Latest Achievements

Dr. Oscar Vargas collaborated in the assemblage and annotation of a spiral ginger genome. Authors sequenced the nuclear genome of two species of plants in the family Costaceae. The study provides a draft annotation for the genome by mapping the transcriptome (RNA, expressed DNA) of one species to its draft genome. This study provides useful genetic resources for the study of non-model organisms. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esad018

Drs. Lucy Kerhoulas and Erin Kelly were awarded a $299,000 grant to support the ongoing Redwoods Rising student apprenticeship program. The program places students within resource teams to perform seasonal tasks associated with restoration activities throughout the Redwood National and State Parks, where they develop field experience, network with resource management specialists, and contribute to ongoing land management efforts. This summer they hired 12 apprentices to work on projects related to forestry, roads, watersheds, and outreach and interpretation.This project is in collaboration with Redwood National and State Parks and the Save the Redwoods League, which also provides funding.

Dr. Oscar Vargas collaborated in the description of a new species of spiral gingers from the mountains of Costa Rica. The paper examines the possible causes of speciation by comparing the genetics and climate preference of the new species to its closest relative. https://doi.org/10.1600/036364423X16758877666039 

Leslie Keig's one minute play "The Tides of Janus" was selected for inclusion in Et tu, Brute? An Anthology of One Minute Plays (Volume 2) from Fresh Words: An International Literary Magazine. https://sites.google.com/view/freshwordsmagazine/special-anthologies

California Community College students have achieved educational and professional success at Cal Poly Humboldt’s online Bachelors Degree in Leadership Studies which is designed to accommodate students from many industry sectors. Since 2021, LDRS students have transferred from 46 different community colleges across a variety of Certificate and Associate pathways, building on their technical training and work experience. Non-traditional students can continue to work while accessing a CSU through this flexible, adult-friendly degree program as well as access financial aid (Cal Grant, Pell Grant, and federal loans). LDRS students have a 78% retention rate and 75% graduation rate! Go Lumberjacks! 

Dr. Rouhollah Aghasaleh facilitated a pre-conference (NARST 2023) workshop at the Spencer Foundation in Chicago on “Dismantling Systemic Inequalities in Indigenous STEM Education”, sponsored by Indigenous Scientific Knowledge Research Interest Group (ISK-RIG). Organizers: Sharon Nelson-Barber-WestEd, USA Rouhollah Aghasaleh- California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, CA, USA Megan Bang- Northwestern University, IL, USA Pauline Chinn- University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, HI, USA Josiah Hester- Northwestern University, IL, USA Julie Robinson- University of North Dakota, ND, USA Linda Tuhiwai Smith- Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, New Zealand Bhaskar Upadhyay- University of Minnesota, MN, USA David Zandvliet- Simon Fraser University, Canada https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/#/event/3108/session/58009

Dr. Rouhollah Aghasaleh delivered a keynote address at American Educational Research Association (AERA) Philosophical Studies in Education Special Interest Group (SIG) Business Meeting in Chicago on Friday April 14, 2023.

Regina Khoury has been selected to receive the Alistair and Judith McCrone Graduate Fellowship Award for the 2023-2024 academic year. This fellowship is given to one graduate student each year at Cal Poly Humboldt who demonstrates exceptional academic merit and significant potential for contribution to their field. Regina's MS thesis project with Professor Brandon Browne combines geologic mapping with geochemical and mineralogical analyses of lavas erupted from eight different vents within a ~200 year "flare up" of Medicine Lake volcano in the California Cascades. Her findings will advance hazard mitigation efforts at volcanoes worldwide. Congratulations Regina!

Dr. Rouhollah Aghasaleh has been elected to the Society of Professors of Education (SPE) Board of Directors. SPE (formerly the Society of College Teachers of Education until 1969) is the oldest scholarly society in education, founded in 1902 by Charles DeGarmo and John Dewey, among others. 

