Updates about the latest accomplishments—including latest research, publications, and awards—by students, faculty, and staff
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 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.
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).
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 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 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.
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
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/
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 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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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!
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 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 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.
Recieved an NSF grant to study conifer drought responses in the Klamath Ecoregion ($399,987).
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.
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.
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
HSU MS student Claire Nasr won an Honorable Mention in the National Science Foundation's prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program competition
Co-edited book Population Ecology and Conservation of Charadrius Plovers. Studies in Avian Biology No. 52
Awarded Sequoia Park Zoo Conservation Grant for project "Monitoring Humboldt's Flying Squirrels with Novel Techniques".
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"
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"
Published a paper in Evansia: Epiphyte diversity, abundance, and distribution in an old Sitka spruce crown.
Received scholarship from the California Native Plant Society for his research on conifer encroachment in northern California oak woodlands ($1,500).
HSU Rangeland Resource students Louise Martin, Michael Mees, Mary Scanlan, Kegan Richards, and Ivy Sebring-Patton have each been awarded a $5,000 Rustici Livestock and Rangeland Scholarship. This scholarship is offered through the California Farm Bureau Federation and is renewable annually. Congratulations!
Humboldt State University TRiO Upward Bound, Educational Talent Search, and GEAR UP proudly hosted the 2019 Winter Academy this past February. Winter Academy brings high school students to HSU’s campus to take part in “A Day in the Life of a College Student” and to picture the possibilities of life after high school. The day was filled with TRiO and GEAR UP students who took the time to spend their President’s day off taking classes with enrolled HSU students in disciplines they expressed interest in, participating in workshops, study sessions, and tours of campus facilities. This massively collaborative effort among HSU early outreach programs has been incredibly successful and continues to grow in popularity and attendance each February.
HSU TRiO alum students played a critical role in guiding students to and from classes ensuring timely arrival as well as acting as docents to assist them with the transition between classes from all corners of the campus. HSU staff, faculty and professors were and continue to be committed to receiving TRiO and GEAR UP students into their classrooms, labs, and facilities and without this support, the Winter Academy would not be as successful as it is. Students sat in over 20 different lectures, demonstrations, and activities from all three colleges on campus, and toured the green house, the special collections room, and athletic facilities. 50 students participated in the academy this year and that number is expected to grow next year. To learn more about TRiO Upward Bound, TRiO Talent Search, and GEAR UP, please visit our websites:
https://trioupwardbound.humboldt.edu/
Matthew Derrick, chair of Geography, was elected as president of the California Geographical Society at the organization's annual meeting May 3-5.
Summer won third place in the Digital Map Competition at the California Geographic Conference in Big Bear Lake, CA with her map The Impact of the Thomas Fire.
Brian won second place in the Digital Map Competition at the California Geographic Society Annual Conference in Big Bear Lake, CA for his map An Overview of Watersheds of California.
Leo won first place in the Digital Map Competition at the California Geographic Society Annual Conference in Big Bear Lake, CA for his map Historical Physical & Architectural Features of Eureka, CA.
Riley won second place in the Paper Map Competition at the California Geographic Society Annual Conference in Big Bear Lake, CA for his map The San Gabriel Mountains.
Gil won first place in the Print Cartography competition at the California Geographic Society Annual Conference in Big Bear Lake, CA with his map The Southern California Coast.
Danielle won first place in the McKnight Student Paper Contest for best undergraduate geography paper at the California Geographic Society Annual Conference in Big Bear Lake, CA with her work Cartography and Resistance: Counter-mapping in Palestine.
Kevin won the Geosystems award for best paper in physical geography at the California Geographic Society Annual Conference in Big Bear Lake, CA with his research "Determining Factors That Contributed to the Carr Fire."
James Floss, in AY 18-19 studied undocumented immigrant experiences locally, within the state of California, and internationally. The stories, originally published on KHSU are now available through NPR One. The guests were from Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Columbia, El Salvador and the United States. Some were undocumented, some were legal residents, one was a newly minted citizen and one was deported two days after being recorded.
Received USDA Multicultural Scholars Award to provide outdoor leadership training and scholarships to Forestry Students ($162,000)
Received Agricultural Research Institute Grant to study Phytophthora ($60,518).
Presented poster at HSU's INRSEP/CNRS Scientific Research Symposium: Physiology, growth, and immediate response to thinning in a second-growth redwood forest.
Selected to represent HSU at the CSU Research Competition with his investigation of conifer encroachment in northern California oak woodlands
Principal Investigators for Save the Redwoods League's Redwoods Rising Apprenticeship Program ($174,430).
Received an RSCA Award to purchase a cavitation chamber for measuring tree drought resistance
HSU participated for the first time in the Collegiate Soil Contest hosted by CalPoly SLO. Overall the HSU Team placed 19th out of 26 teams nationwide, but ranked #1 among teams from the 11 western states; higher than Land Grant Institutions such as Colorado State, Utah State, and University of Wyoming.
Became a member of the Northwest Scientific Association's Board of Directors
Published paper in Nature Climate Change "Winners and losers in response to extreme drought"
ESM graduate student Thomas Starkey-Owens presented a poster: "Benthic macroinvertebrate drift and juvenile Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) diet response to pulse flows on the Trinity River below Lewiston Dam" at the 2019 Salmonid Restoration Conference in Santa Rosa, CA on April 25th.