University of California, Merced - Patty Guerra

AHA Career Award, ɫ��ӰƬ's First, Funds Project Aimed at Improving Heart Interventions

Anonymous — Thu, 07 May 2026 18:04:30 +0000

By Patty Guerra, ɫ��ӰƬ

May 5, 2026

Arian Aghilinejad earned an American Heart Association Career Development Award.

Left ventricular devices, or LVADs, are life saving for patients with advanced heart failure, a condition that affects more than 6 million Americans each year.

A ɫ��ӰƬ researcher has earned an American Heart Association Career Development Award to fund his work on improving how these mechanical pumps interact with the heart and body. It's the first time a faculty member from ɫ��ӰƬ has received one of these awards.

Bioengineering Professor and biofluid dynamicist Arian Aghilinejad's project, "A Fluid Dynamics Approach to the Development of Next-Generation Left Ventricular Assist Devices," won the $231,000 award, which will support three years of research.

"While LVADs have significantly improved survival rates, many patients still experience serious complications, including blood clots, stroke and right-heart failure," Aghilinejad said. "My research focuses on understanding the underlying fluid dynamics that contribute to these complications. By achieving a better understanding of device operation, we aim to reduce risks and improve long-term outcomes for patients."

Aghilinejad will work with physician-scientists, including vascular and cardiac surgeons.

"This interdisciplinary approach helps bridge engineering innovation with real-world medical needs and supports the development of next-generation cardiovascular therapies," he said.

"This grant supports highly promising health care and academic professionals, in the early years of one's first professional appointment, to explore innovative questions or pilot studies that will provide preliminary data and training necessary to assure the applicant's future success as a research scientist," the Heart Association said in announcing its awards.

Aghilinejad is in his first year on the School of Engineering faculty. He said his research aims to develop engineering-driven tools for diagnosing and monitoring cardiovascular disease, as well as improving therapeutic technologies. Prior to coming to ɫ��ӰƬ, Aghilinejad earned a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and completed his postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology.

"This award is a tremendous recognition of Professor Aghilinejad’s creativity, technical expertise and potential for impact at the interface of engineering and medicine," said department chair Anand Bala Subramaniam. "His work exemplifies the kind of interdisciplinary, translational bioengineering we are building at ɫ��ӰƬ, where fundamental insights in fluid dynamics can lead to better technologies and improved outcomes for patients."

Aghilinejad said his work has been supported by a strong mentoring team that includes professors Arash Kheradvar from UC Irvine, Joel Spencer from ɫ��ӰƬ, Gregory Magee from New York University and Serge Kobsa from USC.

"I was drawn to ɫ��ӰƬ because of its dynamic and rapidly growing research environment, and the opportunity to contribute to a young campus that is building innovative programs at the intersection of engineering and medicine," he said. "A central part of my mission is to equip the next generation of engineers and scientists to translate mechanistic insights into real-world medical solutions."

ɫ��ӰƬ Project Aimed at Making Autonomous Cars Safer with NVDIA

Anonymous — Thu, 07 May 2026 00:01:19 +0000

By Patty Guerra, ɫ��ӰƬ

May 6, 2026

Greer's project aims to leverage NVIDIA's technology to adapt driverless cars to better process what is happening on the roads.

Road changes such as lane shifts, new signs and speed-limit modifications can be confusing to drivers, both human and mechanical.

A human driver can quickly perceive and understand new or temporary changes to road conditions. A new project at ɫ��ӰƬ aims to deliver that same swift processing power to autonomous cars.

"There's a gap between what can run in the vehicle at the power that the vehicle has available and the speed the vehicle needs," said computer science and engineering Professor Ross Greer. "There's a gap between model performance in the lab and in the real world using real vehicles."

Thanks to a grant from Santa Clara-based tech company NVDIA, researchers are looking into ways to narrow that gap. The artificial intelligence pioneer has selected the project "Edge-Deployed Multimodal Safety Reasoning for Autonomous Vehicles" for inclusion in its Academic Grant Program. 

