Updates about the latest accomplishments—including latest research, publications, and awards—by students, faculty, and staff
Dr. Cinthya Ammerman Muñoz and Dr. Paul Michael L. Atienza co-edited Issue 47 of The Humboldt Journal of Social Relations on “Place-Based Digital Inquiry.” The issue explores how digital tools intersect with relational and situated research, offering innovative ways to document and share local histories, ecologies, and knowledges. Featuring research essays, creative writing, autoethnography, and digital media, it advances critical, place-based approaches to digital engagement. Contributors include students, staff, faculty, and community members. Download at digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/HJSR. A release event will be held Wednesday, November 19, 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m., in Library 302.
Melanie Michalak (Geology) and Susan Cashman (Geology) published a paper in the Journal of Geology with co-authors Kevin Furlong (lead author; Penn State) and Paul O'Sullivan (GeoSep Services) titled "Tectonic Response to Siletzia Terrane Accretion Recorded in the Thermal and Displacement History of the Klamath Mountains Province". This work in the northeastern Klamath Mountains reconstructs how the landscape responded after a major tectonic terrane (the Siletz terrane) collided with the edge of North America about 50 million years ago. Their findings show that the effects of this collision were widespread over hundreds of kilometers and lasted tens of millions of years. Read the paper here.
Professor Catalina Cuellar-Gempeler's BIOL 412 General Microbiology class has published another successful volume of the Humboldt Journal of Microbiology, accessible at https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hjm/. Congratulations to student authors Natalie S. Kozlowski, Leighanna Jake, Theo P. Murphy, Eve Wendley, Justice Laskowski, Tyler Paredes, Quigley D. Espinola, Scarlet Renner, Curtis Cline, Sophia Lopez-Orenday, Alex Yasumatsu, Mariska M. Kessler, Jocelyn Wolfinger, Destiny S. Alcaraz, Isabella N. Cerrone, Brooke Pirkle, Danielle Williamson, Gianna Vendrell, Chloe Kraft, Ryan A. Solorzano, Justin Paulin, Grayson Prater, Michael Lanier, Noah S. Schuhmann, Andrew McLaughlin, and Julian Barreran.
A recent study by Dr. Rafael Cuevas Uribe, carried out by graduate student Evan Simpson, marks the first successful cultivation of a species of kelp known as “Alaria” in Humboldt Bay. The researchers tested different growing systems and seasons to learn when and where this cold-water kelp thrives. Their findings show that Alaria grows best in cool winter and spring conditions at 1–2 meters depth, while warmer summer waters cause die-offs. This work provides a foundation for developing California’s seaweed farming industry that holds enormous potential to support local jobs, sustainable aquaculture, and climate-friendly food systems. Learn more here.
Rick Bartow, The Man Who Made Marks, written and directed by Nanette Durbin, M.Ed. (Osage Nation/Cherokee Nation) is part of the inaugural exhibition at the Mark Rothko Pavilion, Portland Art Museum, November 20th, with Rick Bartow (Wiyot, 1946-2016), Rick Bartow: Storyteller, through May 23, 2026.
Nanette’s film was completed during her California Arts Council Fellowship, for which she received a commendation from the California State Legislature. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the James Irvine Foundation and made in collaboration with the Wiyot Tribe and DelArte International, the award-winning film was an Official Selection at international film fests.
Nicolette Amann (English Department Faculty & Redwood Writing Project Director) and Jessica Citti (Writing Specialist & Writing Studio Coordinator in the Learning Center) co-led a session called “When Outsourcing Writing is Outsourcing Learning: The Impact of GenAI on Writing Development" at the Humboldt County Office of Education Day of Learning on October 27, 2025. This AI-themed professional development conference was attended by over 150 Humboldt County K–12 teachers, instructional staff, and administrators.
Four Wildlife graduate students (Elizabeth Meisman, Jadzia Rodriguez, Lauren Jackson, Ayla Zolwik) and their advisor (Matt Johnson) each presented their latest research findings at the 2025 Raptor Research Foundation's annual conference, held Oct. 13-18, in San Jose, Costa Rica.
This October, Art + Film professor Stephen Nachtigall presented at the SECAC conference. His presentation, "Wayward Pedagogies: Embodied Teaching & Radicially as New Academic Transgression," asks what means to teach and learn beyond economic reproduction and behavioral wayfinding, and invites artists to submit materials around this theme.