  Debbie Gonzalez, Assistant Professor in the Social Work Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, recently had an article published on SocialWorker.com. Congratulations Debbie! Excerpt: "It is normal to have some stress or anxiety about transitioning from the classroom to the workplace...This article connects social work knowledge with skills for building workplace relationships that support an environment where safety, trustworthiness, collaboration, voice, and cultural responsiveness are commonplace." Read the full article by clicking the link below. https://www.socialworker.com/extras/social-work-month-project-2023/breaking-barriers-relationships-isocial-work-workplace/  

Paul Michael L. Atienza’s essay “I Look at How They Write Their Bio and I Judge From There”: Language and Class Among Middle-Class Queer Filipino Digital Socialities in Manila” was published in an open access, special section titled Queer Cultures in Digital Asia for the International Journal of Communication. The article examines communicative practices among queer Filipino men in Manila and analyzes dating app profiles with a focus on class and gender. The special section aims to renew critical interrogation of the intersection between queerness and Asia at a time when digital media are inseparable from social lives. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/19882

My paper "Central Extensions of Restricted Affine Nilpotent Lie Algebras $n_+A_1^{(1)}(p)$" appeared in the Journal of Lie Theory, 33 (2023), No. 1, 195--215. This paper was written jointly with my colleague Alice Fialowski at Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem in Budapest, Hungary during my Spring 2022 sabbatical leave.  https://www.heldermann.de/JLT/JLT33/JLT331/jlt33009.htm

Last week, Save California Salmon and Cal Poly Humboldt’s Native American Studies Department hosted the Northern California LandBack Symposium. This first-of-its-kind free event featured Tribal and State leaders, university representatives, foundations, NGOs, land trusts, and lawyers who work to return land to Northern California Tribes and Tribal land trusts. SCS & NAS also worked with experts to create a draft California LandBack Red Paper to inform policy makers on the history of landback efforts along with current policy and funding needs to help make Tribal land return easier. Draft Red Paper: https://www.californiasalmon.org/_files/ugd/d97ff6_76b85f1726cb4595871840c91bc9ece9.pdf  Conference Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@SaveCaliforniaSalmon  

Vincent Biondo presented at the American Academy of Religion Western Region Annual Meeting at UC Davis on March 25, 2023.

John Meyer, has published two new articles: "Power and Truth in Science-Related Populism: Rethinking the Role of Knowledge and Expertise in Climate Politics" in Political Studies, and "Experimentalism and its alternatives: toward viable strategies for transformative change and sustainability" in Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy. Both articles are available open access. 

Student Phoebe Hughes had a work accepted into the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles Illustration West 61 exhibition. The drawing, Trash Griffins, was created in Fall 2022's ART 321: Drawing II: The Natural World, taught by Associate Professor Brandice Gonzalez-Guerra. Phoebe's work in the exhibition may be seen at this link: https://illustrationwest.org/61/student/trash-griffins/

Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza was an invited discussant to a sponsored panel on LGBT Rights in Southeast Asia at the 2023 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) annual conference (March 16-19) held in Boston, MA. The Rising Voices panel is an annual competitive selection process among advanced doctoral students and un-tenured assistant professors on a different topic or theme for inclusion in the AAS conference. The Rising Voices panel is organized by the Southeast Asia Council of AAS and with generous financial support by the journal, TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia.

Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza was an invited participant in a two-day workshop gathering Asian/American researchers, policymakers, & community organizers working on projects and advocacy focused on digital disinformation. Hosted by the Dept. of Communication at UMass Amherst, with generous support from Luminate and Reset, workshop participants shared works-in-progress and engaged in dialogue on interdisciplinary strategies to understand histories of racially targeted misinformation and hate speech. 

Dr. Ho Yi Wan received a grant from the CSU Agricultural Research Institute to support research on a collaborative project that will develop a viable business plan associated with mass timber production in the coastal region of northern California. Dr. Wan and his lab will be responsible for assessing some of the ecological benefits of this plan, primarily with regards to wildfire risks reduction from timber harvest.

Adams, D., Bellinger, G. (2023). Engaging Students in your Classroom through a Structured Learning Approach. California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (CAHPERD; Santa Clara).

Adams., D. (March, 2023). Integrating a collaborative and proactive solutions model into your classroom. California Association for Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance  Conference (CAHPERD; Santa Clara).