According to the proposal, construction zones and dynamic speed limits are rarely reflected on digital maps and are often communicated through signs, leading to missed or delayed responses and elevated crash risk. While recent AI advances support autonomous driving in complex scenarios, many systems remain limited to perception or recognition tasks and do not directly translate these insights into real-time control or safety responses.

Greer's project aimsto leverage NVIDIA's technology to adapt driverless cars to better process what is happening on the roads, with explicit attention to uncertainty introduced by temporary map changes.

"NVIDIA has offered access to state-of-the-art hardware that will help our team translate research into vision-language foundation models from the lab to the road," Greer said of NVDIA. The new effort builds on an earlier research project he had to bring new AI material into real-world vehicles.

"We can build these high-parameter AI systems that can run on a giant computer that is sitting in my office, but to get it to run in a smaller system in a car is a challenge," he said.

Greer's team won access to different types of embedded hardware that can run in a vehicle on low power, and a heavy graphics processing unit to train the models and make them smaller in the lab.

"We are always looking for a balance between model performance and electric power cost, and these questions become much more pronounced when there is a direct relationship between model performance and human safety," Greer said. His team will compare three different types of NVDIA edge hardware, ranging from a large processor that costs $3,500 to the smallest one that costs $250.

"With memory and timing constraints, AI performance off these different devices varies," Greer said. "But there are also additional power considerations, such as vehicle range. One device will consume the battery charge much more quickly than others."

Working on this project with NVDIA is a great opportunity for Greer and those in his lab.

"The fact that ɫ��ӰƬ gets to contribute to this new frontier in autonomous driving with the support of NVIDIA is really exciting."

Turning A Carbon Footprint into a Carbon Wave

Anonymous — Fri, 01 May 2026 18:04:31 +0000

By Patty Guerra, ɫ��ӰƬ

May 1, 2026

Mitigating climate change will take collective action on a large scale, Stokes said.

It's time to think bigger about mitigating climate change.

Measures such as recycling, turning off lights and reducing energy use are great, but making a real impact is going to take systemic change, said Leah Stokes, a political scientist, energy expert and climate communicator from UC Santa Barbara.

Stokes, the keynote speaker for the April 13 Distinguished Climate Speaker Series event at ɫ��ӰƬ, argued that we need to move away from a narrow focus on reducing individual carbon footprints. Instead, she advocates a "carbon wave" approach to collective action that promotes structural policy change and builds clean electricity and electrification at scale.

"We have the power to change the system around us," said Stokes, who has a book about the carbon wave to be published this fall. "But we can only do that by working with others."

Stokes was the second invited speaker in the series, hosted by the Sierra Nevada Research Institute and emerging ɫ��ӰƬ Earth Institute, featuring leading experts discussing climate change impacts and solutions. The first event in the series featured renowned climate researcher Michael Mann.

ɫ��ӰƬ electrical engineering Professor Sarah Kurtz, who opened the afternoon session, highlighted the key roles solar energy and battery use play in reducing dependence on fossil fuels. The amount of electricity produced by solar panels has doubled every two years. Just as importantly, Kurtz said, battery storage has grown even faster, sometimes even doubling in a single year. That means energy can be gathered during the day and stored for when it's needed.

"This is a really amazing success story for both solar and batteries," Kurtz said.

Solutions that reconsider timing and placement -- for example, installing solar panels over workplace parking lots to charge cars during the day -- align energy use with abundant clean energy.

Daytime load shifting "reduces needs of battery storage or a distribution line," she said. This is just one strategy that can transform our energy infrastructure.

"We need to work as a group…I would assert we can have a bigger impact if we are wise in our choices," she said.

Stokes agreed. She said people can start by taking steps at home, and then those can become part of a larger movement to change energy infrastructure.

