Latest Achievements

Professor Alison Holmes (Politics) has been accepted to the Summer Intensive Creative Writing Program at Oxford University in the UK. A three-week residential program, the course is led by recognized authors, poets, editors, and publishers who guide a small cohort of students in the development of their writing. The course has both an intermediate and advanced level with a selection process based on a project proposal as well as a portfolio of existing work in two separate writing tracks. Holmes has been admitted to the Advanced Level course for both creative non-fiction and poetry.   

Lucy Kerhoulas, Rosemary Sherriff, Erik Jules, and Michael Kauffmann were awarded a $1.1 million grant to complete extensive vegetation mapping in the Klamath Mountains Ecoregion. Project vegetation surveys will be compared to vegetation surveys from the 1960s, 1980s, and 2010s to evaluate the influences of fire and climate change on high elevation plant communities.

The work will support three graduate students and numerous undergraduate students and will contribute substantially to the Cal Poly Humboldt Vascular Plant Herbarium; Robin Bencie and the California Native Plant Society are also project collaborators. Funding comes from the CA Department of Fish & Wildlife.

Dr. Gabi Kirk was awarded the 2023 Eric Wolf Prize of the Political Ecology Society (PESO). This annual award is given to an article-length paper based in substantive field research that make an innovative contribution to political ecology to authors within two years of receiving their Ph.D.

She will deliver a keynote address, “ ‘A fairly good crop for white men’: The political ecology of agricultural science and settler colonialism between the US and Palestine” on March 28 at the Society for Applied Anthropology Conference in Santa Fe. Additionally her article is under review at the Journal of Political Ecology.

Oceanography faculty Jeffrey Abell, Tamara Barriquand, and Christine Cass presented their research at the international Ocean Sciences Meeting (New Orleans, LA) in February. This ~6,000 person conference brings together marine scientists from across disciplines. Undergraduate students Malcolm Edwards-Silva, Marcos Moreno, Carla Villanueva, Ethan Wadsworth, and Kenneth Mathe (Fall '23) also attended to present a poster on their capstone research project.

Professors Pedro Peloso (Biological Sciences) and Brandice Guerra received a grant from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation (www.maxwell-hanrahan.org) to support an illustration internship at Cal Poly Humboldt. An international student will visit our community this spring to work in a project that aims to raise awareness about amphibian extinctions globally. You can read more about the internship here: https://now.humboldt.edu/news/new-scientific-illustration-internship-gi…

Dr. Troy Lescher recently gave an invited presentation, titled "Building & Strengthening the Ensemble: Applying Social Emotional Learning to Theatre-making," at an Arts Educator Professional Development event hosted by the Humboldt County Office of Education.

Dr. Rouhollah Aghasaleh is engaged in collaboration as a co-PI alongside Katie Whiteside (PI), within the scope of a recently awarded Leonardo Da Vinci grant totaling $15,000. This collaboration involves partnerships with Redwood Empire Public Television, Kinetic Universe, the Redwood Discovery Museum, Humboldt County Library, and Hoopa Nation.

The project is centered around the facilitation of workshops tailored for educators and communities, aimed at providing avenues for the promotion of hands-on activities. These workshops seek to cultivate creativity and innovation specifically targeting rural youth.

Kjirsten Wayman (Chemistry Department), Maralyn Renner (M.S. Biology, 1980), Alexander Wright (Washington State U.), Aaron Floden (Missouri Botanical Garden), Jayne Lampley (U. Alabama), Susan Farmer, Edward Schilling (U. Tennessee, Knoxville) published a peer-reviewed article titled “New insights into systematics of the Trillium ovatum complex” in Madroño, a journal focusing on research of the Western American flora.  The article highlights Trillium oettingeri, an endemic plant to the Klamath Mountains and Cascade Range, and can be accessed at the following link: https://doi.org/10.3120/0024-9637-70.3.158

Rama Rawal received a grant to support a two-day convening of local school districts that will leverage reporting from CaliforniaColleges.edu to inform strategic outreach to CSU-eligible students, strengthening the pipeline of students enrolling in CSUs after leaving high school. CaliforniaColleges.edu is California’s official college planning and application platform, which maintains data on 6th-12th grade student progress towards meeting baseline eligibility for admission to a CSU campus. Some of the collaborators will include K-16 Collaborative, Cal Poly Admissions, College of the Redwoods, and TRIO Programs.

