Updates about the latest accomplishments—including latest research, publications, and awards—by students, faculty, and staff
Erin Chessin (Journ. ‘19) is published in the New York Times. Her first-ever article in a national publication, “A Successful Lifeline for Natomas Students is Feeling the Strain,” is about the toll the Covid-19 pandemic and virtual learning has taken on students in the Natomas Unified School District near Sacramento. Read the story at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/us/natomas-school-district-mental-health.html?searchResultPosition=6
HSU student media recipients of 2021 California College Media Association Awards
(HSU publications are awarded in categories with four-year colleges or universities with enrollments under 15,000 students.)
*El Leñador*
Best COVID-19 Coverage (First place): Nancy Garcia, Lupita Rivera, Karina Ramos Villalobos, Alexandra Gonzalez
Best Website (First place): Silvia Alfonso, Nancy Garcia, Sergio Berrueta, Karina Ramos Villalobos
Editorial (Second place) Brenda Sanchez, “Body Positivity”
Overall Newspaper Design (Second place): Jasmine Martinez, Sergio Berrueta, Cara Peters and Vanessa Flores
Special Issue (Second place): COVID-19 Mail Out Edition led by Carlos Holguin, Silvia Alfonso, Nancy Garcia, Sam Ramirez, Diego Linares and Jasmine Martinez
Photo Illustration (Third place): Raven Marshall, “Breaking Barriers: Native Women Faculty”
Multimedia Package (Third place): “Soy Artista Series: B1G $UAV, Social Justice Rapper,” by
Diana Renoj and Silvia Alfonso
Non-news Video (Third place): Diana Renoj, “Soy Artista Series: HSU Folklorico Club”
*The Lumberjack*
Best Headline Portfolio (First place): Collin Slavey, “Sweet Songs, Fancy Feathers, Birds Bang”
Best Feature Story (First place): James Wilde, “Memes, Genocide and Teaching in a Pandemic”
Best News Video (First place): “SJSU Football Team Comes to HSU”
Best Newspaper Inside Page/Spread Design (First place): Jen Kelly
Social Media Reporting (Second place): Thomas Lal, “SFSU Spartans Football team arrives to practice at HSU”
Best Illustration (Third place): Sam Papavasiliou and Jen Kelly, “Pandemic Planning for Spring Break”
*Osprey*
Best Magazine Story (Second place): Emily McCollum, “The End of the Dam Age”
Best Magazine Photo Series (Second place): Julie Navarro, “Black Lives Matter: The Digital Mobilization of Citizen Journalists”
Best Magazine Cover Design (Third place): Julie Navarro and Emily McCollum
Professor Ray Chaudhury's work "This Is Who I Am: Instagram as Counterspace for Shared Gendered Ethnic Identity Expressions," with her co-authors, is now published online (ahead of print) in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/713288
Together with RS Lecturer Sara Jaye Hart, RS Majors Roman Sotomayor and Madeleine Wilson presented a panel on "American Civil Religion, Sacrifice, and Reconciliation" at the American Academy of Religions Western Regional Conference (March 20, 2021).
Alumni Blenna Kiros Geography Department and Diana Martinez Environmental Science & Management wrote the article Behind the Redwood Curtain published in Platform Magazine. The article can be found on pages 10-15.
Alumni Diana I. Martinez Environmental Science & Management & Blenna Kiros Geography wrote an article Behind the Redwood Curtain published in Platform Magazine.
Kerri J. Malloy, Lecturer, Native American Studies, was an invited speaker for “A Conversation about Native American Genocide.” He spoke on the promises and obstacles to transitional justice, reconciliation, and healing associated with the Indigenous genocide in North America. The event was hosted by the Mercer County Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education Center at the Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, New Jersey (March 18, 2021).
Jeff Kane (Forestry and Wildland Resources) published an article entitled "Litter trait driven dampening of flammability following deciduous forest community shifts in eastern North America" in the journal of Forest Ecology and Management with undergraduate student Raul Barajas-Ramirez (Botany), Jesse Kreye (2008; Penn State University), and Morgan Varner (Tall Timbers Research Station).
