Latest Achievements

Updates about the latest accomplishments—including latest research, publications, and awards—by students, faculty, and staff

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Alison O'Dowd, Environmental Science & Management

Alison O'Dowd (ESM Professor) was awarded a research grant from the Trinity River Restoration Program to examine invertebrate drift as a food source for juvenile salmonids on the Trinity River. This project will be conducted with the Yurok Tribe and Hoopa Valley Tribe.

Jeffrey Dunk, Environmental Science & Management

Jeff Dunk, Environmental Science and Management faculty member, along with seven collaborators, co-authored a paper entitled "Modeling spatial variation in density of Golden Eagle nest sites in the Western United States" in PLoSONE.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223143

Kenneth Fulgham & Susan Marshall, Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Professor Susan Marshall is currently on the Society for Range Management ballot as a candidate for SRM Board Director.

Emeritus Professor Ken Fulgham was recently appointed to the Chair-Elect position on the Society for Range Management Endowment Fund Development Committee.

Dr. Seafha Ramos, Wildlife

Dr. Seafha Ramos (Yurok/Karuk/Chicana) has been awarded a 2-year National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in biology. She will continue ongoing research in the application of Indigenous (e.g. Traditional Ecological Knowledge; TEK) and Western science in wildlife conservation. She plans to submit to peer reviewed journals two manuscripts: one on TEK through the Yurok lens and one on the use of genetic analysis of scats in a wildlife survey on Yurok ancestral lands, from her doctoral work. She will also continue new research in partnership with Redwood National Park and the Yurok Tribe to apply both scientific paradigms to explore TEK and genetic analyses of elk fecal pellets.

William English III, Irma Gill Yañez, and Troy Lescher, Dance, Music & Theatre

William English III ('19), Irma Gill Yañez ('19), and Dr. Troy Lescher published the "Doctoral Projects in Progress in Theatre Arts, 2019" report in the June 2019 edition of Theatre Journal [Association of Theatre in Higher Education].

Sarah Jaquette Ray, Environmental Studies

With colleagues Elin Kelsey (U. Victoria) and Jennifer Atkinson (UW-Bothel), Dr. Ray has been chosen to host a workshop on teaching climate change, called "An Existential Toolkit for Climate Educators," at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany. A call for proposals is here: bit.ly/ecoanxietyRCC.

Buddhika Madurapperuma, Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Lecturer recognized in Publons’ global awards

Dr. Buddhika Madurapperuma, Lecturer, FWR/ESM received Publons Peer Review Awards 2019 for placing in the top 1% global peer reviewers in "Geosciences". This award was based on the Publons global reviewer database, determined by the number of peer review reports performed during 2018-19 year. He has performed 64 peer reviews according to the publons statistics as linked https://publons.com/researcher/1240224/buddhika-madurapperuma/peer-review/. Publons peer review awards honor the elite contributors who have demonstrated outstanding expert commitment to protect the integrity and accuracy of published research.

Jared D. Larson, Politics

Dr. Larson gave the keynote lecture of the 28th Anniversary Conference the Instituto Galego de Análise e Documentación Internacional (Galician Institute of International Analysis and Documentation, IGADI) entitled “Del 11-S a la Política Exterior de Trump” (From 9/11 to Trump's Foreign Policy), held at the Faculdade de Ciencias Políticas e Sociais, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Sept. 10, 2019.

Jared D. Larson, Politics

Dr. Larson presented the paper "Chega (or Basta?) Vox: The (Re-)Emergence of Right-wing Politics in Iberia" at the 41st Annual Conference of the Association for Contemporary Iberian Studies, held at the Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, Sept. 4-6, 2019. At the closing session of the conference, he was appointed to the Executive Council of the Association as an At-Large Member.

Mark Wicklund, Institutional Effectiveness

Mark Wicklund co-authored a paper, “Is English resumption different in appositive relative clauses?”, published in the Canadian Journal of Linguistics.

