Student Faith Neff Environmental Resources Engineering

Faith Neff ('15, Environmental Resources Engineering) was one of 26 students from around the country to participate in the 2013 Harvard Forest Summer Research Program, an 11-week program in ecological research for undergraduate and graduate students.

Neff was part of a two-person team that created and designed an aerial tram under the supervision of Paul Siquiera, an engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts and Mark Van Scoy, a Harvard Forest research assistant. Neff will present their study, “Monitoring ecosystem physiology and vegetation structure in recent clearings," at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union Dec. 9-13 in San Francisco.

The annual Harvard Forest Summer Research Program runs May to August in the Harvard Forest located in Petersham, Mass. Students conduct paid, supervised research focusing on the effects of natural and human disturbances on forest ecosystems, including global climate change, hurricanes, forest harvest, changing wildlife dynamics, and invasive species. The program is funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA and several U.S. universities.

Student Zoe Merrill, Rachelle Dilley, Stephanie Winters, Kyle Garvey, and Braden Pitcher Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Five Humboldt State University students passed the rigorous “Fundamentals of Soil Science” exam offered on April 15, 2013, becoming Associate Professional Soil Scientists, according to test results from the Council of Soil Science Examiners. Zoe Merrill, Kyle Garvey and Braden Pitcher graduated with degrees in Wildland Soils in the Rangeland Resource Science major. Stephanie Winters graduated with the Rangeland Resources option and completed sufficient soils courses to be a federal Soil Scientist. Rachelle Dilley graduated with a degree in Botany.

The national pass rate for the spring 2013 exam was 63%. 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. 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.

Staff Harvey Kelsey Geology

Harvey Kelsey, a research associate in the Geology Department, has been named a fellow of the Geological Society of America. Honorees are nominated by existing GSA Fellows for their contributions to the geosciences. Contributions may include publications, applied research, teaching, administration of geological programs, public education, editorial, bibliographic and library responsibilities.

Kelsey was honored for using field investigations of coastal environments to make important contributions to our understanding of the history and processes of great subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis in Cascadia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Japan.

Student Monica Napoles Environmental Resources Engineering

Environmental resources engineering student Monica Napoles was recently selected for the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis' (NIMBioS) highly competitive Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK).

The 2013 NIMBioS REU program runs for eight weeks, from June 10 – Aug. 2, and includes 19 undergraduates from universities across the United States. Participants live on campus and work in teams with NIMBioS postdoctoral researchers and UTK faculty on research at the interface of mathematics and biology. The research projects for the 2013 program are mathematical modeling of fetal electrocardiograms; modeling animal disease from coronavirus; automatic detection of rare birds from audio recording; modeling the environmental transmission of E-coli in cattle; modeling protein translation and genome evolution; and modeling animal social network dynamics. More information about the REU program can be found at "nibios.org/reu":http://www.nimbios.org/reu/.

NIMBioS is a National Science Foundation-sponsored initiative to foster interdisciplinary research at the interface between mathematical and biological sciences. Additional NIMBioS sponsors include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Student Dept. of Mathematics Students Mathematics

The Department of Mathematics recently named several scholarship recipients for the 2012-13 academic year. They are:

Mathematics students Natalya Jackson and Wilson Jarrell; winners of the Harry S. Kieval Scholarship, awarded to junior-level students.

Melanie Kaitlyn Weaver; winner of the Mathematics Department's Harry S. Kieval Transfer Scholarship for outstanding performance in college level courses at a two year college in preparation for a mathematics major.

Kyle Steslicki; winner of both the Orval M. Klose Scholarship and the Robert S. Chambers Scholarship for full-time undergraduate mathematics majors.

Anne Adams and Elizabeth Bell; winners of the Travis Jepsen Memorial Scholarship for full-time mathematics majors.

Austin LaComb; winner of the Michael Tucker Scholarship for outstanding junior or senior mathematics major, and

Valerie Yellam; winner of the awarded the Elmo Moore Memorial Mathematics Scholarship for mathematics or mathematics education majors.

Student Kendall Lewis Computer Science

Kendall Lewis was named Outstanding Student of the Year '12-13 for the Department of Computer Science.

Faculty Christine Cass Oceanography

Oceanography professor Christine Cass was recently named one of the top 20 women professors in California by statestats.org and partner website onlineschoolssalifornia.com. The two sites set out to find post-secondary educators who had been recognized recently for excellence in the classroom, on campus and in the community.

Cass joins professors from Stanford, UC Berkeley and Loyola Marymount in earning the distinction. Cass has served as an assistant professor in the Department of Oceanography since 2011. Her research focuses on changes in West Coast zooplankton brought about by seasonal variations.

Student Bobby Voeks Geology

Geology student Bobby Voeks was recently accepted into the U.S. Geological Survey/National Association of Geoscience Teachers Cooperative Field Training Program. The USGS/NAGT program is the longest continuously running internship program in the earth sciences. Bobby will work as a hydrologic technician measuring sediment inputs into the Chesapeake Bay. He will be based at USGS headquarters in Reston, VA.

Student Claudia Velasco Geology

Geology student Claudia Velasco recently accepted a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) Summer Internship studying glacial sedimentology in Brazil and surficial geology in west central, Minnesota for Native American women. Claudia will help an active research project on the origin and history of surficial deposits in west central Minnesota and the late Paleozoic glacial units of Brazil (the Itarare subgroup). Her research will focus on the influence of climate on ice stream movement, the significance of marine interaction and ice sheet grounding, and the nature of ice stream flow (sliding vs. deformation).