Caroline Martorano (2020) published a paper entitled "Long-term fuel and understory vegetation response to fuel treatments in oak and chaparral stands of northern California" in the journal Applied Vegetation Science with Jeff Kane (Forestry and Wildland Resources), Eamon Engber (2010; National Park Service) and Jen Gibson (National Park Service).
Andrew Slack (2016) published a paper entitled "Large sugar pine mortality models informed by growth, defense, and competition in a fire-excluded forest of the central Sierra Nevada" in the journal Trees: Structure and Function with co-authors Jeff Kane (Forestry and Wildland Resources) and Eric Knapp (USDA Forest Service).
Tani Sebro published the article, “The View of the Coup from the Camp: Myanmar’s Emergent Trans-Ethnic Solidarity,” coauthored with Elliott Prasse-Freeman in Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, March 17, 2021. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2021/03/17/https-twitter-com-natrani-status-1360993418445524999-photo-1/.
John Reiss and Karen Kiemnec-Tyburczy have been awarded a 3-year National Science Foundation (Division of Integrative Organismal Systems) grant to study the evolution of olfaction across multiple species of lungless salamanders with different developmental modes.
Amy Martin, Employer Relations Coordinator for the Academic and Career Advising Center, was recently named “Ambassador of the Year” by the Arcata Chamber of Commerce. Amy works tirelessly with the local business community, represents HSU at our local chambers of commerce, and works with national recruiters to bring career related opportunities to HSU students.
In early March, Dr. Larson was invited to participate in virtual roundtable discussion on the return of the U.S. to the Paris Climate Agreement, organized by the Dept. of International Relations of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, in Bogotá, Colombia. The discussion, in Spanish, can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d0IIo6weRw&t=10s
Dr. Larson recently published an article, "Birds of a Feather: Populism and the Pandemic" in Tempo Exterior, an academic journal published by the Universidade de Vigo, Galicia, Spain. The article compares how the pandemic and populism influenced the campaigns in the U.S. presidential elections of November 2020 and the legislative elections in Venezuela in December 2020.
https://www.igadi.gal/web/sites/all/arquivos/files/tempoexterior_41_ent…
The 2021 Tuttle Graduate Fellowship was awarded to Danial Nayeri, an incoming graduate student from Iran, who is joining the research lab of Wildlife professor Dr. Ho Yi Wan. The Fellowship provides two years of $15,000 each year for a graduate student studying climate policy or science. Danial's project is evaluating the effect of projected climate change and altered fire regimes on spotted owl habitat using a multi-scale ensemble learning and scenario modeling framework.
The Tuttle Graduate Fellowship was established by Dr. Andrea Tuttle, former Director of the California Department of Forestry and a consultant in forest and climate policy.
Dane St. George and Matt Johnson published a manuscript entitled, "Effects of habitat on prey delivery rate and prey species composition of breeding barn owls in winegrape vineyards" in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & the Environment
Alumni Blenna Kiros, Diana Martinez wrote the article Behind the Redwood Curtain published in Platform Magazine.
Undergraduate Jose Rodriguez received a $5,000 starter grant given to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color from Save the Redwoods League. This grant will be used to initiate the Condors And Redwoods Ecological Research (CARER) project, which aims to study California condors that are soon to be released into the wild in northern California. Jose will be working with mentor Dr. Ho Yi Wan on the project.
Dr. Bori Mazzag and Dr. Julie Glass, CSU East Bay, co-organized a series of CSU-wide talks in January as part of the year-long Math Council Colloquium series. The theme of the January talks was "Peer Instruction". We aimed to connect faculty and staff across the CSU who work on providing academic support services to students in mathematics and statistics courses. In addition to the talks, we collected some information on the structure of the tutoring and peer instruction on the various campuses. CSU campuses were broadly represented in the series, including speakers from Humboldt State University's Learning Center.
Libbi Miller, Education, published the article "Exploring critical reflection in a virtual learning community in teacher education" in the journal Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives.
Feb. 17-20 eighteen theatre majors attended the virtual Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival. Gwynnevere won the regional Aspire award and will represent Region 7 in Washington DC. Sammi won a scholarship to CSU Summer Arts to study with Second City improv, and Destiny won a one week scholarship to the Stagecraft Institute of Lighting in Las Vegas. Congratulations students!