Macmillan Learning invited Professor Christina Hsu Accomando, editor of Macmillan's textbook Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Intersectional Study, to present a webinar for their international Holtzbrinck Global Speaker Series this year. "From Current Events to Critical Thinking: Analyzing Systemic Racism Beyond Memes," January 30, 2025.
CRGS and English Professor Christina Hsu Accomando co-authored two essays on authoritarianism and resistance with Dr. Kristin J. Anderson, professor of psychology at the University of Houston. These pieces build upon lessons from Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, focusing on Lesson 1: Do Not Obey in Advance and Lesson 10: Believe in Truth.
Scholarly Communications Librarian Kyle Morgan published the article “Library Publishing Services for Community Authors” in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communications 13(1) https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18411. The article coincides with presentations "Expanding Library Publishing Services Beyond Campus" at the 2025 Library Publishing Forum and "Empowering Community Voices" at the 2025 Open Repositories Conference. The article and presentations detail our library's unique community publishing program and its outsized impact on the educational experience and professional development of campus students as well as its benefits to the university’s local outreach and global impact.
Dr. Mary Gonzalez received a $3 million grant to help disadvantaged high school students in Humboldt and Del Norte counties prepare for and succeed in college! The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP) will advance academic outcomes for participants– improving performance in English and mathematics, increasing graduation rates, expanding the number of students meeting UC/CSU admission requirements, and boosting completion of college and financial aid applications. Services will include tutoring, mentoring, and advising, in addition to college, career, and job-focused field trips and internship opportunities.
Funding comes from the Dept. of Education.
Dr. Rouhollah Aghasaleh (Cal Poly Humboldt) and Zari Aghajani (Azad Islamic University, Tehran) published a new article, “Not a Virtual Education: The Entanglement of the Private and Public Spheres in the Lives of Women Teachers During the Pandemic in Iran,” published in the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (Vol. 41, No. 2, 2025).
This international collaboration examines how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the gendered intersections of domestic and professional life for women educators in Iran.
https://doi.org/10.63997/jct.v40i2.1061
Drs. Tristan Gleason and Rouhollah Aghasaleh published a new editorial, “Constellations of Legacy and Possibility,” in the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (Vol. 40, No. 2, 2025).
The piece reflects on the Bergamo community’s traditions of legacy, imagination, and stewardship in shaping the future of curriculum theory.
Prof. Sherrene Bogle received a travel award from the University of Missouri, Kansas City to attend the 2025 Workshop on Large Language Models for CS Undergraduate Education. At the September 2025 workshop, she gave a presentation on “Experience Report of Generative AI for Contrasting Undergrad Courses”. This included how generative AI tools have evolved in the past two years to student prompts and best practices for incorporating the tool in both GE and STEM courses.
Prof. Sherrene Bogle, 2024-25 student of the year Cheyenne Ty and their collaborators in the NSF funded ACOSUS (AI Counseling System for Under-represented Transfer Students) research group had their double blind peer review paper entitled School or Student? A Mixed Method Analysis on Reddit Data for Transfer Barrier Identification was accepted for publication and presentation at the 2025 Decision Sciences Institute Annual Conference in November. The paper examines the institutional and student-based barriers faced by computing transfer students.
Phytoplankton depend on iron to photosynthesize and pull carbon from the atmosphere. In vast stretches of the ocean, iron is so scarce that phytoplankton live in a state of iron stress: if they had more iron, they would grow more. In order to study iron in the ocean, Dr. Claire Till has turned to scandium, a rare but simpler element that “travels” with iron in seawater, to help track iron movement in the ocean. Scandium pushes new discoveries in iron availability in the ocean and what that means for Earth’s carbon cycle in a changing climate. Learn more here.
Kamila Larripa and collaborators had their paper "Block Gauss-Seidel methods for t-product tensor regression" accepted to the journal Numerical Algorithms. This work develops new mathematical tools that help data scientists analyze large, complex datasets (such as images, videos, or medical scans) more efficiently and accurately.
Dr. Tamara Barriquand published the article, Shallow- and deep-water ocean waves: Deconstructing the dispersion relation, in the September edition of the American Journal of Physics. The article details a set of hands-on laboratory activities to help student understand both theoretical and observed ocean surface wave behavior using computer modeling and a wave tank for physical observations. It currently resides as the most read article on the American Journal of Physics Website.
Associate Professor Barriquand has a split appointment in the Departments of Oceanography and Physics & Astronomy.