Funding comes from the Foundation for California Community Colleges.

Dr. Alana Chin received a grant to support research looking into factors impacting redwood tree fog-uptake. Redwood trees absorb water from fog, making it a key provider of water in the summer months. However, as the climate changes, so have fog characteristics, increasing the need to understand how redwoods are acclimating to changes in fog. The project will assess and monitor fog absorption capacity in redwoods, and is a critical next step in our ability to predict the impacts of climate change on redwoods and select nursery stock for restoration.

Funding comes from the Save the Redwoods League.

John Meyer published a journal article titled, "The People" and Climate Justice: Reconceptualizing Populism and Pluralism within Climate Politics in the journal Polity. Available to all as an open access article, it will be included in the April 2024 issue of the journal. The article explores connections between influential conceptions of political populism and climate justice organizing. 

Eight students travelled to Spokane, Washington for the Region 7 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Students entered scholarly competitions, auditions for professional companies and graduate programs, attended workshops with working professionals, and spent five days of intense training and scholarship. Theatre major David Fisher submitted and won the George R Caldwell Undergraduate Scholarly Paper Meritorious Achievement for his dramaturgical research paper.

Dan Barton (Associate Professor and Department Chair, Wildlife) was elected chair of the Pacific Seabird Group, a role in which he will serve for the next three years. Pacific Seabird Group is a society of professional seabird researchers and managers that was formed in 1972 out of a need for increased communication among academic and government seabird researchers, and currently has over 500 members from around the world. The society also publishes the journal Pacific Seabirds.

Dr. Alison Holmes (Politics) presented her chapter, "UK-US Relations: Can Subnational Diplomacy Save the 'Special Relationship?" via zoom to a Special Symposium of the Transatlantic Studies Association in the UK, organized to launch the book Locating the Transatlantic in Twentieth Century Politics, Diplomacy and Culture. The volume was edited by Dr. Gaynor Johnson (University of Kent) and published this month by Bloomsbury Press in London: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/locating-the-transatlantic-in-twentiethce….

Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy, co-director of the Rou Dalgurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Associate Professor of Native American Studies will serve as co-PI on a California Sea Grant project led by the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation. The recent decline of California’s ghvtlh-k’vsh (kelp) forests directly affects the cultural lifeways and thus health of the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation. This project will train and certify up to ten Natural Resources Staff and Tribal Citizens of the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation to conduct both kelp monitoring and restoration efforts, including establishing kelp nurseries and grow-out sites.

Dr. Troy Lescher recently gave a presentation, titled "Taking the Show on the Road: An Adventure in Program Outreach and Student-Learning," at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in Spokane, WA. The presentation was based on the Cal Poly Humboldt Theatre Arts' Spring 2023 pilot program to develop and tour a student production to public schools throughout Humboldt County. 

Dr. Amy Rock was invited to participate in a panel discussion on DEI in the geospatial industry, entitled "The Geospatial Inclusion Imperative: Diverse Leadership Shaping Tomorrow" hosted by the World Geospatial Industry Council at GeoWeek 2024 in Denver, CO.  The panel discussed the critical importance of fostering a diverse and inclusive geospatial industry, and included academic and industry speakers to explore insights and best practices for implementing DEI initiatives and overcoming challenges, following on WGIC's policy report on leadership diversity in the geospatial industry.   

