Each year, a selection committee reviews nominations and selects one faculty member, one staff member, and one student who has excelled in advancing sustainability on campus and in the community. The 2025 award winners embody a spirit of innovation, collaboration, and leadership to create solutions to pressing challenges facing the campus and society.
This year, the award winners were presented with trophies made by students Damien Campa and Daniel Reyes in the Swetman Makerspace.
Having lived throughout Latin America before coming to the U.S., Cinthya Ammerman Muñoz, professor of Native American Studies, focuses on advancing Latinx and Indigenous science and knowledge about foodways, plants, and place, and how these praxes foster community. She serves on the board of the nonprofit MAPLE Chile, which supports regenerative economies in Southern Chile and Uganda, and on the board for Escuela Nor Fën, an autonomous Mapuche school for food sovereignty, cultural revitalization, and human rights. And she is creating an Abya Yala working group to support students interested in working and researching with Indigenous peoples outside of the United States.
Karley Rojas is a graduate student in the Environment & Community program, the Native Plant Specialist for the Blue Lake Rancheria, and a research associate for the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty & Traditional Ecological Knowledge Institute. Their work and scholarship support the resurgence of Indigenous agroecology, community-based research, and the legitimacy of oral traditions. They are also an artist, with a focus on ceramics, painting, textiles, tattoos, and woodworking.
Since becoming the coordinator for Orientation & New Student Programs, Ash Hansen has integrated sustainability as a core aspect of orientation. She has incorporated sessions, activities, and tours to actively engage nearly all incoming freshmen and transfer students in sustainability concepts and practice, and she has integrated a zero waste approach towards marketing material, food, giveaways, and decorations. Hansen has also been a core member of the Sustainability Employee Educators Developing Solutions (SEEDS) program, dedicating time to collaborating with campus partners who are passionate about advancing sustainable practices at the institutional level.
The Office of Sustainability sponsors the annual Sustainability Champion Awards. For more information on sustainability at Cal Poly Humboldt, visit the Office of Sustainability website.