This presentation shared how Cal Poly Humboldt’s Department of Social Work integrated Tribal and Indigenous voices throughout its curriculum and practicum experiences to prepare students for ethical, culturally grounded practice in Indigenous communities. Presenters Michelle Rainer Bates-Hoaglin, MSW, LCSW (Poh-lik-lah/Yurok), and Dr. Jennifer Maguire, PhD, MSW, highlighted strategies like ICWA learning modules, co-created videos, Indigenous guest speakers, land-based learning, and internships with Tribal organizations through the SERVE project. They discussed how these efforts fostered understanding of colonization, resilience, and sovereignty, while also addressing challenges and growth areas in building reciprocal relationships and decolonizing social work education.
The rapid rise of generative AI has brought both excitement and concern to higher education, particularly for faculty and students adapting to these new tools in their daily work. Beyond simple chatbots, emerging research highlights the potential of multi-agent AI systems—teams of AI “partners” that collaborate to support essential educational practices such as tutoring, feedback, and assessment. This keynote explores how multi-agent AI agents, powered by large language models (LLMs), can enhance teaching excellence while addressing the needs of both students and instructors. Drawing on case studies.
Graduate student Jesse Laine, with Drs. Monica Sheffer and Kerry Byrne, are investigating how grassland restoration shapes insect populations in Northern California’s coastal prairies. Insects are declining globally due to threats like climate change and habitat loss, with huge consequences for conservation and agriculture since they provide essential ecosystem services. Yet their biodiversity remains poorly understood. This project will help fill that knowledge gap while informing grassland conservation, agriculture, and management. It also builds on Laine and Byrne’s ongoing research into how prairie restoration affects plants, soil health, and forage production.
This project is funded by the CSU Agricultural Research Institute.
Dr. Armeda Reitzel, Professor Emeritus, and her student, Arlonna Hadley, delivered a presentation titled "Students ACE IT! Students as Amazing, Creative, Enlightening Innovators and Teachers!" at the Cal OER 2025 that was held August 6-8, 2025. Cal OER focuses on OER efforts and impact, broadly defined, across the state of California and especially across the state’s three public higher education systems, the California Community Colleges, California State University, and University of California.
Dr. Troy Lescher and Monique Rodrigues (Class of 2025) recently published “Doctoral Projects in Progress in Theatre Arts, 2025” for the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). This report, based on the participation of numerous national and international institutions, introduces PhD candidates and shares their emerging research with the field.
With support from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, Dr. Pedro Peloso (Biological Sciences) and Professor Brandice Guerra (Arts + Film) launched EXTINOS, a scientific illustration internship program highlighting endangered species, and welcomed Mexican illustrator Dani Cafaggi for a four-month internship focused on creating modern portraits of Brazil’s most threatened amphibians. Dani’s work, combined with pieces from past intern Jamie Hefley and selections from Dr. Peloso’s collection, will debut at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Reese Bullen Gallery in Fall 2025, after being showcased at Brazil’s XI Congress of Herpetology.
Karen Davy, lecturer in the Music Department, has been appointed Vice President of the Kató Havas Association for the New Approach (KHANA). Havas, a world-renowned violin pedagogue, was a trailblazer in identifying and offering solutions to the physical, mental, and emotional tensions that affect string players. KHANA's purpose is to keep Havas' Approach available for future players and teachers. Davy's article, The Legacy of Kató Havas, was published in the CAL ASTA (American String Teachers Association) newsletter last June.
Cal Poly Humboldt Business Professor Dr. Josh Zender has received a $25,000 Application Development Grant from PG&E’s Microgrid Incentive Program. In partnership with Syserco and supported by Dr. Pascal Biwole’s Energy Engineering students, Zender will lead a team developing a community microgrid proposal to serve Orick, CA. The grant supports technical development costs for the competitive application process. This project aims to enhance energy resilience for disadvantaged communities and is part of a broader initiative by PG&E to fund clean, locally controlled microgrids throughout California’s high-risk outage zones
Jeff Kane (Forestry, Fire, and Rangeland Management) and graduate student Jackson Carrasco (2024) published a research paper in the journal Forest Ecology and Management entitled "Tree and stand characteristics moderate wildfire severity and promote resilience in secondary coast redwood forests". The findings of the research indicate that redwoods are highly resilient to wildfire but can result in substantial changes to forest structure and composition. However, the magnitude of forest changes was associated with tree and stand conditions, suggesting that management actions in these forests can be used to limit impacts from wildfire.