Dr. Ramona j.j. Bell was an invited speaker in celebration of Women's Herstory Month at the University of Colorado Boulder on March 7, 2023.  She presented from her forthcoming book, Sporting DIVAS: Black Womanhood, Empowerment & Belonging. 

Marcos Hernandez and Janelle Adsit have published an essay that reflects on Cal Poly Humboldt's literary magazine *Toyon: Multilingual Journal of Literature and Art.* Their chapter, "Literary Journals, Editorial Courses, and Equity in the Publishing Industry," appears in the collection *Creative Writing Scholars on the Publishing Trade* (edited by Sam Meekings and Marshall Moore; published in the Routledge series Studies in Creative Writing, 2022). 

Dr. Sara K. Sterner and her colleagues, Dr. Megan M. Van Deventer (Weber State University) and Laura Lemanski, ABD (University of Minnesota, MCAD) recently presented their work "Innovative Collaboration: A (Co)Process Model for Teacher Educator Collectives" at the 75th Annual National Meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE 2023).

Jill Anderson, David Adams, and Chris Hopper with the help of 3 graduate students published the following book chapter. Anderson, J., Adams, D., Hopper, C., Valdez, M. A., Hughes, D., & Ruland, K. (2023). Collaborative Preparation of Special Educators and Adapted Physical Educators. In Handbook of Research on Interdisciplinary Preparation for Equitable Special Education (pp. 65-84). IGI Global.  

Drs. Erin Kelly, Benjamin Graham, and Jeff Kane received a grant from the Joint Fire Science Program (administered by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture) to support a study on community recovery after wildfires, and how recovery can lead to social-ecological resilience. The study will look into what recovery looks like in communities impacted by wildfires, the networks within communities present for recovery, and the resources available to implement community recovery. Findings will be useful for policy makers trying to create funding, regulatory, and other policy mechanisms to facilitate community recovery, and organizations working toward social-ecological resilience in fire-prone landscapes.

Dawn Arledge was awarded $1.8 million of a $5 million planning grant to support the Community Economic Resilience Fund (CERF), a collaborative project between the California Center for Rural Policy (CCRP) at Cal Poly Humboldt and 12 other Regional Conveners across the state. The initiative will center community participation to create a regional economic development plan that will support an equitable economic transition to a carbon neutral economy. Within the Redwood Coast Region (Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino Counties), CCRP will partner with the Arcata Economic Development Corporation and North Coast Opportunities. Visit ccrp.humboldt.edu for more.

Co-authored a year long study and report on demographic and compensation trends of collegiate outdoor program professional staff. The report is available here. This report provides valuable information for staff and program managers who are attempting to close the gap in pay disparities, and elevate diversity, equity and inclusion in the outdoor industry.

Graduate students Regina Khoury and Sarah Leidinger (Geology) are the 2022-2023 recipients of the $1,500 Richard Chambers Memorial Scholarships from the Northern California Geological Society. Regina Khoury's MS thesis proposal is titled “Pre-Eruptive Storage Conditions of Magmas Erupted During the ~12ka Flare Up of Medicine Lake Volcano, CA.” Her advisor is Dr. Brandon L. Browne in Geology. Sarah Leidinger's MS thesis proposal is titled “Bathymetry and carbon accumulation rate of a rare Northern California coastal peatland.” Her advisor is Dr. Laura Levy in Geology. Congratulations Regina and Sarah! 

Drs. Cutcha Risling Baldy and Kaitlin Reed received a $50,000 grant from the S. H. Cowell Foundation for the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute. Funding will support general operations, ongoing yearly programs, and temporary initiatives of the Lab, including funding for personnel, supplies, and community events and engagement.

Nicolette Amann has been awarded $27,000 in funding from the University of California Office of the President to support a variety of literacy-focused professional development programs for local K-16 educators.