How can educators help mitigate the decline in journalism studies to support a healthy democracy? Professors Jessie Cretser-Hartenstein and Gregg J. Gold, along with student researcher Kelli Grace Belt, recently published a paper answering this pressing question. Media skepticism may play a role in discouraging CSU students from studying journalism. For journalism majors, their focus on social justice is a key motivating factor. Using these findings, CSU journalism departments can create programs that draw more students to the major. Look for the paper in the newest edition of Journalism and Mass Communication Educator.

Drs. Kerry Byrne and Catalina Cuellar-Gempeler received a grant to support a study on Applegate’s milkvetch, a federally endangered plant species found only in the lower Klamath Basin of southern Oregon. The project will investigate alternative management practices that may better promote Applegate's milkvetch recovery, and ultimately provide managers with a roadmap for optimal management of this species. Collaborators will include Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, US Fish and Wildlife Service, ODA, and the City of Klamath Falls, OR.

Cal Poly Humboldt’s Range Plant Identification team placed 5th in a contest during the Society for Range Management Meetings in Sparks, Nevada on January 30. Coached by lecturer/NRCS Rangeland Specialist Todd Golder, team members include: JJ Madrigal Garcia, Celeste Orrick, Jennifer Salguero, Mikhela Aiken, Logan Holey, Forrest Horrobin, Hunter Mortensen, SRM President Barry Perryman. Students practice plant identification skills in RRS 475 Advanced Study of Range Plants. Most plant species on this test were grasses and many consisted of mere fragments of material.  The team owes much to Humboldt’s excellent Range and Botany courses.

How do educators help their students navigate a climate-changed world? What should a climate-justice, trauma-informed pedagogy look like for the world students desire, not just fear? Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray and UW-Bothell colleague Dr. Jennifer Atkinson address these topics in the intro to their forthcoming book, The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators, which has been published on Climate Psychology Alliance's website. You can read it here: https://www.climatepsychology.us/blog/introduction-to-the-existential-t…

We just published a paper on diversity of non-volant small mammals (marsupials and rodents) from Parque Nacional del Río Abiseo (PNRA), a poorly known site located in the eastern Andean slopes in Peru. We report the highest ever recorded diversity for high Andes, and through DNA barcoding we reveal several putative new species of small mammals that are uniquely known form PNRA. The paper is a result of an expedition in 2018, funded by National Geographic, and had the collaboration of a diverse team of researchers including myself as first author and Cal Poly colleague Pedro Peloso as senior author.

Dr. Paul Michael Leonardo Atienza, assistant professor of Asian American Studies (CRGS) received a Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium (DEFCon) Teaching Fellowship. Funded through a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the fellowship includes $2500 to support the development of new courses at the intersections of ethnic studies fields and digital humanities. Dr. Atienza will be assigned a mentor to guide the creation of a syllabus and assignment materials. This document will be deposited in Humanities Commons with a Creative Commons license to permit reuse with attribution. DEFCon is a national consortium of digital ethnic studies practitioners.

Melanie Michalak (Faculty- Geology) with co-authors Susan Cashman (Emeritus Geology Professor), Taylor Team (Humboldt Geology MS ’21), Dana Christensen (Humboldt Geology MS ’21) and Victoria Langenheim (USGS Geophysicist) published their work in the open access journal Geosphere. This publication is a long format research paper investigating Neogene tectonics and mountain building of the southern Klamath Mountains Province, a geologic province that records millions of years of faulting, magmatism, and deformation due to its position on the upper plate of tectonic plate subduction. Download the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02612.1

Dr. Rafael Cuevas Uribe received a grant to support a collaborative project between Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, San Diego State University, and Cal Poly Humboldt. The project will involve building and testing a novel technology system for developing new and profitable seaweed strains for commercial, land-based aquaculture production. The system will contribute to a more diverse domestic seaweed production and larger networks of local seaweed sources, as well as aquaculture education and training through use at education institutions.

Funding comes as a subaward from University of California, San Diego, with the original funding source being SeaGrant.