Resumptive pronouns are pronouns that they should not appear in relative clauses but nonetheless do, especially in contexts that they are difficult to process. We explored resumptive pronouns in restrictive and appositive clauses, which we posited they were different. Participants rated sentences that they had resumptive pronouns, and we found that appositive clauses are more tolerant of resumption, which that is very interesting. Corpus data also suggest that resumptive pronouns occur mostly in appositive clauses, which we expected that.

Kevin R Fingerman, Environmental Science & Management

Kevin Fingerman was invited by the California Council on Science and Technology to participate in an Expert Briefing on "Beneficial Uses of Biomass from Wildfire Management Activities in California." Dr. Fingerman joined a 5-person panel at the State Capitol building on September 19th to brief legislative and agency staff members on this issue with cross-cutting implications for California's for climate, ecological, public health, and economic goals.

https://ccst.us/ccst-to-host-expert-briefing-on-the-beneficial-uses-of-…

Nicolas Malloy, Amy Rock, Geography

Nicolas Malloy and Amy Rock have just published Geospatial Concepts: The Fundamentals of Geospatial Science, a low-cost, interactive text on the foundational knowledge of geospatial science. Topics include cartography, geographic information systems, remote sensing, and mobile mapping with GPS.

This book uses the ePub 3.0 specification, which is natively accessible to screen readers, and allows for many interactive options that enrich the reading experience, such as links to external resources, files, and videos.

To learn more, watch the following video: https://youtu.be/_5l9na4DLyM. The book is available through Amazon.com.

Josh Meisel, Sociology

Josh Meisel gave an invited lecture, "Navigating 'Legal' Cannabis," as part of the Cannabis in Context lecture series at the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. This lecture was based on his qualitative work with a student research team examining bad experiences with cannabis edibles and a survey of a national panel. He also attended the First Annual Research Briefing given by the Berkeley Cannabis Research Center.

Leena Dallasheh, History

Leena Dallasheh participated at a symposium, World War II and The Middle East at The Pennsylvania State University, marking 80 years to the outbreak of WWII. She presented a paper entitled "Working Through the War: Palestinian Labor Defying Colonialism," which discussed the rise of Palestinian trade unionism during the war.

Armeda Reitzel, Communication

Armeda Reitzel was one of 26 scholars invited to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities Institute "Middle Eastern Millennials through Literature, Culture, and Media” at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona in August 2019. She is developing instructional materials on the Middle East for use in intercultural communication courses based on what she learned at the NEH Institute.

Tammy Phrakonkham, Geology

HSU geology student Tammy Phrakonkham has been selected to represent northern California at the 2019 Geosciences Congressional Visits Day (GEO-CVD) on Sept. 10-11 in Washington, D.C.
           
GEO-CVD is sponsored by American Geophysical Union along with other Earth science societies each year “to increase the visibility of and support for the geosciences in Congress.” During this event, participants will be given an opportunity to meet with members of the congressional delegation representing their state and with staff from congressional committees who have jurisdiction over issues related to geoscience.

Alec Cole, Peter Blickensderfer, Madi Kaisan, Dance, Music & Theatre

Congratulations to HSU Film Students whose films are finalists in the 2019 CSU Media Arts Festival. Alec Cole for his film A TEMPLE TO COMEDY. Peter Blickensderfer and Madi Kaisan for their film DANH TINH.

Young Sub Kwon, School of Applied Health

Humboldt State University Human Performance Lab Director, Dr. YoungSub Kwon was invited as a keynote speaker at two different symposia and as an invited speaker at four different universities (Dongwon University, Korea Maritime & Ocean University, Pusan National University, and Dongshin University) in Korea.
He presented his research topics entitled 'challenging traditional dietary guidelines to prevent metabolic syndrome and Global Strategy', 'developing norms for health-related physical fitness and conditioning', and 'how to be more mentally tough (Grit)' and also worked with HSU and the aforementioned universities for Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between universities.

Luisa Segovia, Biological Sciences

Received a 2019 CSU-LSAMP at HSU Summer Research Experience Award to conduct research on immunogenetics of invasive frogs with Karen Kiemnec-Tyburczy (Biological Sciences).

