Latest Achievements

Alison Holmes - Program Leader of International Studies, has been named a two year, non-residential, Research Associate to the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the SOAS, University of London. She plans to work at the institute during summer vacations to continue her current research into global states and the theory and practice of global diplomacy.

Dr. Joe Szewczak, Biological Sciences Dept., was recently featured in the October issue of the California Educator Magazine http://educator.cta.org/i/587184-october-2015/23 The article discusses the "Real Bat Man", as Dr. Szewczak teaches, among other courses, Biology of Chiroptera, which is the study of bats. Dr. Szewczak has studied many bat species, looking at migration patterns, social communication, endangered species, and how to reduce fatalities caused by energy-producing wind turbines. He and his colleagues recently completed a two-year trial that provided high-intensity ultrasound emitted from turbines can steer bats away from death.

Laura K. Hahn presented her research project, "Culinary Immigration through the Streets of New York: The Immigrant Narrative on New York City Food Tours" at the the International Conference on Food Design. This research was sponsored by the the CSU Chancellor’s Office Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities (RSCA) program.

Janelle Adsit chaired a panel at the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) conference on "Teaching Translation to Monolingual Students."

JoAnne Berke just returned from a week long teacher training intensive in Beijing, China. She was invited by the America and China International Exchange Foundation to teach the US methods and the National Standards in Art Education to middle and high school teachers.

Alison Holmes, International Studies Program Leader, has been invited to participate as a mentor in the 'Pay it Forward' program of the International Studies Association, designed to encourage and support female faculty.

Maral Attallah and Kerri Malloy have been selected as two of twenty faculty from around the country to participate in the 2016 Jack and Anita Hess Seminar, "After the Holocaust: Teaching the Postwar World" at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Held every January, the prestigious Mandel Center seminar is designed for college and university faculty who are teaching or preparing to teach Holocaust-related courses.

Attallah is a lecturer in Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies.
Malloy is a lecturer in Native American Studies.

Steve Hackett has had his paper, titled "Economic Attributes of Stayers and Leavers in Four California Fisheries," published in California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations Report Volume 56 (2015). This work made use of undergraduate research assistants Brett Poirier and Nate Freney from the Department of Economics, and was co-authored with Dr. Ana Pitchon (SJSU) and Doreen Hansen (research associate).

Michael S. Bruner, Professor, Communication, and Brittany N. Stuckey, 2014 CAHSS Research Fellow, published their article, "The World Will Little Note: Vice President Joe Biden's 2012 Speech at the Flight 93 National Memorial," in the Pennsylvania Communication Annual (Vol. 71, 2015). The article is dedicated to Richard Guadagno, former Refuge Manager at the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge, who died on Flight 93.

Brian Tissot was an invited speaker at a conference sponsored by the European Association of Surfing Doctors; a group of surfers that are also medical doctors and health practitioners. Held near Biarittz in the beautiful Basque region of southern France he was tasked with the question: Why Should Surfers Care about Ocean Conservation?

A piece of writing by Heal McKnight was selected as a Notable Essay by Robert Atwan, the editor of the Best American Essays series. The essay "Traffic" was originally published in PoemMemoirStory.

McKnight is a lecturer in English, where she teaches courses in composition.

Gil Cline, Professor (FERP) Music, was a performer on Renaissance cornetto in August for a week-long event in the Berkeley, California region, for many years a hot-spot in the Early Music Movement. Participants from around the country present a full-length concert of polychoral music from Venice and environs, using cornetti, recorders, sackbuts, shawms, and dulcians.

He also was a participant for a Living History Day, September 26, at Alcatraz Island. Cline was "mustered into" a re-enactors Civil War-era band, "the 5th California Volunteer Regiment Infantry Band" out of the Sacramento area. The 14-piece all-brass band performed nothing but historic brass publications from 1855-1875 and used all-historic instruments of the 1860s, with Cline performing on an historic soprano E-flat cornet brought to California in the 1950s from Michigan by former Music Department Chair David Smith.

HSU Music student Michael Donovan has been selected as the John W. DeLodder – Humboldt State University Student Composers Competition winner for Spring 2015. At the composers Recital on November 6, Mr. Donovan will be awarded $1,000 for his winning composition titled, “The Dignified Lonely Person.” The piece is an eight-minute song cycle written for voice and piano, based on poetry by the composer and HSU alumna Marlena Kellogg. Mr. Donovan, a student at HSU, plays the violin and has been actively studying composition for the last two years.

The award will be presented by Mr. DeLodder at the HSU Composers Recital, on Friday, November 6 at 8:00 pm. in Fulkerson Recital Hall.

