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12-15-2025 Thank you, MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab and collaborators for the hard work and many successes this year.

11-10-2025 Congratulations go to Dr. Ariell M. Smith for successfully defending her Ph.D. “Fabrication and characterization of elastic and novel viscoelastic polyacrylamide hydrogels as a platform for epithelial cell mechanobiology studies”!

11-03-2025 Well-delivered and received talks by Sixin, Grace, and Diego at AIChE.

10-13-2025 Metzli has been awarded the CCBM CREST Fellowship for Spring 2026. Congratulations! One more feather to your hat!

09-16-2025 Wow, the group gets a lot of new energy! Mcknz (MSE), Tiffany (BIO), Anshika (CHE) Benjamin (CSE), Nathan (CSE), and Andres (MBSE), welcome!

08-16-2025 Welcome on board, Nathalia! Nathalia joined the MBSE graduate program and will be working on ECM-biofilm interactions, co-advised by Prof. Arvind Gopinath and Roberto.

06-26-2025 Ariell has been awarded the Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship for Fall 2025! Way to finish your graduate academic path! Congratulations!

07-16-2025 Thank you for the four years with us, Tajin. You helped shape the MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab! We wish you all the best at Sangamo Therapeutics.

06-30-2025 Bye Iago, we will miss you! You brought a lot of great vibes, ideas, and inspiration to the group. See you in Charlotte at the AVS Meeting.

06-22-2025 Sixin, Tajin, and Diego attended the joint 99th ACS Colloids and Surface Science Symposium and 18th IACIS Conference, where they presented new results on their respective projects.

06-30-2025 Flash visit from Martin Vilches! Martin, who is working on strategies to degrade synthetic fabric fibers, went too fast. Good luck at the Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, Valparaiso, Chile, for the last stretch of your studies.

06-20-2025 Galyor Lakes hike with the group. Couldn’t be better!

05-07-2025 Join us in celebrating Ramon Paez Reyes (MSE) and Isaac Sousa (CSE). The School of Engineering named them outstanding students for the Class of Spring 2025!

04-03-2025 Welcome on board, Nicholas (MSE undergraduate), Surbhi (BIOE undergraduate), and Iago (TU Vienna Visiting Scholar)! We look forward to working with you.

03-13-2025 Ariell invited to present her research at the 2025 Rising Stars Symposium organized by Sanford Burnham Prebys. Way to wrap up your Ph.D., Ariell!

03-11-2025 Rewarding Research Week presentations.

02-28-2025 Sixin’s, Tajin’s, and Diego’s abstracts have been accepted for the 99th ACS Colloids and Surface Science Symposium. See you at the University of Alberta, CA!

01-29-2025 Metzli’s first first-author paper is published!

08-29-2024 Tajin, Peyton, Katelyn, and Brandon presented their research at BMES 2024!

08-19-2024 Grace is now a Ph.D. candidate – Congrats!

08-16-2024 Peyton will be participating in the Prospective Ph.D. Preview (P3) program at Princeton University!

08-14-2024 We had the first MECHANO3B[I]OLOGY Lab retreat at the Wawona Fiel Station in Yosemite. We spend time writing manuscripts and research proposals, discussing how to enhance creative thinking, combined with a bit of hiking!

05-30-2024 We all reached the top of Vernal Falls via the Mist Trail and back via Clark Point. It was a sweet hike!

06-03-2024 Mayra, Kaleb, Katelyn, Breanna, Ramon, Alejandro, and Isaac: welcome aboard! A potent summer ahead.

05-15-2024 Another cycle closes. Congratulations to our graduates, Dominique (NIH U-RISE Fellow) and Brandon. Your work and dedication have been key; thank you! We wish you the best in everything that comes next.

05-27-2024 Ariell is awarded another CCBM Fellowship. This one is for summer research. Congrats, Ariell!

12-15-2023 Celebrating another year of successes and failures, some graduating, some starting, wrapping some projects, and beginning new ones. Cheers, and 2024, welcome!

11-30-2023 Brandon, congratulations for being recognized as one of the two outstanding graduating CSE students for your graduating class!

11-29-2023 Peyton has been selected as a fellow for the very competitive TUSCEB program at UC Merced. Congratulations!

10-09-2023 Attending BMES in Seattle? Stop by Ariell’s and Dominique’s posters and learn how to easily obtain elastic constants of soft materials.

10-09-2023 Welcome undergraduate researchers Warren and Peyton to the MECHANOB[i]OLOGY Lab!

08-21-2023 Welcome Ummay, to UC Merced, MBSE, and to the MECHANOB[i]OLOGY Lab!

05-15-2023 Congratulations to our graduates! Dion, Bianca, and Emily: it has been a joy working with you all, and we wish you success in your next endeavors.

04-26-2023 Thank you, NSF CAREER and UC Merced Materials Science and Engineering Department! With your support, we will start research to elucidate the role of fibronectin in mediating synovial join tribology! Interested? Read more here.

04-19-2023 Ariell is on a roll! Summer CCBM fellowship. Congratulations!

03-08-2023 Nice to see Ariell, Bianca, and Tajin presenting their research at the UC Merced Research Week.

11-18-2022 We had a great AIChE 2022 meeting. I look forward to the 2023 in Orlando!

09-21-2022 Our UCOP-TRDRP grant has been extended for one additional year, with additional funds!

09-16-2022 Way to go, Ariell, for passing your Qualifying Exam. Ariell is the first student from the MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab to do so!

08-10-2022 Great news, Stephanie Woo (PI), Dave Stachura (co-PI) and I (co-PI) will be working on investigating the role of membrane blebbing forces in endoderm development. Congrats, Stephanie, for this NIH R21 from NICHD.