Erin Kelly, Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Invited talk at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan: Forestry projects under the cap-and-trade market in California. Symposium paper in the Sophia University Journal, Global Environmental Studies.

Erin Kelly & Yvonne Everett, Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Co-Edited Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, an annual special issue journal. Title: The American West after the Timber Wars. (both also contributed articles to the issue).

https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/hjsr/vol1/iss40/

Karen Davy, Music

Karen Davy, lecturer in the Music Department, was a contributor to an article about the renowned violin pedagogue, Kató Havas, called "A Teacher for All" in the August 2019 edition of The Strad magazine.

Amy Rock, Geography

Dr. Amy Rock was recently appointed to the American Association of Geographers' Committee on the Status of Women in Geography. The focus of this standing committee is to monitor and promote opportunities for women, and identify outstanding mentorship within the discipline.

Dr. Leslie L. Rossman, Communication

Dr. Leslie L. Rossman attended the first Rhetoric Society of America's Project in Power, Place, and Publics summer institute the University of Nevada, Reno where she participated in intensive, immersive, and collaborative research and writing in the academic labor precarity working group.

Alison Holmes, PhD, International Studies

International Studies Program Leader Alison Holmes was invited to be a Visiting Scholar at Sacramento State's Center for California Studies and presented a summary of her sabbatical research in a keynote entitled, “California as nation-state: Inevitable or Innovative?”

The talk was followed by a panel including: Jamie Callahan, Deputy Cabinet Secretary Governor Newsom’s office; Anka Lee, Director of International Relations CA Assembly; and Douglas Smurr, Of Counsel Gordon & Rees Scully Mansukhani (and former head of CA trade office in Mexico City).

Libbi Miller, Gregg Gold, Heather Ballinger, James Woglom, Education

HSU and the Humboldt County Office of Education were recently awarded one of five Improvement Research Fellowships, a team-based experience for CSU-District teacher preparation partnerships. The fellowship supports partnership teams to achieve improved program outcomes, build improvement capacity, and build knowledge about how to improve teacher preparation. With support from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and the leadership of the CSU Chancellor’s Office for Educator Preparation and Public School Programs, the Humboldt team aims to increase the number of diverse candidates who complete HSU's post-baccalaureate teaching credential program.

David Sleeth-Keppler, Business

David Sleeth-Keppler recently published an article in the journal Royal Society Open Science along with social scientists from George Mason University, The University of Bristol, and the University of Queensland. The open access paper can be accessed here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.180475

Joshua Frye, Communication

Joshua Frye was recently featured on the podcast, HEADSCRATCHER: Making Sense of Young Adulthood. The host of the podcast, Benjamin Laufer, talked with Frye about strategies for effective activism within the contemporary environmental movement and public speaking, among other topics. The podcast is focused on diverse issues relevant to young adults coming of age in the current moment to help inform and inspire the next generation with lessons on leadership, social advocacy, and innovation. Frye appeared on episode 8 within the EXPERT series. The HEADSCRATCHER podcast's episodes are available on iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn Radio app, and other social media platforms.

Pam Bowers & Marissa O'Neill, Social Work

Social Work Professors Pam Bowers & Marissa O'Neill have co-authored an article in the Journal of Children and Poverty titled The Lived Experience of Being A Homeless College Student.

The abstract reads:

Heightened awareness that college students are facing homelessness points to the need for more research on this vulnerable subpopulation of emerging adults. The study, which draws on the social inequalities framework, uses qualitative interpretive meta-synthesis (QIMS) to develop a comprehensive understanding of the lived experience of college students who are homeless. The sample consisted of 60 college students among seven studies. The QIMS revealed four themes, including Trauma, Priority Hierarchy, Homeless (situational) Identity, and Resilience. Definition recommendations are proposed and policy and practice implications discussed.