Dr. Hale was invited to serve as a speaker and campus mentor for the 2025-2026 Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum with the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). https://www.aacu.org/event/2025-26-institute-ai-pedagogy-curriculum
Dr. Laura Johnson was honored when her Old Town Eureka-based yoga studio, A Restful Space, won Best of Humboldt in the annual North Coast Journal contest. A Restful Space offers radical rest practice and communal grief tending with an emphasis on ecological, collective, and systemic grief. Over the summer, Laura also published a children's book with art from Pen+Pine called 'The Little Book of Rest.' You can find a copy at the North Coast Co-Op or Eureka Books, or reach out directly to Laura at laura.johnson@humboldt.edu. You can learn more about A Restful Space at www.arestfulspace.com
Kamila Larripa and collaborators Hwayeon Ryu, Susanna Roblitz and Anna-Simone Frank had their paper accepted to the journal Mathematical Biosciences. The paper is titled "Modeling Bistable Dynamics Arising from Macrophage-Tumor Interactions in the Tumor Microenvironment." The results demonstrate how a type of immune cell can either suppress or promote tumor growth and suggest avenues for treatment.
Dr. Frye has been contracted to provide evaluations for high-level foreign nationals seeking special work visas in the United States. These petitioners are seeking a National Interest Waiver for unique endeavors that require extraordinary ability and specialized skill sets not currently available within the US workforce. By vetting these individuals and writing technical expert letters of opinion to be included in their visa application to the US Citizens and Immigration Services (USCIS), Dr. Frye is contributing to building a highly specialized, diverse, and inclusive cadre of innovative professionals working within the US to advance the national interest.
Graduate students Angelina Garcia and Adam Canter were selected for a competitive USDA-ARS NextGen Fellowship. Angelina will examine how rangeland invasive species management affects soil properties and plant traits. Adam will study how invasive species management and small-scale control burns can be used to restore species culturally in coastal prairies important to Wiyot people.
Logan Holey was awarded a competitive undergraduate research grant from the Northern California Botanists to conduct research on how air temperature and photosynthetically active radiation vary and potential effects on rangeland plant communities across microhabitats at local solar microgrids in Arcata, McKinleyville and Kneeland.
Cheyenne Ty, Abigail Penland, John Gerving, Martin Mendoza-Ceja, Megan Pratt, and Kamila Larripa had their paper accepted for publication by the journal Spora: A Journal of Biomathematics. The paper is titled "Investigating Potential Alzheimer's Disease Therapies through an Agent-Based Model of Impaired Microglia Metabolism."
California’s hemp industry is struggling: just 19% of surveyed farmers made a profit in 2023, and many plan to exit. A new report from Cal Poly Humboldt researchers Gregg Gold, Erick Eschker, and Joshua Zender explains why: strict THC testing rules hinder market access, and most farmers lack processors for hemp grain, fiber, or CBD. Yet the industry has vast potential in textiles, bioplastics, and food, worth billions annually if developed. Farms fare better when they secure buyers early, diversify products, and work with mentors. The report also outlines policy recommendations to stabilize and grow the sector. Learn more here.
Dr. Villareal and colleagues published a study on Textbook Cost and Interactivity: Comparing Equity Outcomes and Student Perceptions in the Journal of Educational Research and Practice that investigated the impact of equitable access to course resources in the form of different e-textbooks in an introductory chemistry course. The purpose of the study was to determine if the use of a free textbook and/or the use of an interactive textbook enhances students’ academic performance, especially among students from marginalized backgrounds. Researchers analyzed equity data for 199 general chemistry students. Overall, the pattern of course equity gaps suggests there was a positive impact of implementing a free textbook on students’ grades, with the largest impact on racially minoritized students. However, there were no meaningful differences between interactive and noninteractive textbooks in grades. Further research is needed on equitable course resources and equity gaps in STEM.
Cal Poly Humboldt's Master of Business Administration recognized as "Top 10 Dark Horse High-Value MBAs" and "Most Affordable MBA Programs at California’s Public Universities".
Two graduate students from Dr. Sean Craig's lab in Biology have won awards at the International Bryozoology Association (IBA) meeting in Tokyo, Japan! Current student Dana Johnstun won an "outstanding presentation" award, while former student Ismael Chowdhury won a "travel award" to go to the meeting and give 2 presentations. Both students will publish their work in the Conference Proceedings (along with 1 additional former student from Sean Craig's lab, Sheena Stephens-Norton)
Dr. Armeda Reitzel, Professor Emeritus, delivered an invited presentation titled "The Triple A’s of Ancillaries: Advancing Academic Achievement" at the 2025 LIbreFest held in July. Her talk focused on the benefits of open pedagogy.