Sing C. Chew, Professor Emeritus, recently published a new monograph: Ecology, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality (Life in the Digital Ages). Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. 2021.
Jasper Oshun and Margaret Lang published an article in the February issue of AAPG Explorer. The article, which details the positive and lasting impacts of their 'Bonanza en los Andes' project to HSU students, the community of Zurite, and hydrogeologic science was featured on the cover. A link to a pdf of the issue is below:
https://geology.humboldt.edu/sites/default/files/aapgfeb21explorer.pdf
Jason Laugesen has been selected as an awardee for the 2021 CSU Student Research Competition. Jason is an anthropology major with a focus on Mesoamerican archaeology. He is a research assistant at the Geospatial Archaeology Research Center and at the Cultural Resources Facility at HSU. For the past year and a half, Jason has been working under the direction of Dr. Cortes-Rincon on the Belize Archaeology Project. He uses ArcGIS to make maps of the ancient Maya structures and any other cultural features such as roads, quarries, and hydrology. The competition will be held virtually on April 30th.
Published the article "Classification, Koszulity and Artin-Schelter regularity of certain graded twisted tensor products" in the Journal of Noncommutative Geometry, DOI: 10.4171/JNCG/395
Catalina Cuellar-Gempeler earned the NSF Career award, one of the most prestigious awards offered by NSF.
Undergraduate Karley Rojas (Botany) has received a science fellowship from the Agricultural Research Institute for their proposed study of native plants that have the potential to be utilized in the context of agroecosystem building as consistent with regional TEK. They will be working with their mentors Dr.Buddhika Madurapperuma and Craig Benson.
Twelve CNRS students competed in the international Mathematical Contest in Modeling-- an annual four day intensive competition. Teams of 3 worked intensely to apply mathematics to a real world problem. Students worked on mathematical models applied to competing populations of fungi, musical influence, and optimizing our nation's delivery of higher education. The contest happened virtually due to the pandemic.
Rebecca Robertson (Anthropology faculty) recently published a paper, Empirical and Practical Implications for Documenting Early Racial Transfer Gaps in New Directions for Community Colleges:Transfer Partnerships for More Equitable Outcomes). This research used a nationally representative sample of students drawn from the Beginning Post-secondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:12/14) to quantitatively examine inequities in early transfer among racial/ethnic groups.
Chris Aberson of the Department of Psychology recently received the Western Psychological Association’s Outstanding Teaching Award for 2021. The Western Psychological Association is the oldest and largest division of the American Psychological Association. The society hosts an annual conference that draws 4,000 attendees a year.
Undergraduate Sarah Aguiar (ESM) received a $6,400 science fellowship from the Agricultural Research Institute for her proposed study to track phenology of California poppies from different parts of California and Baja California. She will be working with mentor Dr. Kerry Byrne (ESM) on the project.
Former graduate students Xerónimo Castañeda, Allison Huysman, and their advisor Matt Johnson published a paper in Ornithological Applications entitled, "Barn Owls select uncultivated habitats for hunting in a winegrape growing region of California."
Sophia Lemmo (Forestry graduate student advised by Lucy Kerhoulas and Rosemary Sherriff) gave an invited talk about the post-drought demographics of select true fir species in northern California at the Annual Meeting of the California Pest Council.
Lucy Kerhoulas (Forestry faculty), David Hammons (forestry undergraduate student), and Nick Kerhoulas (Wildlife faculty) published a paper in Northwest Science investigating bigleaf maple within-crown leaf morphology and seasonal physiology.
A study by Lucy Kerhoulas (Forestry and Wildland Resources faculty), William Weinberg (FWR undergraduate student), Jessica Suoja (FWR undergraduate student), Ryan Maberry (FWR undergraduate student), Chris Lee (Cal Fire Forest Health Specialist), Dave Baston (Core Lab), and Susan Marshall (FWR faculty) was written up by the National Park Service for "Stories of Science":https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/sos-diseased-trees.htm. This work investigated the physiological effects of Phytophthora ramorum leaf infections on understory hardwoods in Redwood National Park and is being published in Madroño (in press).