"You are a fossil fuel power plant operator if you have a gas stove or water heater or furnace in your house," she said. "You can change that into an induction stove, heat pump water heater, HVAC and electric car and suddenly you're a clean power plant operator. That is infrastructure change." With 121 million households in the United States, electrifying all of them would be a major move toward reducing greenhouse gases.

But those changes won't happen unless they make financial sense. Kurtz and Stokes both said the key to green electricity's success is making it accessible to people with lower incomes.

"Solar is now the least expensive way to generate electricity," Kurtz said. "You can make a high-cost system, and often we are incentivizing the expensive way to do it. What we need to do is incentivize to do it the cheapest way."

During a panel discussion after her talk, moderator and ɫ��ӰƬ political science Professor Nathan Monroe asked Stokes about how to inspire collective action.

That's going to take policies - both incentives and requirements - from the government, Stokes said, arguing a "carrots and sticks" approach.

She said though some of the environmental measures of recent years were wiped out in the federal "Big Beautiful Bill," many remain, including manufacturing incentives and support for batteries.

"As we get economies of scale, prices come down," she said, incentivizing further adoption. And for late or reluctant adopters, "we have requirements where you (eventually) have to replace gas with electric."

The energy transition is no longer hypothetical, Stokes and Kurtz agreed. It is underway, and the challenge is how fast and how fairly we can complete it.

"I am actually very hopeful," Stokes said "There's so much possibility of change. Imagine if all of us took on this challenge and stopped thinking about our carbon footprint and started thinking about our carbon wave."

State's First Solar Canal Project Moves from ɫ��ӰƬ Lab to Real World

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:01:11 +0000

By Patty Guerra, ɫ��ӰƬ

April 29, 2026

The wide span of Project Nexus stretches over a canal in Hickman.

What started as a premise in a ɫ��ӰƬ lab culminated with a commemoration of Project Nexus, California's first solar canal project.

On Wednesday, state leaders gathered at the Project Nexus sites in Hickman and Keyes to celebrate the completion of the construction pilot, which demonstrates how covering operational irrigation canals with solar panels can help save water, generate clean energy, and conserve natural lands.

"For the past three years our ɫ��ӰƬ research team - including our project manager Dr. Brandi McKuin and team members here today - has treated these canals as a living laboratory," said Roger Bales, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering. "We didn't just want to build a canopy to produce electricity; we wanted to quantify a 'triple win' for California: water, energy and land."

Project Nexus, launched in 2022, represents an innovative public-private-academic collaboration between the California Department of Water Resources, Turlock Irrigation District, Solar AquaGrid LLC and ɫ��ӰƬ.

"We are excited this day is here," TID General Manager Brad Koehn said. "It's been a long journey."

While not all canals are suitable for solar installations, a ɫ��ӰƬ study, commissioned by Solar AquaGrid and led by project scientist McKuin, estimated that covering all 4,000 miles of California's exposed canals with solar panels could generate enough electricity to power about 2 million homes each year, conserve enough water to supply up to 2 million homes annually and reduce land use by placing solar arrays on developed land.

"Our team at Solar AquaGrid has been on this journey for over a decade," CEO Jordan Harris said. "We wanted to see if we could use existing infrastructure to gain multiple benefits."

Project Manager Brandi McKuin explained the multiple benefits of solar over canals.

So far, the pilot project has proved the initial hypothesis that these kinds of structures can benefit the water below as they gather energy from the sun above.

Early results indicate substantial reductions in evaporative loss and aquatic weed growth, with the shaded canals experiencing up to 70 percent less evaporation and 85 percent less weed growth.

"This innovative project will have global impact," said ɫ��ӰƬ Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz. "Today's milestone is a testament to how regions like ours can take the lead in addressing global solutions."

By leveraging already disturbed land, solar canals minimize the need to convert farmland or natural habitats for energy production, and support California's goals of land conservation, achieving 100 percent clean energy by 2045, and conserving 500,000 acre-feet of water annually by 2040.

And Project Nexus is only the beginning, Bales said.