Music Senior, Danyelle Allen, has received the Presser Foundation Undergraduate Music Scholar Award.  This national-level award is given to graduating seniors who have achieved a high level of music and academic excellence, demonstrated leadership, and contributed to an inclusive community. Danyelle is a tenor saxophonist who has been a Honors recital and Concerto Competition winner, and a member of the Ghost Ryder Saxophone quartet.  This year she is organizing the first Music program Black History Month concert.  

On February 11 in Sacramento, Cindy Moyer, received the Distinguished Service Award from the California Orchestra Director's Association.  The award was presented during the California All-State Music Education Conference, and honors "individuals who selflessly served the California Orchestra Directors Association, and its activities, including continuous support of California Music Education, of CASMEC and it's affiliated organizations, and of other Music Educators in the state."

https://newsfromnativecalifornia.com/review-sowing-seeds-racial-justice-and-the-environmental-movement/
“Sowing Seeds is a new docu-series on YouTube produced, written and hosted by Aerin Monroe (Environmental studies scholar at Cal Poly Humboldt) in partnership with Save California Salmon. Filmed and edited by Valentina Dimas, each episode offers insight into different aspects of environmental justice by centering Black and Indigenous scientists, educators, and activists all working to bring about positive change within Humboldt County.” Co-founder of Pathways and Purpose, alongside his wife, Dr. Susanne Sarley. Pathways of Purpose is an organization dedicated to empowering underserved youth and communities with “asset-based, STEAM educational and vocational programs.”

Dr. Loren Cannon of CPH Philosophy presented his essay, “Boundaries of Expression: Belief, Faith ... and Gender” at the Eastern Conference of the American Philosophical Association. This was a requested presentation, on the topic of "Fighting Anti-Transgender Legislation." This new essay from Dr. Cannon engages in a critical analysis of recent court decisions that seem to have widened the scope of religious freedom (including speech) and considers the resulting impacts on the limit of non-religious expression. The conference was held in NYC, January 15th - 18th 2024.

Jeff Dunk (ESM) and colleagues recently published a paper on predicting the spatial distribution of wintering Golden Eagles in Wyoming (including parts of surrounding states).  Much of the existing work on Golden Eagles pertains to their breeding season habitat use.  A link to the manuscript is here.  

Dr. Loren Cannon's essay, "The Politicization of Trans Identities: Dog Whistling and Virtue Signaling" has been included in the 12th edition of "Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, An Intersectional Study." This is the third essay that has become anthologized into a college level textbook, and he is grateful that his work is having an increasingly broad reach. This newest volume is edited by Cal Poly Humboldt's own Professor Christina Hsu Accomando (CRGS and English) along with Professor Paula S. Rothenberg. 

Kjirsten Wayman (Chemistry), Matthew Reilly (USDA Forest Service), and Alaina Petlewski (B.S. Botany, 2017) published a peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Botany (2023) titled "Taxonomic insights from floral scents of western North American sessile-flowered Trillium".  The article can be found here:  https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16255

Faculty William Wood, Chemistry, and David Largent, Biological Science

Emeritus Professors William Wood and David Largent recently published an article in the Austrian Academy of Sciences journal Biosystematics and Ecology on the crustacean-like odor of the mushroom Russula xerampelina. This mushroom has a cooked shrimp odor that gives it the common name the “shrimp mushroom.” They and mycologist Darvin DeShazer of the Sonoma County Mycological Association, identified the chemicals that are responsible for this mushroom’s odor.