Robert Cliver, Professor of History, published an article, "Surviving Socialism: Private Industry and the Transition to Socialism in China, 1945-1958," in the online September issue of "Cross Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review." The article will appear in the print edition in November.

Dan Pambianco gave two presentations on Oct. 22 as part of the Bob Frederick Sport Leadership Lecture Series hosted by Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho.

Pambianco's morning lecture was titled "Sports Crisis Management," and in the afternoon he presented "Sports Communication: Mentoring the Next Generation."

Andrew P. Stubblefield, Professor of Hydrology and Watershed Management has recently published a paper titled Sensitivity of summer stream temperatures to climate variability and riparian reforestation strategies
in the Journal of Hydrology, Regional Studies. Coauthors were recent M.S. graduate Rosealea M. Bond and faculty emeritus Robert W. Van Kirk.

Dr. Armeda Reitzel gave a paper presentation on “The Evolution of Neckwear: How a Piece of Cloth Speaks Volumes” at the 2015 Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference in Cincinnati on Oct. 3, 2015.

She also presented a co-authored paper with two of her Communication students, Diana Casteel and Kristine Cella, at the same conference on Oct. 2,2015. The title of that research paper was “Adventure vs. Domesticity: How Children’s Toys Promote Gender Roles.”

Joanna Murphy and Ryan Gustafson, two recent graduates from the Environmental Resources Engineering B.S. program, just published a peer-review article in "Desalination." Joanna and Ryan looked at heat and mass transfer in membrane distillation, a novel process that can produce high quality water from waste heat. They developed a new model that helps scaling-up the process and validated it experimentally in the lab. As a result, a larger-scale membrane distillation system is now being constructed at HSU. More details here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0011916415300837

Mark Colwell gave a paper summarizing his research on Snowy Plovers at the 40th meeting of the International Wader Study Group in Iceland.

Paul Cummings, Associate Professor of Music, had an article accepted for publication by the "Musical Quarterly," one of the premiere musicology journals published in the US. The 49-page article tells the story of the 1877 London Wagner Festival in which the Austro-Hungarian conductor Hans Richter made his debut in England. Publication is planned for spring, 2016.

Dr. Joshua Frye and Dr. Rebekah Fox (Texas State University at San Marcos) recently published "The Rhetorical Construction of Food Waste in US Public Discourse" in the interdisciplinary journal _Food Studies_, volume 5, issue 4. The article examines how the issue of food waste is being rhetorically framed by different sources and voices within the context of public communication in the United States.

Three Humboldt students are recipients of the 11th Annual Rodney T. Mathews Jr. Scholarship program that support college education for Native Americans.

Cara Owings of the Tolowa De-ni’ Nation, Shayna McCullough of the Yurok Tribe, and Ish-Kaysh Tripp of the Yurok and Karuk tribes each received a $10,000 scholarship from the Morongo Band of Mission Indians this month as part of the annual scholarship program.

The 11th annual Rodney T. Mathews Jr. Scholarship is unique among tribal scholarship programs because it is open to any enrolled member of the more than 100 federally recognized tribes in California.

As part of the English 615 Writing for Change course offered in Spring 2015 and under the supervision of Dr. Laurie Pinkert, a grant proposal was written for the Eureka Rescue Mission and was selected.

With the approved funding the women and children's shelter will receive $3000 to purchase new mattresses!

Congratulations to Dr. Pinkert and to Danielle for their service learning work for the community.

Janelle Adsit has been accepted to the Rensing Center's Summer 2016 Artist Residency. The award will support Dr. Adsit's development of a poetry book manuscript on the politics of apology.

Geography Professor Stephen Cunha's critical book review of "The Future of Mountain Agriculture" appears in the Journal of Mountain Research & Development 35:2.

Assistant Professor Erin Kelly of the Forestry Department is working with researchers at the US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station to find ways to help forest landowners conduct fuels treatments at large scales and across ownership boundaries to improve fire resilience. Dr. Kelly received $100,000 from the US Forest Service to support the work, which started with documenting known large-scale, cross-boundary fire restoration projects, then choosing case studies across Oregon and Washington. Jodie Pixley, a student in the HSU Environment and Community Master’s program, spent her summer in the Klamath Basin and Ashland, Oregon, working on two case studies.

At their recent meeting in Bordeaux, France, the Resource Modeling Association (RMA) announced the creation of a new research award, the Rollie Lamberson Research Prize, named for HSU mathematics professor emeritus Rollie Lamberson.

The disctinction will be awarded annually to the RMA member publishing the most significant research work in the previous two years. The RMA is composed of a group of scientists involved in resource management, environmental science, ecology, natural resources, statistics, and mathematics.

Rollie was the founder and first president of the RMA. At HSU he also coordinated the Environmental Systems program.