Assoc. Professor Rae Robison, National Member at Large in Design, Technology & Management for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre organization, served as a guest respondent for the Region 1 festival in Cape Cod, Massachusetts last week. Rae led a team of professionals from Yale, the New York City Ballet and other universities from across the country in responses to student designs in scenic, sound, costume and lighting design as well as allied crafts. Rae also co-responded to the invited production of Everybody from Naugatuck Valley Community College.

Associate Professor Brandice Guerra had two paintings, "I, Said the Kite" and "Bebecita", accepted into the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles Illustration West 61 exhibition. One of these works, "Bebecita", received an Honorable Mention. The judging panel, composed of prominent professional illustrators, received over 1400 entries from over 450 artists. 301 works from 183 artists were selected for inclusion. The exhibition website will launch in the beginning of March, 2023.  https://si-la.org/illustration-west-61-accepted-artists/  http://www.brandiceguerra.com/oil-paintings/I-Said-the-Kite-Web.jpg.php http://www.brandiceguerra.com/oil-paintings/Bebecita-Web.jpg.php  

Hunter Harrill (Forestry) was a co-author of a recently published article titled "Operational Analysis of Grapple Yarding in New Zealand: A Case Study of Three Mechanized Harvesting Operations"  in the journal Forests. https://doi.org/10.3390/f14020190

Dr. Frye was invited to provide strategic communication support to WindLift, Inc.  WindLift is a research and development technology firm working to bring next generation wind energy to the market with airborne power generation (APG) that is mobile, off-grid, and smart.  WindLift is a Department of Defense contractor currently operating under the aegis of the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (ODASD) for Environment & Energy Resilience.

Dr. Silvia Pavan received a grant from the National Science Foundation to implement a project that will digitize and georeference Cal Poly Humboldt’s mammal collection. The project will be part of a collaborative effort under the Ranges Thematic Collections Network (Ranges TCN), an initiative lead by the University of North Carolina, to digitize and mobilize trait data from mammalian museum specimens from across the American West, including standard external morphological measurements, reproductive and life history observations, and information on ecological associations. Resulting trait datasets will support next-generation anatomical and evolutionary research, and provide baselines for future population monitoring efforts.

Erik Jules (Biological Sciences) published a paper with ten Humboldt student co-authors in the American Journal of Botany (doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16112). The study -- titled "Genotype accounts for intraspecific variation in the timing and duration of life cycle events" -- was an experimental study of willows covering an area approximately the size of a football field. The results showed that the timing of key life events, such as leaf emergence, flowering, and fruit set, are all heritable traits, indicating that natural selection could favor some individuals under changing climate conditions. Of the ten students, six went onto graduate school after leaving Humboldt.

Professor Alison Holmes (INTL) has been invited to be on the international steering committee of a European Commission Jean Monnet grant hosted by George Washington University. The three-year grant is designed to explore the growing field subnational diplomacy through publications and the creation of executive education programming for city, county, tribal and state officials. Holmes was included on the basis of her scholarship on California’s unique role in international affairs.

Dr. Meenal Rana, along with Michigan State University and University of Michigan colleagues, guest edited the special issue of Research in Human Development (Issue Title: College Women of Color, CWOC). The issue focused on the resilience processes found among diverse groups of CWOC focusing on the key concepts in development (emerging adulthood), intersectionality, resilience and resistance. Included are the studies with African American and Latina young adult women, Latina mothers, and Chinese International students. Dr. Rana engaged two undergraduate students from Cal Poly Humboldt to contribute one article. Additionally, Dr. Rana co-authored the editorial. Vol 19 (3-4), July-Dec 22.

Dr. Aaron Gregory presented at the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) in Cholula, Mexico (December, 2022). His panel, Abysmal Infrastructures: Energy communities in Maintenance, Repair and Abandonment, engaged with the problem of 'Indigenous Energy Sovereignty' as an infrastructural assemblage of technologies, materialities and modalities of governance drawn from non-Native, settler-state and private-sector actors. Dr. Gregory's presentation addressed the ways in which renewable energy projects developed in Native America often rely upon rare earth minerals and materials extracted from Indigenous lands in Africa and South America. Dr. Gregory's conference paper is scheduled for publication in a forthcoming edited book.