Contact Information

William.Wood@humboldt.edu

Phone 707 832 2931

Sara K. Sterner, along with colleagues from The Ohio State University and Lesley University, successfully organized, presented at, and facilitated the 30th annual Children's Literature Assembly (CLA) Annual Expert Class: Nodes of Literary Connection: How Culturally Diverse Imprints are Building Pathways for More Inclusive and Representative Children’s Literature. The session took place at the National Council of Teachers of English annual conference in Columbus, OH, on November 18. The Expert Class featured experts from the field of children's publishing and explored how culturally diverse publishers and imprints are changing the landscape of inclusive representation in children’s literature. https://www.childrensliteratureassembly.org/blog/the-cla-expert-class-2…;

Nicole Jean Hill received a grant from the Wyoming Community Foundation to support a touring exhibition and corresponding publication featuring the photography of Lora Webb Nichols (1883-1962). Nichols used photography to provide for her family before, during and after the Great Depression, photographing pioneer women and providing a unique window into the role of women in this era and their cultivation of community. Both projects will enhance appreciation of female contributions to the history of image-making and the American West.

This work was selected for funding by the McMurry Library Endowment Fund Committee.

Karley Rojas (they/elle) of the Environment and Community Graduate Program, and research associate of the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute has been selected as an ARI-NEXTGEN Fellow (USDA NIFA NEXTGEN grant to the California State University Agricultural Research Institute) for the 'Place-Based Learning Practices Project’, with an award in the amount of $25,000. The project is under the mentorship of Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy of the Native American Studies Department, as the principal investigator. This joins funding from Save the Redwoods League, Humboldt Energy Independence Fund, and the Sustainability Department. 

2023 LSAMP PROUD

Outstanding Research in STEM

Please find attached the 2023 LSAMP PROUD Cal Poly Humboldt page featuring:

Cristina Portillo, Wildlife
Brianna Rennard, Zoology
Kayah Ray, Geology
Colton Boyd, Computer Science

Congratulations to these scholars and a huge thank you to their mentors.

Dr. Peter Goetz gave an invited talk titled "Frobenius Extensions in Noncommutative Invariant Theory" in the AMS Special Session on Homological Techniques in Noncommutative Algebra at the Joint Mathematics Meeting on January 3, 2024. The JMM is one of the largest international meetings of mathematicians with approximately 6000 attendees. Dr. Goetz reported on his new theorem: all dual reflection groups afford examples of (twisted) Frobenius extensions. Dr. Goetz also presented his work on the relationship between Artin-Schelter regular and Artin-Schelter Gorenstein algebras and Frobenius extensions, and examples of Frobenius extensions arising from noncommutative and noncocommutative Hopf algebra actions.

Dr. Jim Graham received a grant from CalTrout that will pay for a graduate student to perform GIS habitat modeling in the Eel River Watershed, and develop a subsequent Riparian Climate Refugia (RCR) data set. The data will provide information on where riparian corridors (vegetation growing near natural bodies of water) contain remaining climate refugia on the CA North Coast. Climate refugia are landscape features that provide environmental protection and can allow species to persist through climate change effects. The data will be particularly useful to land managers, who can use it to make more informed restoration and conservation decisions.

Physics & Astronomy alumni (Alyssa Johnson ('21), Claire Rogers ('23), Noah Dunkley ('18), and Michael Gengo ('22)) and faculty member C.D. Hoyle recently published a peer-reviewed paper describing a technical advancement for the stabilization of the apparatus used for precision gravitational physics measurements at Cal Poly Humboldt. The article, titled "Optimization of an Active Leveling Scheme for a Short-Range Gravity Experiment," was published in the Journal of Undergraduate Reports in Physics and may be found here: 

https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jurp/article/33/1/100002/2929427/Optimization-…

Professor Alison Holmes (Politics) led the first-ever International Research Track of the CSU International Forum at the Chancellor's Office. Historically for CSU staff, the CO asked Holmes to be a Vice-Chair and expand the format to include faculty and/or international research. Holmes both facilitated the track and presented a paper with Drs Lily-House-Peters (CSULB) and Susan Ross (CSUSJ), "Supporting Diverse Students: Study Abroad and Transformation Curriculum", based on research at LB and Humboldt that explored ways campus study abroad preparation/follow-up programs could be more holistic and culturally aware. Holmes was asked to help develop the new track further next year.  