The California Solar Canal Initiative research project aims to accelerate the use of solar power across the state by equipping government agencies, utilities, community members and other interested parties with data on optimal locations and identifying willing host communities.

Led by the University of Southern California Dornsife  Public Exchange,  CSCI researchers will collaborate with the state agencies responsible for water and land to determine the best sites for future projects.

"We don't just want to get behind more solar-over-canals," Bales said. "We want to build the right solar over the right canals."

Wade Crowfoot, state secretary for natural resources, said he first heard about the potential project when Gov. Gavin Newsom texted him about ɫ��ӰƬ's study and asked, "Why not here?"

"I'm inspired but not surprised by ɫ��ӰƬ," Crowfoot said. "It's become an inspirational engine. I'm most impressed with what ɫ��ӰƬ has developed in two decades."

McKuin said her research group continues to monitor the project's energy output, as well as evaporation with sensors at the sites. Team members will also monitor algae growth with "a long-handled rake."

"We're seeing quite a lot of reductions," she said.

In a news release following Wednesday's event, Newsom lauded the public-private-academic partnership and said it provides a blueprint for future projects.

"I'm proud of California for continuing to lead with innovative, outside-the-box solutions to our climate crisis - including this first-of-its-kind solar-covered canal in the Central Valley," Newsom said. "We remain committed to investing in clean energy and developing cutting-edge technologies to address climate and water challenges. California is showing the world what's possible when innovation meets action."

Is Growing Agave a Good Fit for California? ɫ��ӰƬ Aims to Find Out

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:02:46 +0000

By Patty Guerra, ɫ��ӰƬ

April 16, 2026

Agave has multiple uses ranging from nutritional supplements to fabrics.

As crops go, agave holds a lot of promise for the northern San Joaquin Valley. The succulents thrive in hot sun, don't require much water and can be grown in the region's sandy soils. And though agave, mainly grown in Mexico, is best known as the source of tequila and mezcal, it has other uses that range from nutritional supplements to fabrics.

ɫ��ӰƬ researchers and area growers have been delving agave's potential for the past few years. Those efforts recently included signing an agreement with Madera Community College District to collaborate on a 10- to 20-acre test plot, as well as a visit from experts to discuss the idea with campus partners and community members.

"From a scientific point of view, we know that agave has a lot of benefits," César Armando Puente Garza of Tecnológico de Monterrey told attendees during a public educational event at ɫ��ӰƬ on Main hosted by the Valley Institute for Sustainability, Technology & Agriculture (VISTA) at ɫ��ӰƬ, in collaboration with Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) and the NSF-CREST Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Machines (CCBM).

The event brought together those with an interest in agriculture, sustainability and biotechnology and reached growers, scientists and community members from the Merced area and beyond. And it's just the beginning: The university's department of Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) will soon offer classes in agriculture technology.

ɫ��ӰƬ has developed a partnership with Tecnológico de Monterrey, one of Mexico's top research universities, to facilitate student and faculty exchanges in bioengineering and ag tech.

"Partnerships with leading institutions like Tecnológico de Monterrey, combined with Mexico's millennia-old agave heritage, are critical to advancing research on climate-resilient cultivation and processing across diverse landscapes and production systems," said civil and environmental engineering Professor Josué Medellín-Azuara .

As part of that partnership, Puente Garza also spoke to students, staff and faculty about research collaborations and scientific uses for agave at a workshop on campus.

One popular use of agave is to create pulque, a fermented beverage that Puente Garcia said contains roughly 70 percent of the daily recommended vitamins and minerals per serving. Agave piñas — or the heart of the plant — and leaves are nutritious food with a sweet, fibrous taste. And agave fibers are used to make durable ropes, textiles and paper products.

Stuart Woolf, grower and executive chairman of Woolf Farming and Processing in Fresno and president of an agave council formed five years ago, said challenges obtaining water for his crops led him to look at other options.

"We have 6,000 to 7,000 acres we won't have enough water for," he said. Some of that land will be used for a solar panel installation. But the rest of it was likely to lay unused.