Sophia Lemmo (Forestry graduate student advised by Lucy Kerhoulas and Rosemary Sherriff) was awarded a Student Fellowship of $10,800 from the CSU Agricultural Research Institute for her M.S. investigation of forest mortality and regeneration in northern California.
Lucy Kerhoulas (Forestry faculty), Wade Polda (Biology undergraduate student), Nick Kerhoulas (Wildlife faculty), and Pascal Berrill (Forestry faculty) published a "research":https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2020.00049/full?&utm_… paper in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change on how management can influence conifer seedling physiology, growth, and survival.
Phil van Mantgem (USGS researcher), Lucy Kerhoulas (Forestry faculty), Rosemary Sherriff (Geography faculty), and Zach Wenderott (Forestry graduate student) published a "review paper":https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2020.00041/full?&utm_… in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change on how tree-rings can be used to verify that management can moderate forest drought responses.
Thanks to Will Goldenberg and SPF for putting together a great video highlighting our water development work in Perú: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cz0rVMWDYE. Thanks to Jazmin Sandoval and Nathalie Rivera (Film), Yojana Miraya (Env. & Com.), and Laurel Smith (ERE) for collecting footage.
ESM professor Alison O'Dowd recently published a chapter "Urbanizing River Channels" in the Treatise on Geomorphology (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.12500-X
Former graduate student Hilary Cosby had her thesis research published in the Journal of Mammalogy, co-authored with mentor Dr. Micaela Szykman Gunther in the Department of Wildlife. The paper is entitled: "Variation in diet of river otters by season and aquatic community."
The co-authored paper “Fabaceae (legume) pollen as an anthropogenic indicator in eastern North America” was recently published in the journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. Dr. Teale’s background in historical ecology and Dr. Chang’s expertise in data analysis allowed the combination of historical records and pollen records to assess whether legumes (such as clover) reflect European settlement. Preview the article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00815-w
Dr. Chelsea Teale was recently elected Treasurer of the Society of Woman Geographers. SWG was formed in 1925 as a response to the all-male Explorers Club, and financially supports women in many fields with fellowships, grants, and programming.
Zachary Erickson, Kevin Boston, Pascal Berrill (Forestry & Wildland Resources, CNRS) were awarded an Intertribal Timber Council, Native American Natural Resource Research Scholarship for Zachary's forestry MS thesis research into defining stewardship goals of native people, with case study example of the Wiyot tribe and HSU's Goukd'in (Jacoby Creek) Forest: “Identifying forest management objectives of the Wiyot”. $4,200.
Published two articles in the Volume 74 of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, published by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and University of Texas Press. Pasztor has been an author and contributing editor of the Handbook, and a consultant for the Hispanic Division, since 1994.
Dr. Amy Rock was recently invited to join the Editorial Board for the California Geospatial Review, a peer-reviewed publication which showcases geospatial teaching and research within the CSU.
Dr. Sara L. Chase Merrick, an Assistant Professor in the Child Development, was awarded a $50,000 grant to help support her Hupa Language Immersion Summer School. The Dreamstarter Gold grant from Running Strong for American Indian Youth, a nonprofit that offers immediate services and financial support to tribes nationally, will help Dr. Merrick transform her week-long Hupa Language Immersion course into a four-week summer program. Sara will be collaborating with the Hoopa Tribal Education Association and Hupa Language speakers for this important project.
Dr. Pam Bowers and Dr.Katharine Dill (Marist College) co-authored an article titled: "Building a Better Field Seminar." The article and will be published in the upcoming issue of The Field Educator.
Dr. Jill Anderson, Dr. David Adams, and Dr. Chris Hopper are providing support for the Yurok Tribe Youth Engagement in Sports project that is designed to promote physical activity and sports participation for middle school students. Dr. Anderson is managing the research and evaluation activities and providing instruction in nutrition for Yurok Tribe personnel. Dr. Adams is supporting the implementation of the physical activity programs in schools and sharing ideas on how youth can maintain a healthy lifestyle at home. All three faculty serve on the project leadership team that is completing year 1 activities in a two-year project.