Drs. Bori Mazzag, Sherrene Bogle, and Beth Eschenbach received a National Science Foundation “Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity” (EPIIC) grant in the amount of $400,000. The 3-year project will provide time for faculty to foster new industry connections that will expand paid internships and other experiential learning opportunities in tech and engineering, provide programming to prepare students to be successful in their internships, and facilitate campus-wide needs assessment of internships. Cal Poly Humboldt is part of a five institution cohort that will share strategies to expand innovation capacity, industry-academia partnerships, and workforce development. 

Drs. JuEun Lee and Joshua Steimel recently published a paper in the Journal of Orthopaedics. The study examined the effect that vancomycin, tobramycin, and the combination of these two ubiquitous antibiotics can have on the compressive and tensile strength of bone cement. As the concentration of antibiotics increased there was a decrease in both the compressive and tensile mechanical performance of the bone cement. The results of this study can be utilized to guide future surgical techniques to reduce the incidence of failure of bone cement in the presence of antibiotics.

Sara K. Sterner, along with colleagues from University of North Dakota, Weber State University, and University of Minnesota, presented a poster at the National Council of Teachers of English annual conference in Columbus Ohio on November 18. The poster, Leveraging ChatGPT as a Node of Opportunity: Productive Collaboration with AI in YA Literature, was positively received. Recognizing that ChatGPT is at the forefront of conversations in English Education, we shared strategies for using this technology to engage students in literacy experiences and explore the benefits of strategically incorporating AI into the classroom in both a pedagogically beneficial and ethical way. 

Kamila Larripa was selected to participate in the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute's Summer Research in Mathematics Program.  She will work with collaborators on developing data-driven modeling approaches to investigate the impact of human behavior on epidemic dynamics for outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
 

Dr. Brandon Browne and colleagues from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, and King Saud University recently published a scientific article titled "Structure of shallow magma sources beneath Augustine Volcano (Alaska) inferred from local earthquake tomography" in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. The article presents a 3D model of the magma storage system beneath Augustine Volcano using arrival time data from local seismicity, which is crucial information for eruption forecasting, volcanic hazard assessment efforts, and a broader understanding of the structure of magma and fluid sources beneath the active volcano. 

Kevin Geumhan (‘24) coauthored a paper that was recently accepted for publication in Physical Review E. Kevin’s work was carried out in collaboration with researchers from UC Merced and is titled “Maximally Mixing Active Nematics.” Kevin also recently presented this work at the 76th Annual American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Drs. Eileen Cashman and Margaret Lang received funding from Caltrans to investigate current and anticipated climate conditions on the Arcata/Eureka corridor, a roadway that’s experiencing one of the fastest rates of relative sea level rise on the entire U.S. west coast. The study will assess hazards, and evaluate adaptation options based on the best available sea level rise science. Findings will contribute to the development of a comprehensive climate adaptation plan for Highway 101, enabling Caltrans District 1 to advance planning and implement an adaptation solution.

Music lecturer and guitarist Jennifer Trowbridge recently taught classes in India at Mount Shivalik School, surrounded by the Himalayas in the state of Himanchel, and Ashoka University, in Sanipot, in the northern state of Haryana. She studied drupad alap singing with Mamta Tripathi in Agra, Utter Pradesh, and the 23-stringed sarod with Arnab Battacharya in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Jennifer also performed house concerts in Rampur, Kufri, Delhi, and Agra, and received many invitations to return – and to bring her Cal Poly Humboldt students on the next visit!

Dr. Armeda Reitzel (Professor, Communication) and Rosalinda Frick (Senior Communication Major) delivered a conference presentation titled "Engaging the Creativity of Three Diverse Student Populations Using a LibreTexts OER" at the 2023 Open Education Conference on November 8, 2023. Dr. Reitzel was one of several authors for a new open educational resource titled "Interpersonal Communication: Context and Connection (OERI)" that was first published by LibreTexts in 2022.