In collaboration with University of Arkansas, we recently published a journal paper at Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces. In this work, we mimicked soil-like porous media by microspheres at various densitiesm, simultaneously characterized the pores and tracked bacterial motion in pores, quantified changes in bacterial swimming due to pore-scale confinement, established correlation between bacterial trapping and geometric confinement, and proposed the importance of distinguishing bacterial motility from mobility.

Dr. Jun Ou, as a corresponding author, recently published a journal article which investigated the industrial scale Counter Pressure Casting (CPC) process at the journal Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B. Using an approach that combines advanced numerical modelling and industrial data acquisition, the work enhances the understanding of how the casting/die interface gap and pressure impact the temperature field in the casting.  This article was selected as the editor's choice and this honour is reflective of the work's comprehensive nature and its overall excellence

This paper summarizes an equity-focused STEM grant project that produced an openly-shared online professional development program, the Humanizing Online STEM Academy. Through the Academy, STEM faculty are introduced to a model of humanized online teaching that centers belonging as a way to address equity gaps. Participant survey responses present opportunities for future research about belonging in online courses. Pacansky-Brock, M., Smedshammer, M., & Vincent-Layton, K. (2023). In search of belonging online: Achieving equity through transformative professional development. Journal of Educational Research & Practice, 12(0), 39–64.

In service as the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre National Member-at-Large for Design, Technology and Management, Rae traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to respond to design and technology work in Costumes, Scenic, Properties, Sound, Lighting and Allied Design for Region 2's multi state festival. Robison also served as a production respond to their invited production of Mud by María Irene Fornés.

 

Journalism student Ollie Hancock reported on and published two stories with NYT on the recent earthquakes. Following the jolt, they went to Fortuna, Ferndale, and Rio Dell to speak with those impacted.  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/us/california-earthquake.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/01/us/california-earthquake.html  

Published journal article: "Listening to Indigenous Voices, Interests, and Priorities That Would Inform Tribal Co-Management of Natural Resources on a California State University Forest"  https://doi.org/10.3390/f13122165

Paul Michael L. Atienza’s essay “Sociotechnical Infrastructures: Tracing Gay Socio-Sexual App Socialities in Manila” is included in Beauty and Brutality: Manila and Its Global Discontents edited by Martin F. Manalansan IV, Robert Diaz, and Rolando B. Tolentino (Temple University Press). The authors and contributors investigate the “messy, fleshy, recalcitrant, mercurial, and immeasurable qualities of the city,” examining Manila’s sensorial qualities, its representations in the visual and sonic arts, and digital technology, and its engagement with the legacies of colonialism and neoliberalism. https://tupress.temple.edu/books/beauty-and-brutality 

Allyson Carroll (research associate) received a grant from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to support research that will use redwood tree rings to date earthquakes on the northern San Andreas Fault. Tree ring signals, such as changes in growth and dates of reiterated trunks, will be used to constrain the year of the large magnitude event that occurred prior to the 1906 earthquake. Project findings will improve earthquake recurrence models for this region. Collaborators include Dr. Stephen Sillett and Marie Antoine at Cal Poly Humboldt, as well as Dr. Belle Philibosian at USGS and Dr. Ozgur Kozaci.

Dr. Hunter Harrill (Forestry) was invited to give a presentation titled "Grapple Yarding Productivity Studies." His presentation was part of a panel on Grapple Yarding at the Western Region Council on Forest Engineering (WR.COFE) annual meeting on January 12th, 2023, in Lebanon, Oregon.

Published a paper titled: QUANTUM PROJECTIVE PLANES AS CERTAIN GRADED TWISTED TENSOR PRODUCTS  in The Journal of Algebra; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jalgebra.2022.11.033. The paper is joint with Dr. Andrew Conner at Saint Mary's College of California and will appear in the April 2023 issue. The main results of the paper are: (1) a classification up to algebra isomorphism of quadratic graded twisted tensor products of K[x,y] and K[z], and (2) the determination of which three-dimensional Sklyanin algebras contain a quantum P^1. Sklyanin algebras first arose in the late 20th century in the context of quantum inverse scattering problems in physics.