Kiera Sladen and Ruth Worthington (Politics) were selected for the Fall 2025 Youth Voice Youth Vote Student Fellowship through LEAD California for their project entitled, "Empowering Young Voters: A Civic Engagement Series for Underrepresented Communities in Humboldt County." The fellowship will be directed and supervised by Tani Sebro (Chair, Politics) and Emily Worm (Director of the Center for Community Based Learning). This project will empower young voters in Humboldt County through a series of Fall 2025 events at Cal Poly Humboldt, led by the Politics Club. Their campaign will focus on reducing barriers to voting in rural and tribal communities, educating student voters through a nonpartisan voter education workshop, and promoting awareness of voting rights for students who are formerly or currently incarcerated. Through strategic partnerships and community outreach, this project aims to build a stronger culture of civic engagement in historically underserved communities across the North Coast of California.
Kamila Larripa and collaborators from other institutions had their paper published by BIT Numerical Mathematics. This work introduces algorithms for factorized tensor regression, advancing scalable data science methods for high-dimensional structured data. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10543-025-01078-5
Congratulations to recent Fisheries Biology M.S. graduate Alex Juan (’24) on publishing his thesis research in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes! Co-authored with his advisor Dr. Andre Buchheister and two other Fisheries faculty (Drs. Darren Ward and Rafael Cuevas-Uribe), Alex studied the growth, maturity, and mortality of invasive Sacramento pikeminnow in the South Fork Eel River. His work provides the first documentation of sexual dimorphism in this species and offers critical life history insights that will support ongoing efforts to manage invasive pikeminnow and aid the recovery of threatened native fishes. Check out his first peer-reviewed paper here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10641-025-01734-3.
Justin Harden, a graduate student in the Chin Lab, has been named a USDA-ARS NextGen Fellow.
Enoch Hale, Director of the Center for Teaching & Learning at Cal Poly Humboldt, underscores the importance of identifying the thinking goals to design learning experiences. He works with faculty to clarify the type of thinking they wish students to engage in, and only then to use technology to support deep, reflective, and collaborative thought. By embracing small, intentional pedagogical shifts and aligning tools with educational purposes, Hale comments on the importance of cultivating environments where critical and integrative thinking thrive within and across disciplines.
John Gerving won the Janet L. Andersen Award for Undergraduate Research in Mathematical or Computational Biology at the Mathematical Association of America's MathFest Conference in August 2025. John's poster was "Automated Microglial Phenotype Classification: A Comparison of Transformer-Based and Convolution Vision Models." He was advised by Kamila Larripa and supported by the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Shi Feng’s research explored the instructional strategies, key applications, and implementation challenges of teaching sustainability and resilience in engineering education. Using semi-structured interviews with engineering faculty, the study found that instructors commonly used strategies such as general discussions, project-based learning, and guest lectures.
Faculty identified practicality, the triple bottom line principle (people, planet, profit), and liability and environmental issues as the most important aspects of sustainability. For resilience, they emphasized resiliency itself and rapidity—the speed of recovery after a disruption—as the top priorities.
The most common challenge cited was time constraints. Despite this, students demonstrated improved knowledge and more positive attitudes toward sustainability and resilience after these approaches were implemented.
Dr. Shi Feng co-authored this study which investigated the intersection of these two phenomena: the role of mind wandering while listening to familiar/unfamiliar musical excerpts, and its effects on concurrent linguistic processing. Participants performed a lexical-semantic congruency task while listening to familiar or unfamiliar orchestral pieces, or a non-music sound clip. Mind wandering episodes were probed intermittently. We found that listening to familiar music, relative to unfamiliar music or environmental noise, was associated with faster lexical-semantic decisions and a lower incidence of mind wandering. We infer that familiar music increases task enjoyment, reduces mind wandering, and promotes more rapid lexical access during concurrent lexical processing.
Dr. Regina Jorgenson is helping lead an astronomical study investigating Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)- powerful flashes of radio waves from deep space whose origins are of great interest to astronomers, yet not well understood. The project will support a post-baccalaureate fellow who will use some of the largest telescopes in the world to study the host galaxies of FRBs to better understand both the sources of these cosmic explosions, as well as the intergalactic matter through which the FRB signal travels – essentially giving us a new way to detect and measure previously unseen matter in the universe. Project funding comes from the National Science Foundation.
Vincent Biondo served as Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies for Trinity Term, 2025, and presented new research on the history of waqf, or charitable trusts, and the implications for Christian-Muslim relations, Church-State relations, and Moral Economy.