"About six years ago, we started a test plot to see how it would do," Woolf said. He was intrigued by the possibility of using the agave plant as a biofuel and its syrup as a sweetener.

"One thing about us being in California, we're innovators, we're adaptors, we're resilient," he said. "We look at agave as probably one of the solutions for us to continue to farm land and employ people in our area."

Joshua Viers, associate vice chancellor for interdisciplinary research and strategic initiatives at ɫ��ӰƬ, identified emerging research opportunities and highlighted recent federal and state funding supporting the Farms Food Future (F3) Initiative, along with investments in the university's Experimental Smart Farm, where several acres of agave will be planted to demonstrate drought-tolerant agricultural systems for the region.

Though tequila is strictly regulated — and right now only legally produced in Mexico — Puente Garza said it makes sense to grow agave in California.

Added his colleague, Daylan Tzompa Sosa, "We share more than a border. We share the need of being efficient with water resources and expertise. We also share the love for agave."

Project Aims to Put AI to Work Reducing its Own Energy Needs

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 22:05:29 +0000

By Patty Guerra, ɫ��ӰƬ

April 8, 2026

ɫ��ӰƬ's team is looking into topological materials.

It's no secret that artificial intelligence uses a lot of electricity.

A standard ChatGPT query consumes approximately 0.34 watt-hours - roughly 10 times more than a Google search. According to the Pew Research Center, U.S. data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024 - more than 4% of the country's total electricity consumption - roughly equivalent to the annual electricity demand of the entire nation of Pakistan.

Researchers at ɫ��ӰƬ are taking part in a systemwide effort to develop more efficient computing. The multidisciplinary project involves principal investigators from five UCs (Santa Barbara, Merced, San Diego, Irvine and Berkeley) as well as scientists from Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories.

The UC Office of the President issued a $6 million grant for the project; of that, $810,000 will come to ɫ��ӰƬ.

"The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is accelerating both the opportunities for, and threats to, the United States' longstanding economic leadership," Theresa Maldonado, UC vice president of Research & Innovation, said in announcing the grant. "To help keep America in the lead, the University of California is scaling up its commitments in critical emerging areas of scientific research, such as AI, and moving forward with unprecedented speed to fund targeted research that fosters innovation."

Chemical and materials engineering Professor Elizabeth Nowadnick is leading ɫ��ӰƬ's team, which is looking into topological materials. These materials, in which electrons move in unusual ways, might provide more efficient platforms for next-generation computers.

Nowadnick said the ɫ��ӰƬ team has two goals:

Use AI to advance the discovery of topographical materials, developing a framework for the rapid advancement of other functional materials, such as magnets, superconductors and related quantum materials.
Employ AI to develop new modalities of switching, or turning electronic devices on and off, advancing possible next-generation rapid, low-power electronic computing devices. That could reduce the computational cost of AI operations.

"We are investigating topological materials whose electronic structures can be rapidly switched with minor disturbances, meaning that the cost of each switching operation is minimized," Nowadnick said. "Because the changes are electronic and do not involve large structural changes to the material in question, such switching may be extremely rapid."

By identifying the most promising candidates before laboratory testing, this AI approach could dramatically accelerate the discovery of new chip materials that switch faster while consuming less energy.

Nowadnick has one postdoctoral researcher, Kuntal Talit, and two physics Ph.D. students, Haseeb Ahmad and Tharushi Ekanayake, working on the project. They are using a powerful computational tool called density functional theory (DFT) to simulate the properties of the topological materials and determine how they might behave in a computer system.

They are also collaborating with computer scientists at UC San Diego to build an AI system that automates DFT calculations, so users can interact with the DFT code using natural language, similar to how people interact with ChatGPT. This agentic, or autonomous, system, which the team has named TritonDFT, can orchestrate the entire DFT workflow, which spans distinct areas of expertise, including physics, DFT details and high-performance computing. This has the potential to increase the speed at which users can perform DFT calculations and makes performing such calculations more accessible to non-experts.

