeneration in the face of climate change is the focus of research by Professor Emily Moran and her team, which is monitoring 11 sites in the Sierra Nevada for tree growth and death, seed production and seedling survival.
Not Just About Face: How Scrambling Visuals Affects Perception
Facial expression, many might think, is a dependable way to determine a person’s emotional state. But what if you were shown a picture of a happy face on body exuding fear – at the scene of a funeral?
Scrambling visual cues to see how it affects the perception of emotion was the thrust of a study by psychology Professor Eric Walle and UC Merced graduate and current Brigham Young University Professor Peter Reschke.
A total of 80 undergraduate students at UC Merced and BYU participated in the study, which was published recently in the journal Affective Science.
Shown various combinations of faces, postures and scenes, they were asked categorize the person's emotion in each image.
A little more than 60% of responses matched the emotion of the face. The rest did not. Moreover, nearly 10% of the participants saw an emotion that was not in any of the visual cues. The study found posture and scene could have an effect even when the participants were directed to the face and asked about the emotion portrayed.
"When these cues are combined, it's something greater than just the sum of its parts," Walle said. "Emotions aren't just facial expressions, but they're also not just postures and not just scenes. The idea is that all of these features interact."
Film Set in Yosemite, Merced Weds Shakespeare to Environment Justice
The Bard meets the fight for environment justice in a Shakespeare in Yosemite film created by UC Merced students, professional artists, National Park Service staff and Merced community members. “Imogen in the Wild,” a contemporary riff on “Cymbeline,” is the drama company’s first feature-length film. In the original, Cymbeline is a British king. In the adaptation, he is mayor of a modern-day town near “The Wild” – Yosemite National Park. Cymbeline is about to sign a deal that would exploit the land for its resources, with no regard for its ecosystem, the indigenous people who have cared for it for millennia or the damaging effects the deal would have on the town's health. Fourth-year English student Sofia Andom plays Cymbeline’s daughter, Imogen.
The film, shot in the park and around Merced, highlights several forms of environmental activism mobilized to "save The Wild," including eco-anthems written by UC Merced students. It attempts to show the links between the mistreatment of people and the land, and the need for collaborative action against destructive corporate practices. The adaptation was co-written by English Professors Katie Brokaw and Paul Prescott, along with former English lecturer Billy Wolfgang and members of the cast. About 40 UC Merced students participated in making the film. "It was truly one of the most ambitious theatrical projects of the pandemic,” Brokaw said, “and the result is a radical imagining of Shakespeare's play that centers on notions of environmental justice, which has, to our knowledge, never been done before, and certainly not in a national park."
The effects of low oxygen are really clear because there are essentially no large organisms found in the low-oxygen water at all. As a result, large organisms stay closer to the surface.
Professor Michael Beman
Microorganisms Eat Last Bits of Oxygen in Ocean Zones, Study Shows
Tiny organisms have a huge effect on marine life, gobbling up oxygen and preventing larger organisms from living in certain places – and these areas are expanding because of climate change.
UC Merced Professor Michael Beman recently published findings in the journal Nature Communications. He detailed work conducted during two research trips in the Pacific Ocean. The field and lab work involved collaborations with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and UC San Diego, with assistance from several current and former UC Merced graduate and undergraduate students.
Beman studies oceanic oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) – large, naturally occurring areas where there is little to no oxygen.
Microorganisms known as chemotrophs get energy by oxidizing nutrients in their environments. The team’s newest study shows a group of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria called Nitrospina have evolved into low-oxygen specialists.
OMZs are found predominantly in the eastern tropical north Pacific off Mexico and Central America, in the eastern tropical south Pacific off Peru and Chile and in the Arabian Sea to the east of India, Beman said. But these OMZs are expanding, and new ones are emerging because of climate change, affecting where large organisms can live.
“The effects of low oxygen are really clear because there are essentially no large organisms found in the low-oxygen water at all,” Beman said. “As a result, large organisms stay closer to the surface.”
Remembering the Kindness
and Caring of Jan Goggans
UC Merced founding faculty member and literature Professor Jan Goggans was admired for her kindness and for putting others first. She placed students at the center of their learning, calling out talents by validating their own lived experiences.
Goggans, who died at her home Feb. 3, arrived at the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts in 2005 and helped shape the school’s culture. Colleagues described her as UC Merced’s best imaginable ambassador, working tirelessly with Admissions to show students what a welcoming university is like. Her outreach also helped bring many faculty and staff to campus.
While Goggans taught mostly literature classes, she was an interdisciplinary cultural critic. Her research and classes focused on the often marginalized and forgotten, including working-class readers, Dust Bowl migrants and women whose writing was trivialized by those in power.
A memorial event for Goggans is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 2 in the UC Merced Conference Center. Everyone is invited to attend. Face coverings will be mandatory.
Colleagues and students share their memories of Jan Goggans
I first met Jan in 2010 when I interviewed for a job at UC Merced, and I adored her right away. Her passion for our students, her brilliance and her hilarious sense of humor endeared me to her, as they did to everyone who met her. When I moved to Merced, she made me feel welcome, even making me a dinner entirely of ingredients procured within walking distance of my new house to show me how ‘doable’ my new neighborhood was. I feel immensely lucky that I got to be her colleague and friend and will miss her terribly.
