Research

Arcata - In their 20th year at Humboldt State University, Smullin Scholarship honors were bestowed recently upon the eight annual Smullin Scholars by the Patricia D. & William B. Smullin Foundation and university representatives.

Humboldt State Sociology Professor Mary Virnoche is a contributor to the current issue of the Sociological Practice Newsletter, in which she reports that graduate level research combined with applied field experience enables HSU master's degree professionals to effect real social change.

Assistant Professor Rae Robison and several Humboldt State University students were honored for their achievements at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival held at California State University at Los Angeles.

For the first time ever, the Humboldt State Construction Management Team went head-to-head with other institutions, including Arizona State University and Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, in the 21st annual Associated Schools of Construction competition in Sparks, NV. The competition, which ran Feb. 14 and 15, pitted HSU against 137 teams representing a total of 34 universities from 15 states.

Arcata - Thanks to a Humboldt State University engineering class, a non-profit partner and two local contractors, a Del Norte County ranch is now being powered year-round by an off-grid renewable energy system.

Arcata – Humboldt State University has again won national recognition for exemplary service to disadvantaged youth, this time for its Youth to College Initiative (Y2C), which sets up campus-community partnerships for tutoring and mentoring.

Arcata - Dr. Noah Zerbe, assistant professor of government and politics at Humboldt State University, will attend a Summer 2008 Fulbright Seminar in Berlin that will examine the impact of science on international policy making.

Arcata – Humboldt State University Geology Professor William C. Miller III is a member of the editorial board and an associate editor of the new journal Evolution: Education and Outreach, a quarterly magazine devoted to expanding the knowledge and teaching of evolutionary theory to a wide audience.

Humboldt State recently recognized the inspiring work of professor Arne Jacobson when it selected Jacobson as the winner of its Making a Difference contest — a competition intended to highlight the core values of a Humboldt State education as defined in the university’s current re-accreditation process.

Arcata – Humboldt State University has received a three-year, $300,000 federal grant to continue summer internships for undergraduate students to get practical experience in computing and design.

In an age where almost every daily transaction involves some type of computer technology, individuals with professional training in the computing sciences are in growing demand. This is particularly true in many of California’s Native American communities.

Arcata – The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Humboldt State University has received a $100,000 renewal grant from the Bernard Osher Foundation of San Francisco to continue low-cost education for Humboldt County adults more than 50 years old.

“Students should be explorers, not followers” That is the creed of one of Humboldt State University’s top environmentalists, Carolyn Ward, named Outstanding Professor of 2007/2008.

With an energy bill that runs somewhere around $15,000 a month, reducing your energy use by as much as 30 percent would seem like a dream come true. For the Arcata-based dinnerware makers Fire & Light this is about to become a reality, thanks to an innovative design from HSU Applied Technology senior Ben Davis.

Humboldt State University Professor Susan Edinger Marshall and Wildland Soils major Rosemary Records presented a poster titled "Soils-Based Evidence for a Former Salt-Marsh; Jarosite and Buried A Horizons (Humboldt County, CA),” at the Soil Science Society of America Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

Professor Arne Jacobson works to bring efficient light and solar power to Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa, where kerosene and fuel lamps pose health and environmental problems, stifle education and economic development.

Bully Magnet—it’s a particularly apt term teens use to describe the unfortunate kids that bear the brunt of schoolyard bullies. Chris Byrne (’80) is intimately acquainted with the phenomenon—in his 22 years as the school psychologist at Sunnybrae Middle School in Arcata, Byrne has seen his fair share of shoving, taunting, groping and the like.

The United States Department of Education has awarded Humboldt State University a five-year, $1.25 million Classic Upward Bound TRIO grant to provide early outreach, encouragement and support to 50 students at six high schools in Humboldt and Trinity Counties: Arcata High, Hoopa High, South Fork High, Trinity High, Hayfork High and Southern Trinity High.

Humboldt State University (HSU), in partnership with Redwood Coast Rural Action (RCRA), has been awarded $500,000 for a prototype project to attract high-speed broadband service to every Redwood Coast community in the four-county region.

It was just a small chirp, modest as sounds go. But when the Humboldt State Wildlife Conclave team identified that little peep as a tiny cricket, they once again proved to be the best in the nation.

Arcata - Drs. Patricia Siering and Mark Wilson of Humboldt State University's Biology Department have won a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant to study organisms living in some of the most extreme conditions on the planet: the boiling acid pools and hot acidic lakes of Lassen Volcanic National Park, Mineral, CA.

Arcata - The value of Humboldt State University’s Advancement Foundation investment assets has reached more than $21.4 million, a near doubling of the $10.9 million recorded in early 2005, according to an investment performance report by the University’s Advancement Foundation for the period that ended June 30, 2007.

Arcata – Full-time Humboldt State Lecturer Justus Ortega (’97) of the Department of Kinesiology and Recreation Administration has won a $1,000 professional award for his milestone research of the mechanics and energetics of walking in elderly adults. (Energetics is the scientific study of energy and its transformations.)

Arcata - “What I love about soil is how it unifies terrestrial life and scientific disciplines,” wrote Humboldt State University student Rosemary Records in an essay that has won her the $1,000 Paul J. Zinke Memorial Scholarship from the California Forest Soils Council (CFSC).

Arcata – The Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund has awarded $23,600 to Humboldt State University’s Micaela Szykman Gunther, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Management, to conduct genetic research of the critically endangered African wild dog.