You can read a pdf of the full study here: https://www2.humboldt.edu/socialwork/community/dr-pam-bowers-dr-marissa-oneill-co-author-article-lived-experience-being-homeless-college

Karina Coronado, Campus Center for Appropriate Technology

The Campus Center for Appropriate Technology won a Best Practices Award in Student Sustainability Leadership, to be awarded at the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference this July at UC Santa Barbara. CCAT Co-Director Karina Coronado will present about HSU's sustainable living demonstration home & laboratory. Read more at: https://chesc.org/best-practice-awards/2019-best-practice-award-winners-2/

Janet Winston, English

Prof. Janet Winston was awarded a Faculty Development Seminar Travel Fellowship by the Palestinian American Research Center as part of its 10th annual competition. Prof. Winston traveled to Palestine/Israel as part of a U.S. faculty delegation to five Palestinian universities. She met with professors and human rights activists in the West Bank in an effort to develop place-based knowledge and foster international collaborations with teacher-scholars living in Palestine.

Emily Cobb, Art + Film

Emily Cobb was invited to exhibit several contemporary jewelry pieces in the exhibition 'Analog_Digital' at Gallery BAUM in Seoul, South Korea from May 24th to June 2nd, 2019. Her work is included alongside four other digital jewelry artists: Arthur Hash, Ye-jee Lee, Ryungjae Jung, and Hee-ang Kim.

Meghann Brenneman, Library

HSU Library's Resource Sharing Coordinator, Meghann Brenneman, presented Storytelling with Data in the CSU System at the 2019 ELUNA Conference. This year's conference was themed Data All Around Us and took place in Atlanta, GA. Meghann highlighted storytelling with data as a means of community building and knowledge sharing in the CSU Interlibrary Loan community. Meghann was awarded the Christine Moulen First-Time Attendee Grant from ExLibris, which supports professional development and celebrates collaboration.

Rae Robison, Dance, Music & Theatre

Theatre Professor Rae Robison has been invited and will attend the Dorothy Richard's Educators Luncheon and Roundtable at UCLA on June 2, 2019. The event, hosted by Deborah Nadoolman-Landis (costume designer of Indiana Jones among others), facilitates best practices in teaching Costume Design for Film & Television.

Jade Williams, Briana Ramirez, Austin Schenk, Skye Gibney, Eric Malekos, Charlin Duff, Gynell Higby, Nicole Perry, Joshua Maldonado, Johnny Rasnic, Minh Nguyen, Joseph Wertzberger, Ezra Moreno, Daisy Montalvo, Kamila Larripa (adviser), Mathematics

Six students received an Honorable Mention in the International Mathematical Contest in Modeling, and eight others were recognized as Successful Participants for their work in this annual competition.

Jianmin Zhong, Biological Sciences

Jianmin Zhong, Ph. D. published a manuscript on the journal of "Ticks and tick-borne diseases" in May 2019. The title of the manuscript is "Isolation and characterization of a Rickettsia from the ovary of a Western black-legged tick, Ixodes pacificus". In addition, there are 10 HSU undergraduate and graduate students as coauthors on the manuscript. Zhong is proud of students' achievements at HSU.

Math Students, Mathematics

The Mathematics Department recognized outstanding student performance in competitions, courses, and student clubs at the annual Math Award Ceremony on May 9.

Participants in the local Mu Alpha Theta competition, the Fall 2018 Integration Bee, the rigorous national competition, the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, and the international Mathematical Contest in Modeling were recognized.

Two prizes were awarded: the Joseph J. and Esther F. Flashman Mathematics Award for outstanding performance in elementary mathematics education and the vdu prize for outstanding performance in first-year calculus.