"This special initiative brings together the unmatched academic expertise of UC faculty, world-class scientific talent and capabilities at our national labs, and the strategic leadership within our system to accelerate the scale, reach and impact of AI-powered scientific discovery research that benefits the nation," said June Yu, vice president of UC National Laboratories.

ɫ��ӰƬ's Study Abroad Program Among the Country's Best

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:04:55 +0000

By Patty Guerra, ɫ��ӰƬ

April 1, 2026

Students from ɫ��ӰƬ study around the world.

Frida Quinto Ruiz went to Sweden with a curious mind. She came home with a plan.

"Studying abroad completely reshaped the direction of my college career in ways I never expected," she said. "I went to Sweden already curious about the world, but I came back with a much clearer sense of where I want to go."

During a tour of the European Union in Brussels, Quinto Ruiz learned about the Fulbright Binational Business Program. The fourth-year economics major applied to the program and recently interviewed to join it after she graduates in May.

"Studying abroad gave me direction I did not know I was looking for," said Quinto Ruiz, who grew up in Livingston and attended Turlock High School. "ɫ��ӰƬ has incredible support for students who want to go abroad."

That support is so strong the university has been recognized by the U.S. Department of State's Gilman Program as a 25th Anniversary Top Producing Institution in the Medium Colleges and Universities category. The Gilman Program supports undergraduate students looking to develop essential career skills through study and intern abroad experiences.

Sociology major Gabriela Lopez Garcia spent the spring semester of 2023 in Barcelona.

"I knew that studying abroad and being away from my friends and family for a semester was going to be tough, but I felt like this was something that I really needed to experience in order to grow," she said in a story she wrote about her adventure. "I will forever be grateful for my decision because I learned so much not only about myself but also about Catalonia's history, cultural activities and the beautiful city of Barcelona."

Lopez Garcia said she chose Spain because she has been fascinated with Barcelona as far back as she can remember, calling it "the most magical city in the world."

"I am happy to say it did not disappoint."

Quinto Ruiz said studying abroad was just part of what made her experience at ɫ��ӰƬ special.

"My path here was not straightforward," she said. She joined the military after graduating from high school at 17.

"When I eventually made my way to higher education and then to ɫ��ӰƬ, I came in as an applied mathematics student before switching to economics after my first semester in spring 2024," she said. "Every step has built on the last, and ɫ��ӰƬ has been a place where I felt like I could truly explore that."

She credited the Transfer, Returning and Veteran Services center with easing her transition back to school.

"Working with the TRV center has also opened my eyes to the incredible diversity of students here at ɫ��ӰƬ," she said. "Getting to know transfer students, veterans and returning students has shown me just how many different journeys lead people to this campus, and how many resources exist to help them succeed."

For those considering taking part in studying abroad, Quinto Ruiz said she wholeheartedly recommends jumping in, even if they aren't sure about it.

"This program is not just for students who have it all figured out," she said. "It is for students like me, who at some point felt like they were just drifting through life. … ɫ��ӰƬ has incredible support for students who want to go abroad, and I encourage anyone who is considering it to go to the Study Abroad office and just ask."

After her year in Sweden, Quinto Ruiz said, she returned a different person.

"Studying abroad did not just change my resume, it changed me," she said. "I came back more confident, more culturally aware and more connected to the kind of work I want to do in the world."

She joined the Kappa Delta Chi sorority and became involved in more campus activities.

"I wanted to be part of something bigger than my coursework, and that community has meant so much to me," she said. "I think that is what ɫ��ӰƬ does well: It gives you room to grow in all directions at once."

For more information on the program, go to the Study Abroad website .

ɫ��ӰƬ Climate Experts Explain Why March Heat Wave is Dangerous

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 18:04:38 +0000

By Patty Guerra, ɫ��ӰƬ

March 17, 2026

Forecasters predict record-breaking early season heat this week.