"Times-Standard":http://www.times-standard.com/social-affairs/20150906/local-student-win…

History Assistant Professor Leena Dallasheh had her article "Troubled Waters: Citizenship and Colonial Zionism in Nazareth" published in the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Focused on the contest over water management in Nazareth during early Israeli statehood (1948–56), it traces the negotiations between the city’s Palestinian residents and the Israeli state. A microcosm of Palestinians’ incorporation as undesired and marginalized citizens into a self-defined Jewish state, it shows how the struggle over a vital natural resource, where it is in short supply, was both a matter of fulfilling practical needs and a part of negotiating citizenship.

On June 6, Rae Robison was invited, along with 14 other educators and professional designers, to serve as a panelist for Design Showcase West in Los Angeles hosted by the UCLA David C. Copley Center for Costume Design in Film & Television. Topics covered the state of design education in colleges and universities. Rae was invited by Deborah Nadoolman-Landis, UCLA professor and costume designer of the Indiana Jones films among others.

David Greene and Jeff Kane of the Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources and Melanie McCavour of the Department of Environmental Science and Management have just been awarded a 10-year $800,000 grant from the Bureau of Land Management for a study of Baker Cypress. This tree species, restricted to a few populations in northern California and southern Oregon, has seeds retained in cones that will only open when burned and the continuation of fire exclusion is strongly contributing to its potential extinction. The purpose of the grant is to better understand the reproductive ecology of Baker Cypress, determine the feasibility of using prescribed fire and other treatments to inform the restoration and management of this species, and create the Environmental Impact Report that will underpin the management plan.

Photographs by Art Department lecturer, Dave Woody, were recently featured in the New York Times as part of an article about post Katrina New Orlean's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/magazine/why-new-orleans-black-reside…

Dana Herman (now working for the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Sacramento) and Mark Colwell published a paper on Snowy Plover lifetime reproductive success showing that a small proportion of the Humboldt County population contributed disproportionately to population growth. Plovers that bred on gravel substrates of the Eel River produced appreciably more young than those on sandy, ocean-fronting beaches. Their work was featured in the 28 Aug 2015 issue of the eWildlifer (wildlife.org), published by the The Wildlife Society.

On August 5 of this year, Associate Professor Robert Cliver presented his paper, "What Chinese Silk Exports Can Teach Us about the Cold War" at the World Economic History Congress in Kyoto, Japan.

In July of 2015, Associate Professor Robert Cliver of the Department of History presented his paper "Second Class Workers: Gender, Industry and Locality in Workers' Welfare Provision in Revolutionary China" at the workshop, "The Habitable City in China" at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in the People's Republic of China.

In June 2015 Associate Professor Robert Cliver of the Department of History presented his paper "Capitalists in Mao's China from the Socialist Transformation to the Suppression of Rightists" at the meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Asia in Taibei, Taiwan.

Leabeth Mae Peterson received the SWE Outstanding Collegiate Member award by the Society for Women Engineers, honoring collegiate members who have made an outstanding contribution to SWE, the engineering community, and their campus. She will be honored at a formal ceremony at WE15, the world's largest conference for women engineers, scheduled for Oct. 23, 2015 in Nashville, Tenn. The conference gathers over 8,000 women at all stages of their engineering careers.

Communication Professor Dr. Michael S. Bruner had his article, “Fat Politics: A Comparative Study,” published in M/C Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2015). Drawing upon popular magazines, newspapers, blogs, Web sites, and videos, this essay compares the media framing in public discourse of six, “fat” political figures from around the world. The analysis begins with public discourse surrounding William Howard Taft, the 330 pound, twenty-seventh President of the United States. The article explores the medicalization of “fat” and phenomena such as “fat shaming.” The final section helps readers take a more critical perspective on fat politics.

Communication Professor Michael Bruner presented the paper, "Methods for Accounting for the Reception of Food-Related Images," at the Joint 2015 Annual Meetings and Conference of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) and the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (AFHVS), Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PA, June 24-28, 2015. The paper was co-authored by Brittany N. Stuckey, an Undergraduate Research Fellow in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

Erin Kelly, Assistant Professor in the Forestry & Wildland Resources Department, and Jonathan Kusel, Executive Director of the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, had their article on cooperative, cross-boundary management facilitates large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts published in _California Agriculture_, Volume 69, Number 1, January-March 2015. This article summarizes a case study for the Burney Gardens timber harvesting plan where a cooperative, cross-boundary meadow restoration project was undertaken by private & corporate landowners in Eastern Shasta County. The Burney Gardens property is currently under consideration for donation by the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council to the University as a teaching and research working laboratory of Northern Sierra Mixed Conifer forests with a large meadow complex.