A number of scholarships were also awarded: seven students received the $500 Mathematics and Science Teacher Initiative (MSTI) Scholarship for Graduates in Mathematics Education; Camden Collins received the $1,000 Elmo Moore Memorial Scholarship; Annaliese Kuhn received the $750 Dr. Orval M Klose Mathematics Scholarship; Lilly Lyons received the $1,000 Robert S. Chambers Scholarship; Michael Crow received the $2,000 Michael Tucker Mathematics Scholarship; Minh Nguyen received the $1,500 Latika Patel Scholarship; Jade Williams and Charlin Duff each received a $3,000 Travis Jepsen Memorial Mathematics Scholarship; Ana Sammel received a $1,000 Harry S. Kieval Transfer Scholarship to the most promising student transferring from a two-year institution; and Eric Malekos received the prestigious $5,000 Harry S. Kieval Scholarship given to the most outstanding senior-to-be Math major at HSU.

Congratulations to all HSU Math awardees and scholarship recipients!

Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association Awardees, Multiple Departments

On Tuesday, May 7, 2019, at the Annual University Senate Reception at Baywood Golf and Country Club, the following faculty, having demonstrated outstanding promise, received cash awards from the Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association, to support their continued professional development:

Ellery Ames, Department of Mathematics
Janelle Adsit, Department of English
Allison Bronson, Department of Biological Sciences
Loren Cannon, Department of Philosophy & CRGS
Jasper Oshun, Department of Geology

The website for the awards is: https://www2.humboldt.edu/senate/erfa/faculty-awards

Armeda Reitzel, Communication

Armeda Reitzel was selected as one of twenty-eight scholars in the United States to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar/Institute on “Understanding Middle Eastern Millennials through Literature, Culture, and Media.” The seminar will take place at the University of Arizona from August 4 through August 10, 2019.

Rosemary Sherriff and Lucy Kerhoulas, Geography and Forestry & Wildland Resources

Rosemary Sherriff and Lucy Kerhoulas received an NSF Award for ~$400,000 for three years to assess differential response of conifers to drought across geographic gradients. The project uses the recent, severe California drought as a test case to yield important insights on the effects of multi-year drought stress, competition and habitat factors. This information is needed to model tree responses to climate change and as input for forest management in the face of future wildfire. The project involves field sampling and analysis of tree-ring growth and carbon isotope ratios. The team will involve undergraduate and graduate students and multiple collaborators.

Rosemary Sherriff (PI) and Lucy Kerhoulas (Co-PI), Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Recieved an NSF grant to study conifer drought responses in the Klamath Ecoregion ($399,987).

Lucy Kerhoulas, Allyson Carroll, Jim Campbell-Spickler, Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Featured scientists at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The exhibit, "Giants of Land and Sea, Redwood Ascent," will be on display in one of the main galleries for five years.

Louise Martin, Michael Mees, Kegan Richards, Ivy Sebring-Patton, Mary Scanlan, Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Five Rangeland Resource Science students have been awarded the Rustici Livestock and Rangeland Scholarship, administered through the California Farm Bureau Federation. These scholarships are worth $5,000 and are renewable each year.

Jianmin Zhong, Biological Sciences

Published paper in Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases: Isolation and Characterization of a Rickettsia from the Ovary of a Western Black-legged Tick, Ixodes pacificus

Claire Nasr, Wildlife

HSU MS student Claire Nasr won an Honorable Mention in the National Science Foundation's prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program competition

Mark Colwell, Wildlife

Co-edited book Population Ecology and Conservation of Charadrius Plovers. Studies in Avian Biology No. 52

Barbara Clucas, Wildlife

Awarded Sequoia Park Zoo Conservation Grant for project "Monitoring Humboldt's Flying Squirrels with Novel Techniques".

Trinity Smith, Wildlife

Graduate student Trinity Smith won best student poster at the North American Society for Bat Research (NASBR) conference for her poster entitled "Patterns of western red bat occupancy across a disturbed landscape in California's Central Valley"

Molly Parren, Wildlife

Presented poster at the annual meeting of the Western Section of The Wildlife Society entitled "The effects of human disturbance on intraguild interactions of mammalian mesopredators in the Mojave Desert of California"

Alex Gorman (2018, first author), Lucy Kerhoulas, Wade Polda (2016), and Nick Kerhoulas, Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Published a paper in Evansia: Epiphyte diversity, abundance, and distribution in an old Sitka spruce crown.