Research

The Rou Dalagurr: Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute at Cal Poly Humboldt is honored to announce that co-directors and Native American Studies professors Cutcha Risling Baldy and Kaitlin Reed received the 2025 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award.

In a campus lab, a whiteboard brims with equations as students from math, data science, and computer science collaborate to unravel the mysteries of microglia—powerful immune cells in the brain.

Research is often driven by curiosity, passion, or a deep personal connection to the subject. For psychology graduate student Matias Solorzano, his work is a blend of all three.

For the first time in 10 years, two Cal Poly Humboldt students, Journalism student Andres Felix and Psychology graduate student Shairy Jimenez Delgado, were selected to participate in the California State University’s Pre-Doctoral Program as Sally Casanova Scholars.

Together with NASA collaborator and Cal Poly Humboldt alum Holly Leopardi ('14, Physics), C.D. Hoyle of the Department of Physics & Astronomy was awarded a $243,627 grant from NASA’s MOSAICS program.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) awarded Cal Poly Humboldt $4.4 million to establish a Shared Resources Lab (SRL) on campus, providing the facilities and equipment for regional researchers to utilize stem cell models for biomedical research and education.

With funds raised from the North Coast Otter Arts Initiatives, Cal Poly Humboldt graduate students are conducting vital research to reveal new insights into otter behavior, their diet, and the ecosystems they rely on.

Cal Poly Humboldt Forestry Professor Jeff Kane, along with graduate student Megan Joyce, is working in collaboration with Redwood National Park and the United States Geological Survey to study the effects of the 2023 Lost Fire in redwood forests that received restoration thinning treatments.

Cal Poly Humboldt graduate student Caleb Chen was awarded a $25,000 Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) NEXTGEN Fellowship to support his groundbreaking research on changes in cannabis genetics. 

Nearly 100 years after the Humboldt County logging community of Falk became a ghost town, the National Park Service announced its addition to the National Register of Historic Places this year.

The Tribal Energy Resilience and Sovereignty project (TERAS) will empower four tribes in Northern California to transform one of the state’s least reliable electrical circuits into a highly resilient renewable energy system.

A new international partnership was formalized earlier this week among Charles Darwin University in Australia and three organizations on the North Coast—Blue Lake Rancheria, Cal Poly Humboldt, and College of the Redwoods.

A new study by researchers at Cal Poly Humboldt and the University of Southern California sheds light on an unexpected benefit of leaning forward moderately while running. The paper will be published online in  PLOS ONE journal on May 29.

Cal Poly Humboldt researchers received a $1.1 million grant from the California Department of Fish & Wildlife to expand extensive vegetation mapping in the Klamath Mountains Ecoregion.

A renewable energy microgrid designed to keep Cal Poly Humboldt powered throughout outages is expected to be up and running by fall 2025. 

These 2023-24 Outstanding Students Awards recognize the academics and co-curricular excellence and achievements of our students. Congratulations to this year’s winners and nominees!  

Cal Poly Humboldt faculty and student researchers are joining a nationwide effort to save a critically endangered keystone species along the West Coast of North America.

The ocean covers most of the planet’s surface, and of that, only 5 percent has been explored. To reveal the mysteries of our ocean, Cal Poly Humboldt is looking toward the future with a new oceanographic research vessel.

Marking the Week of the Young Child, Cal Poly Humboldt celebrated the official opening of the University’s Trinity Early Learning Center, a new hub for two long-standing Cal Poly Humboldt programs that foster a learning environment for young children and University students.

Join other Cal Poly Humboldt students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, and family on Wednesday, April 3, for this 24-hour fundraising campaign to support the program on campus you care most about.

Researchers have described a new species of ancient shark that was collected in Arkansas 45 years ago and fills an important role in understanding an enigmatic and bizarre group of prehistoric fishes. The study is published in the journal Geodiversitas. 

Hundreds of feet above the ground in the canopy of the redwood forest is a rich ecosystem unlike any other on Earth.

Eastern north Pacific gray whales migrate annually from Mexico where they breed in the winter to the Arctic to feed in the summer, making one of the longest journeys of any mammal—but one small subgroup instead spends their summers along the Northern California to British Columbia coastline. Robyn Norman, a Biological Sciences graduate student, wants to know why.

A global study by scientists from throughout the world shows that the effects of extreme drought—which is expected to increase in frequency with climate change—has been greatly underestimated for grasslands and shrublands.

How does long-term exclusion of cattle grazing affect the ecological health of wetlands and rare plants?