Temperatures in the 90s are nothing new to the northern San Joaquin Valley. But having them in March, as expected this week, is unusual and potentially dangerous.

An exceptionally strong ridge of high pressure will bring record-breaking heat to the entire region, the National Weather Service said. Temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley are likely to reach 90 degrees by Tuesday and 95 by Friday. That's 20 to 25 degrees above normal.

ɫ��ӰƬ experts explained why such heat now, when it's still technically winter, is more hazardous than the same temperatures later in the year.

"If the forecasts come to fruition, we will be in for a March heat wave with temperatures 20-30 degrees above normal - an event without precedent in the modern era," said climatologist Professor John Abatzoglou. "This comes on the heels of the warmest or second-warmest winter since at least 1895 for a huge portion of the western U.S."

While these temperatures are not near the triple digits the area routinely sees in July and August, early-season heat waves can have outsize impacts.

"First, people are not acclimated to the heat yet, as they would be in mid-summer, which increases the risk of heat impacts on human health," Abatzoglou said. People who are sensitive to heat are advised to avoid being outside during the warmest hours of the day. Everyone should use sunscreen and stay hydrated.

Unusually hot temperatures may also impact the agricultural sector, affecting both outdoor workers and crops that are flowering or fruiting, Abatzoglou said.

Lauren Parker, managing director of Secure Water Future at ɫ��ӰƬ, has extensively studied how heat can affect agriculture.

"In orchard crops that might still be blooming, heat exposure can reduce fruit set as a function of effects on pollen quality and pollinator activity," she said. "Fruit set" is the process in which a flower is successfully pollenated before becoming a fruit. "Crops also need more water when it is hot. Water stress during early or young fruit stages can cause trees to reallocate resources away from young fruit, aborting some fruit development and ultimately lowering yields."

Growers could use more water to irrigate early in the season, leaving the sources depleted in the summer months.

"That has real dollar implications for their energy and water consumption - especially if this is a harbinger of heat waves to come," Parker said.

Early heat waves like this one could exacerbate and lengthen wildfire seasons, which already are overlapping globally, new research co-authored by Abatzoglou and postdoctoral researcher Cong Yin shows.

Early heat will deplete the snowpack much of California relies on for its water. According to the state Department of Water Resources, the statewide snowpack has been melting an average of 1 % a day since early March. Generally, the snowpack lasts well into the spring.

"While fuels are not yet widely available to carry fire, this heat wave will accelerate the drying of vegetation and the melt-off of the remaining Sierra snowpack, pushing us closer to fire season," Abatzoglou said.

For Turlock High Grad, ɫ��ӰƬ is Just Far Enough from Home

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 20:05:35 +0000

March 6, 2026

Breyenne Pierce, a utility player on the water polo team, found ɫ��ӰƬ to be a place where she can grow as a player and a person.

Breyenne Pierce wasn't sure ɫ��ӰƬ was for her.

The Turlock High graduate had followed her passion for water polo to Sierra College in Rocklin. As she was concluding her community college experience, she started looking for a four-year university to complete her degree.

"Honestly, I didn't want to go back home," she said. "I enjoyed being at Sierra. Even though it was two hours away, it was far enough to really spread my wings."

She also wanted to continue playing water polo and wasn't sure she wanted to end her college career with a team in transition. ɫ��ӰƬ was admitted to NCAA Division II in 2024, and the team is in its first year of competition at that level.

"But just talking to the coach and the girls on the team, I realized I had the opportunity to grow more as a water polo player," she said. "Because we are in such a transition period, the coaching staff is open to trying new things."

Pierce, a utility player, found the environment at ɫ��ӰƬ to be a great fit.

"I was in FFA and 4H growing up," she said. "A lot of my childhood was ag-centered, and it was great to be able to be around land again.

"Our campus is off the beaten path. I like that I can look past the parking lot and see cows and the lake."

And the proximity to home turned out to be an asset for the management and business economics major.