06-08-2022 Wow, the group members are in a roll. Dominque received an NIH U-RISE fellowship! Congratulations, Dominique!

05-31-2022 Congratulations Tajin, for being selected to participate in the Distinguished Young Scholars Seminar series (DYSS), which is going to be held at the University of Washington in Seatle!

05-27-2022 Congratulations Ariell, for receiving a CCBM fellowship for Fall 2022!

05-18-2022 Bittersweet moment to see all undergraduate researchers graduate and transition to their stages. Congratulations to Isha, Sai, Kate, Joyce, and Muhammad! We wish you success!

04-19-2022 It’s great to see how undergraduate researchers are finishing the year, presenting their contributions at the CCBM and MACES Symposium. Special congratulations to Joyce Saltzherr and Yekaterina (Kate) Zhezherya, who were selected among the top presenters!

04-11-2022 Welcome to the team, Dominique and Dion!

01-17-2022 Jeff and Kai from SurForce delivered the new EC-SFA! With it, we are investigating adhesion, friction, and nanoconfinement phenomena

12-03-2021 Finally, an in-person lab dinner!

11-17-2021 Justin has been selected as a School of Engineering Outstanding Student from the graduating undergraduate class of fall 2021. Keep the good work, and congratulations, Justin!

10-08-2021 Congratulations to Muhammad, Joyce, Tiffany, and Kate for being accepted as CCBM-CREST, UROC, and MACES fellows!

10-04-2021 Welcome, Tajin! Tajin recently obtained her Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UIUC. Congratulations! Tajin is bringing expertise in surface science, force spectroscopy, and molecular cell biology.

09-30-2021 Welcome, Kate! Kate will be working on synovial fluid film formation and mechanics to continue understanding the molecular mechanisms behind the extremely efficient synovial joints. Kate will be teaming with Saigeetha.

08-16-2021 Welcome to the team, Cory-James! Cory-James is joining us from the Quantitative Systems Biology Graduate group. I look forward to working with you to understand how aerosols affect lung epithelium mechanics.

07-30-2021 Congratulations for finishing your summer research programs. It was great to see how much you achieved in only two months.

06-12-2021 The group gathered for the first time in over a year. We spend the day at different locations in NE Yosemite and the Valley. It was great to experience this space together.

06-01-2021 Welcome on board, Tiffany, Ben, and Justin. I look forward to seeing what we will accomplish this summer!

05-15-2021 Amar graduated from the undergradaute Bioengineering program today, with impressive accomplishments! Amar will continue his journey at UC Davis. We wish you all the best and congratulations, Amar!

04-30-2021 Congratulations to Syndee Villa MECHANO3B[i]LOGY alumni who will start at Applied Materials as a Materials Analyst!

04-28-2021 Amar, presented his work on synovial fluid film formation and wear protection of model surfaces at the 5th International Conference on BioTribology.

02-16-2021 Amar, first MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab member to present at a scientific meeting, discusses his work on synovial fluid film formation on model surfaces at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society BPS!

01-16-2021 Colleague and collaborator Prof. Arvind Gopinath received the NSF CAREER award. Congratulations!

01-15-2021 Thank you, Felipe! It has been a joy working with you. We wish you the best for your next endeavors!

30-11-2020 Roberto on RadioBio! Listen to the podcast “Molecular Machines and Mechanisms“.

10-15-2020 Congratulations to Ariell, who became a CREST-CCBM scholar!

10-05-2020 Congratulations, Amar! Amar was awarded with a CCBM-CREST Fellowship for the 2020-2021 year!

09-03-2020 We wish Nicole all the best for her next stage in life. Thank you for helping to nucleate the MECHANOB[i]OLOGY lab and for all the work.

08-31-2020 Welcome Ariell, to the MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab. Ariell is being co-advised with Prof. Arvind Gopinath and will be working on revealing durotaxis mechanisms.

08-15-2020 Listen to Roberto’s conversation with Dr. Wally Paxton, Dr. DJ Seo, and Dr. Doug Tree, hosts from the podcast How Science Happens.

08-03-2020 Virtual group dinner! Thank you, once again, to Nawshin, Nicole, Joyce, Syndee, Saigeetha, Felipe, and Amar for staying focused and motivated despite the working challenges.

06-18-2020 Collabroation with Prof. Netzahualcóyotl Arroyo-Currás and Prof. Philip Lukeman published at NANOSCALE. Find out how an electrochemical biosensor exploiting binding-induced changes in electron transfer of electrode-attached DNA origami can be used to detect hundred nanometer-scale targets here.

05-29-2020 Welcome Syndee and Saigeetha to the MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab!

05-08-2020 Work with BoRi Seo and the Fischbach Group published at PNAS. Find out how collagen microarchitecture mechanically controls myofibroblast differentiation here.

04-29-2020 Congratulations to Nicole Garza for her UROC Summer fellowship!

03-04-2020 First poster presentation of the MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab at the Research Week 2020 UC Merced.

01-29-2020 Roberto is invited to the Northern California Biomaterials day. Event cancelled due to COVID 19.

01-29-2020 Nawshin Slutana Jenifar joins the MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab. Welcome!

01-07-2020 Watch the Materials and Biomaterials Science and Engineering graduate video!

12-20-2019 It was a very productive and interesting first semester at UC Merced! Thank you all: to these researchers for joining the MECHANO3B[i]OLOGY Lab!

09-27-2019 Nicole Garza has been accepted to the AY 2019-20 CREST Scholars Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program!