Research by the Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources faculty was recently featured in a special issue of _California Agriculture_, a quarterly journal of peer-reviewed research from the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The issue titled, _Forestry: Managing for the Future_ highlights a wide range of forestry related research being conducted in California.

Sara Hanna and Ken Fulgham, Lecturer and Emeritus Professor respectively in the Forestry & Wildland Resources Department, had their article on Post-fire vegetation dynamics of a sagebrush steppe community change significantly over time published in California Agriculture, Volume 69, Number 1, January-March 2015. The article summarizes almost 30 years’ worth of data collected on two prescribed wildland fire sites in the Clear Lake Hills area of Modoc County. Significant findings regarding the post-fire plant community trajectories and changes over time have management implications for domestic livestock grazing, interstate mule deer herd winter range use, and the provision of suitable habitat for the threatened Sage Grouse (_Centrocercus urophasianus_).

Journalism Major Javier Rojas has been elected to the California College Media Association as a student board member. The former managing editor of the Lumberjack newspaper will represent the interests of student newspapers across the state.

Communication Professor Michael S. Bruner presented the paper, "Methods for Accounting for the Reception of Food-Related Photographs," at the annual meeting/conference of the Association for the Study of Food and Society in Pittsburgh, PA, June 24-28, 2015. The paper was co-authored by Brittany Stuckey, an Undergraduate Research Fellow in the CAHSS. The study reported on four research methods, including a Bruner & Stuckey photo array and survey of 170 HSU undergraduates in Spring 2015, using the International Affective Picture System.

Geology Professor Lori Dengler and Lecturer Amanda Admire presented talks at the 26th International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics in Prague, Czech Republic

Dr. Steven Steinberg, Adjunct Professor of Geospatial Sciences, was honored by the California Geographic Information Association with the Advancement in Collaboration Award granted for outstanding application of GIS technology representing innovative, elegant, or creative techniques. The award was made at the 21st Annual CalGIS Conference in Sacramento on June 1. For more information: http://cgia.org/2015/06/2015-cgia-award-winners/.

Two HSU students recently won first place in their category at the 40th Annual West Coast Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. Carsten Charlesworth and Kyle Herout took first in the Cell Biology category for their presentation on the Paternal Effect Genes of C. Elegans. Their adviser on the project was Biological Sciences Professor Jakob Varkey.

Three Humboldt State University students passed the rigorous “Fundamentals of Soil Science” exam offered April 17, 2015 becoming Associate Professional Soil Scientists, according to test results from the Council of Soil Science Examiners. Crystal Welch, Andrew Longman and Tyler Hanson were among five individuals in California who attempted the exam this spring and were the only California examinees to pass the exam. Nationally, 61 individuals took the exam with a pass rate of 59% overall according to Michele Lovejoy, Program Manager for Professional Development of the Soil Science Society of America.

Crystal Welch graduated in Fall 2014 with a degree in Rangeland Resource Science (Wildland Soils option). After performing lab analysis of soils for Dirty Business Consulting in Arcata, Crystal starting working as a field scientist for the Great Basin Institute in Reno, Nevada. Andrew Longman graduated Spring 2014 with a degree in Rangeland Resource Science (Wildland Soils option) and will soon begin a position as Junior Specialist for Organic/Conventional Farming Project with Dr. Louise Jackson at U.C. Davis. Andy will help study the effects of water deficits on crop physiology, biology and pests. Tyler Hanson has completed his minor in Wildland Soil Science, and will graduate in Fall 2015 with a degree in Botany. Robin Halloran, another Wildland Soils option graduate (Spring 2015), passed the same exam November 21, 2014. In summary, 16 out of 23 HSU students who have attempted the exam have passed (70%) since 2011, well above the national average pass maximum of 63% for the same time period.

Those who pass the fundamentals exam will be eligible to take the Professional Practice exam after five years of professional experience, an additional step in becoming a Certified Professional Soil Scientist. Recent Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) discussions about program self-certification have included the fundamentals exam as one indicator of program quality. Given that the exam is multiple choice, it does not evaluate students’ field skills per se, but is an exam that is offered nationwide and is therefore ‘portable.’ Humboldt State University Wildland Soils students (an option under the Rangeland Resource Science major) spend more than 200 hours in field or laboratory learning experiences, honing hands-on skills and field judgment of soil properties, limitations, and capabilities.

Communication Professor Michael S. Bruner's article, "Labeling: Organic, Local, Genetically Modified," appears in the new SAGE Encyclopedia of Food Issues. See Vol. 2: 877-882. The article arose from previous work in the HSU Communication Department on California Prop 37 and on the organic food movement. The three volume encyclopedia was released in hardcover this month, Ken Albala, Ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2015).