"When I get homesick, I can go home, and when I get sick of home, I can come back," said Pierce, who lives off campus in Merced. "And my parents can come to my games."

Because her family lives in Denair, "it's a straight shot down Santa Fe Avenue."

"I liked the idea of being able to be close to family but far enough that I could still do my own thing," Pierce said.

For Pierce, doing her own thing after graduation in the spring will hopefully include working in a coffee shop with an eye toward opening her own one day, and continuing her involvement in water polo, possibly moving into coaching or officiating.

While she isn't against the idea of one day moving out of the area, for now, she wants to stay local.

"I really want to help grow water polo in the Central Valley."

For students from the northern San Joaquin Valley considering ɫ��ӰƬ, she advised, "Just don't write it off because it's close to home. I think a lot of people want to go to school far from home. But I've met so many new people, and there are a lot of clubs and things to do here."

When she initially arrived on campus as a transfer student, she said she struggled a bit.

"I didn't know when I got here all the things available to me," she said. "I do wish I'd gotten a little more involved right away."

And that's her biggest piece of advice for incoming Bobcats: See what opportunities are out there.

"Get involved in anything that sounds fun. It doesn't hurt to go to a meeting and decide that maybe that club isn't for you," Pierce said. "Go to things - sporting events, karaoke nights, movie nights. Go and meet people."

Amazon Funds Research into Making AI More Efficient

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 04:02:00 +0000

March 1, 2026

Li and Lu are among 63 award recipients representing 41 universities.

Two ɫ��ӰƬ computer science and engineering professors will delve deep into artificial intelligence in projects with Amazon.

Dong Li and Xiaoyi Lu earned Amazon Research Awards, the technology giant announced recently.

Amazon Research Awards provide unrestricted funds and Amazon Web Services Promotional Credits to academic researchers investigating research topics in multiple disciplines. Li and Lu are among 63 award recipients who represent 41 universities in eight countries for this grant cycle.

Both projects work with AWS Trainium, a chip purpose-built for high-performance deep learning training of generative AI models.

Li's awarded proposal, "Efficient Sparse Training with Adaptive Expert Parallelism on AWS Trainium," is aimed at finding ways for different computers to learn more quickly and use less power.

Lu's project, "Accelerating Large Language and Reasoning Model Workloads with AWS Trainium," is aimed at speeding up computer processes. He will study how to train state-of-the-art AI models, such as those used in OpenAI GPT and Google Gemini, on Trainium. His project will study memory system and communication efficiency to enable high-performance AI model training.

According to Amazon, proposals were reviewed for the quality of their scientific content and their potential to impact the research community and society. Additionally, Amazon encourages the publication of research results, presentations of research at Amazon offices worldwide, and the release of related code under open-source licenses.

Recipients have access to more than 700 Amazon public datasets and can use AWS AI/ML services and tools through their AWS Promotional Credits. Recipients are each assigned an Amazon research contact who offers consultation and advice, along with opportunities to participate in Amazon events and training sessions.

"Academic AI researchers face a fundamental challenge: Advancing machine learning research and educating the next generation requires access to cutting-edge infrastructure that's both powerful and affordable," said Yida Wang, AWS AI principal applied scientist.

"The Build on Trainium program directly addresses this barrier. … Build on Trainium represents AWS's commitment to democratizing AI research through collaborative partnership with academia - fostering an environment where researchers experiment freely, students learn on production-scale infrastructure and academic innovations shape the future of machine learning for everyone."

Both researchers said they are excited about the possibilities the grants provide.

"By accelerating large language and reasoning model workloads on AWS Trainium, this project seeks to push the performance boundaries of modern AI systems and make advanced AI capabilities more efficient and accessible," Lu said.

Li said the awards recognize the quality of high-performance computing research at ɫ��ӰƬ.

"This award will allow our students to gain access to the state-of-the-art hardware at AWS for AI research, and provide our students with interesting research projects, internships and much more," he said. "It will also connect AWS and ɫ��ӰƬ for collaborations on techniques, education and business."