Student Michelle Robinson Geology

Geology student Michelle Robinson was recently accepted into the U.S. Geological Survey/National Association of Geoscience Teachers Cooperative Field Training Program. The USGS/NAGT program is the longest continuously running internship program in the earth sciences. Michelle will be based in Portland, OR working with USGS scientists on water-quality conditions in the Columbia River Basin. He work will focus on "toxics," including anthropogenic-indicator compounds, pharmaceuticals, PBDEs, pesticides and legacy compounds.

Student Erin Quinn Geology

Erin Quinn recently accepted a Smithsonian Graduate Student Fellowship at the National Museum of Natural History. Erin will conduct high-temperature, high-pressure experiments on rocks from Chaos Crags, Lassen Volcanic National Park. Erin’s work will be the first experimental phase equilibrium study on Chaos Crags and will provide important constraints on magma storage conditions at Chaos Crags. This is important for better understanding the volcanic hazards within Lassen Park.

Student Kelly Morgan Geology

Geology student Kelly Morgan will serve as seasonal hydrologic technician with the Rocky Mountain Research Station for summer 2013. Kelly will conduct surveys of geomorphic features in the Upper East Fork Weiser River in central Idaho using GPS and other methods. She will use the Geomorphic Road Assessment and Inventory Package (GRAIP), a process and set of tools for analyzing the impacts of roads on forested watersheds. GRAIP combines a detailed road inventory with a powerful GIS analysis tool set to predict road sediment production and delivery, mass wasting risk from gullies and landslides, and road hydrologic connectivity.

Student Joe Camacho Jr. Geology

Geology student Joe Camacho Jr. received the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) Summer Internship. Joe will use surface observations to search for blind (subsurface) faults in the North American platform in central Tennessee. He will present his summer research at the fall meeting of the Geological Society of America in Vancouver, BC.

Student Holly Leopardi Physics & Astronomy

Senior Holly Leopardi was presented the award for "Exceptional Scholarly Achievement" in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. The annual award honors outstanding Physics & Astronomy Majors at the junior or senior level. The award includes a commemorative hardcover edition of "The Feynman Lectures on Physics."

Student Joshua Peterson Mathematics

Joshua Peterson received the Mathematics Department Outstanding Teaching Award for AY 2012-13 for teaching lower division courses while completing his master's degree.

Student Leslie Scopes Anderson Biological Sciences

HSU graduate student Leslie Scopes Anderson and Ken Burton have just completed a bird guide entitled "Common Birds of Northwest California – Humboldt, Del Notre & Trinity Counties." Over a year in production, the book is 176 pages and contains over 500 photos, (most by Leslie) as well as habitat charts and informative text about the birds. The guide is published by Redwood Region Audubon Society and will soon be available in local book stores.

Student Leslie Scopes Anderson Biological Sciences

Graduate student Leslie Anderson recorded a first-ever sighting of a rare Red-bellied Woodpecker in the state of Nevada. It is also the second western-most sighting in the US of the bird, bested only by one in Idaho in 2003. Leslie noticed the woodpecker in June near the historic Bressman cabin at Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge and documented it with high-quality photographs. The first-sighting was later confirmed by local bird expert Ken Burton and the Nevada Bird Records Committee. An article about the find will appear in the April-May issue of Western Birds.

Student Environmental Resources Engineering Students Environmental Resources Engineering

Two teams of Environmental Resources Engineering students recently took high honors in the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications Mathematical Modeling Contest Jan. 31 to Feb. 4. Both teams worked on the same problem, which required building a mathematical model for an effective, cost-efficient water strategy to meet the United States' projected water needs in 2025. In particular, the model was required to address water storage and movement, desalinization and conservation.

The first team--consisting of Lianna Winkler-Prins, James Courtney and Ryan P. Dunne--earned an honorable mention ranking. The second team--consisting of Kevin Kipp, Britlandt Abney and Andrew Preiksa--was awarded a meritorious ranking. Each team prepared a detailed report that included one of three possible modeling problems.

Faculty Lonny Grafman Environmental Resources Engineering

The manuscript "Medical device compendium for the developing world: a new approach in project and service-based learning for engineering graduate students" by Kathleen Sienko and Amir Sabet Sarvestani of University of Michigan and Lonny Grafman of HSU was published in the Global Journal of Engineering Education.

The manuscript documents the work establishing the Global Health Medical Devices Compendium, a new open-source platform for presenting available medical devices designed for, or implemented in, the developing world at http://www.appropedia.org/Portal:Medical_Devices.

Student Forestry students Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

The Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources presented 22 of its students with nearly $28,000 in scholarships at its 15th annual Spring Awards banquet in April. Three graduating seniors were recognized at the ceremony: Zachary Carter, Academic Excellence Award; Noah Coonen, Professional Promise Award, and Celina Weeg, Most Outstanding Student Award in Rangeland Resources and Wildland Soils. Department Chair Kenneth (K.O.) Fulgham reported that faculty have gained more than $1.37 million in grant research awards in the past 18 months. He recognized retiring Professor John Stuart for his 30 years of service to the department. For the third year running, Stuart was voted “Outstanding Professor of the Year” by the department’s students.