Breadcrumb
College of Natural Resources & Sciences
Get Your Hands Dirty Studying Science on California’s North Coast
There’s no better place to study science than at Cal Poly Humboldt. Our community is a living laboratory with the Pacific Ocean, ancient redwoods, and other diverse ecosystems for you to explore.
The College of Natural Resources & Sciences boasts a wide variety of science-focused areas of study, from biochemistry to zoology. Our multiple fieldwork opportunities, Place-Based Learning Communities, and extensive research faculties paired with our stellar faculty and staff create an environment for you to feel inspired, challenged, and engaged with the science all around you.
Undergraduate Research
Many universities reserve research experience for graduate students. At Cal Poly Humboldt, you may conduct your own research or assist professors with their projects as early as your freshman year. Either way, you’ll put theory into practice, building a fundamental understanding of concepts and methodologies. With opportunities to present at local and national conferences, you’ll learn how to explain your findings, too. Experiences like these offer a glimpse of what it’s like to be a professional scientist and will help you discover your passion.
Fieldwork
Located on the North Coast of California, Humboldt is surrounded by ancient redwoods and close to the Pacific Ocean, mountains, and rivers. You’ll find the region’s natural environment is the perfect outdoor classroom where learning happens through real-world experience. Track elk, hike through forests to measure redwoods, or take water samples from California’s second largest river—Humboldt provides a wide range of opportunities for fieldwork, which helps develop critical thinking and collaboration skills, and a passion for learning that will take you far in life.
Personal Attention
College is a time to expand your horizons and find out who you really are, and our attentive faculty are here to support you every step of the way. From the moment you begin your program, you won’t be just another face in the crowd. You’ll be part of a community as you get to know your professors. They’ll challenge you, but they’re accessible, too. Whether through mentoring or one-on-one feedback, they’ll help you build the knowledge and skills to be successful at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Undergraduate Programs
Cal Poly Humboldt offers a wide array of science majors and programs, led by highly skilled faculty who foster a supportive environment. You will develop the critical thinking skills needed to solve complex problems in science, engineering, and natural resources, leaving you well-prepared for professional careers and higher levels of study.
Graduate Programs
Cal Poly Humboldt has an established reputation for its graduate programs in the biological, environmental, engineering, and natural resources sciences, which provide the knowledge and experience necessary to address today’s scientific problems.
Equipped for Excellence
Cal Poly Humboldt has a diverse range of research facilities, labs, and special collections as essential tools for conducting research and gaining real-world experience. Utilizing a renewable energy technology research center, a marine laboratory, and the largest botanical collection in the CSU system, you will actively engage with research during your undergraduate years.
Place-Based Learning Communities
Learning goes beyond the classroom at Humboldt—we learn from the environment we are in. Our Place-Based Learning Communities provide you with a tight-knit community of like minded peers before classes even start.
We start right away—you’ll be immersed in major-related fieldwork, seminars, and classes with students like you before the semester even begins. These connections will help you navigate college life, gain confidence, succeed academically, and gain a sense of belonging within the Humboldt community.
Alumni Updates
Reginald Jonker
Oceanography, 1980
Reginald Jonker is retired.
Terry Bowyer
Wildlife, 1970
R. Terry Bowyer, B.S. 1970, M.S 1976, is the 2025 recipient of the Aldo Leopold Memorial Award from The Wildlife Society for outstanding contributions to wildlife conservation , the highest honor that the Society bestows.
James David Ackerman
Biological Sciences, 1973, 1976
After graduating with a B.A. (1973) and M.A. (1976) in Biology, James ventured to the Deep South for his Ph.D. at Florida State University in Tallahassee, a cultural challenge without a doubt. With a predoctoral fellowship from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, he studied the interactions of orchids and orchid bees in Panama. This was parlayed into a Ph.D. (1981) and a job at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where I have been teaching and studying ever since, making a career primarily of orchid biology and biological invasions. In 2024, the University bestowed upon him the title of Distinguished Professor, a rare honor for which he is grateful to the people of Puerto Rico, and perhaps interrupted the fossilization of an aspiring academic dinosaur.
Achievements
Find out what our students, faculty, and staff are being recognized for.
Sherrene Bogle
Computer Science
Prof. Sherrene Bogle received a travel award from the University of Missouri, Kansas City to attend the 2025 Workshop on Large Language Models for CS Undergraduate Education. At the September 2025 workshop, she gave a presentation on “Experience Report of Generative AI for Contrasting Undergrad Courses”. This included how generative AI tools have evolved in the past two years to student prompts and best practices for incorporating the tool in both GE and STEM courses.
Sherrene Bogle, Cheyenne Ty
Computer Science
Prof. Sherrene Bogle, 2024-25 student of the year Cheyenne Ty and their collaborators in the NSF funded ACOSUS (AI Counseling System for Under-represented Transfer Students) research group had their double blind peer review paper entitled School or Student? A Mixed Method Analysis on Reddit Data for Transfer Barrier Identification was accepted for publication and presentation at the 2025 Decision Sciences Institute Annual Conference in November. The paper examines the institutional and student-based barriers faced by computing transfer students.
Kamila Larripa and collaborators
Mathematics
Kamila Larripa and collaborators had their paper "Block Gauss-Seidel methods for t-product tensor regression" accepted to the journal Numerical Algorithms. This work develops new mathematical tools that help data scientists analyze large, complex datasets (such as images, videos, or medical scans) more efficiently and accurately.