Students loved Jan because Jan loved students. She sympathized with their struggles and celebrated in their triumphs. She created dozens of classes at UC Merced in response to what students wanted to learn: Central Valley literature, LGBT fiction, literature and the natural world. She created research opportunities for students and mentored them with brilliance and kindness, inspiring hundreds.
– Katie Brokaw, English professor
For 16 years, Jan Goggans was more than a faculty colleague to me. She was a friend. Jan was from the Sacramento area and was passionate about the Central Valley and about UC Merced. Her connection to our region inspired her first book, ‘California on the Breadlines: Dorothea Lange, Paul Taylor, and the Making of a New Deal Narrative’ (2010). When she was writing the book, which focused on Dust Bowl migrations to the Central Valley and the hard living that followed, we exchanged scholarly ideas about motherhood, migration and long-distance, trans-national kinship. Some of those conversations made their way into her book. Everyone will tell you how much Jan loved fashion, and she was very stylish. Jan’s father was a tailor and through him she learned about fashion at a young age. Her most recent book, ‘Make it Work: 20th Century American Fiction and Fashion’ (2019) merged her expertise in literature, early 20th century U.S. social history and fashion. Her analysis of fashion depictions in literature explored representations of gender, social class, social mobility, age and more. It is beautiful to trace how her research interests link to her personal life journey. On a personal note, Jan called me ‘comadre,’ and we often spoke about our kids — her wonderful daughter and my wonderful son. She was as much a loving and caring mother as she was a friend. Jan Goggans’ departure leaves a big hole in my heart and, I’m sure, in the hearts of many here at UC Merced. So long, dear friend.
– Robin DeLugan, Anthropology professor
When I arrived at UC Merced in 2004, it was my first ‘real’ job and I was kind of nervous, but I was part of a friendly cohort of new faculty so I settled right in. I had no professional clothes, so Jan went shopping with me and helped me find stuff, which I wore, like, twice before I reverted to my usual ‘casual dowdy’ sartorial framework. I learned a great deal about California history from Jan, and really enjoyed talking to her and the other faculty and staff who were around building up the university. Jan and I lost touch as the campus grew, and so it came as a complete shock when I got word she had passed. What a terrible loss for the university and the region. She studied the history of the region but was also a part of that history. She was a welcoming presence to all who met her. – Jeffrey Yoshimi, Philosophy professor
Jan was loved by the staff and her colleagues. She was always positive, full of joy, funny, sassy and loved to talk about the Giants and baseball. She was so proud of her daughter. She treated students like her family, and many remained close with her long after graduating. She was really a bright light.
– Rebecca Smith, assistant dean for personnel, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts
I first met Dr. Jan Goggans as an undergraduate English major. She was the instructor for two classes I took, and from those experiences I gathered she was a kind and sweet person. I don’t know how she was able to remain that way when I would email her, almost annoyingly at times, because I was anxious. She had infinite patience, something I was incredibly grateful for at that time and would continue to be grateful for when I was her TA.
I was fortunate to work with her as a TA twice during my Ph.D. journey, and for the same class — English 54: The American Novel. We worked as a team, 100% on everything, while working remotely. We literally split the class between us. At the end of both semesters, I could get the needed practice regarding teaching a full class of students, leading the lecture subject as well as the follow-up discussion. The experience was invaluable. On top of that, Jan’s support during my Ph.D. was amazing! As I am sure other grad students are aware, qualifying exams are incredibly stressful. Jan was my saving grace while I worked on mine.
– Lyndsay Teegarden, Ph.D. candidate, interdisciplinary humanities
When I first met Dr. Goggans, she was witty and well-spoken, and she was always smiling. I remember thinking, ‘I want to be like her when I grow up.’ In our first encounter, she instilled in me a greater love for literature and a stronger urge to share my thoughts and ideas about the books we were reading. When I asked her to be my honors thesis advisor, she couldn’t have been happier. And neither could I. From that moment on, my thesis project wasn’t just mine. It was ours. We spent this past year sharing ideas, opinions, articles and books. Our phone calls consisted of me worrying I would never get to 75 pages and her only response was constant reassurance and an overwhelming amount of support. She was my teacher, my mentor, my role model and my friend.”
– Kaylin Insyarath, undergraduate English major
Jan was a beautiful human with one of the kindest souls I've ever known. She truly touched the lives of many staff, faculty and students and will be sorely missed. SSHA will have a hole that will never be filled.
– Megan Topete, assistant dean for student and instructional services, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts
WELCOME new Academic Personnel
Nov. 1, 2021 – Jan. 31, 2022
- Ahmed Farag Ali
- Meghan Cook
- Kelley Drechsler
- Bogdan Gavrea
- In Kim
- Butovens Mede
- Bhavya Mishra
- Stephanie Nathan
- Sarah Naumes
- Jessica Pall
- Damini Sood
- Miguel Chacon Teran
- Chia Thao
- Zohreh Vafapour
- Reyna Villalobos
