Breadcrumb
Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series
2025-2026 Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series
On behalf of Interim Provost Young and the Office of Academic Affairs, you are invited to the upcoming Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series presented by the 2025-26 faculty award recipients. Award recipients are nominated by their colleagues or students for excellence in their field, and then reviewed by a Faculty Awards Committee.
The events are an opportunity for award recipients to engage with the campus and local community by giving a public lecture or performance or a different activity of their choosing. These events are free and open to students, faculty, staff and members of the local community. Light refreshments will be provided.
AmyK Conley - Excellence in Teaching
Lecture date: Wednesday, April 7, 2027 from 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East, Room 102
Lecture title: "Reading is Magic (And Science)"
Lecture description: Reading allows us to hear others' thoughts across time and distance. Reading, even in this age of video, installs new software in our brains, rewiring our brains. Language is natural, but reading must be taught. A 1% increase in adult literacy is linked to a 1.5% rise in GDP per capita, 2.5% higher labor productivity, and lower recidivism. Teaching reading changes lives, families, and culture.
Brandon Browne - Excellence in Teaching
Lecture date: Wednesday, March 10, 2027 from 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East, Room 102
Lecture title: "Lessons in the Lithosphere: Hard Places and High Rewards of Teaching and Learning Geology"
Lecture description: The lithosphere—Earth’s rigid and rocky shell—can teach us a lot about our planet and ourselves. This presentation will share stories about the lithosphere from the perspective of the rocks and minerals whose eventful lives are spent perpetually adapting to changes in their surroundings and an array of invisible stresses that shape the dynamic landscape we build our lives upon. Dr. Browne shares, "My hope is that learning about these quiet lithospheric lessons about renewal, vulnerability, humility, and connection can make all of us more thoughtful, creative, and fulfilled learners and teachers."
Cutcha Risling Baldy - Outstanding Professor
Lecture date: Wednesday, February 10, 2027 from 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Lecture location: The Native Forum, Behavioral & Social Sciences Room 162
Lecture title: "Everyone Works Together: The Future of Indigenous Science and the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute at Cal Poly Humboldt"
Lecture description: What becomes possible when Indigenous knowledge, student leadership, and community collaboration come together? The Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab & Traditional Ecological Knowledges Institute is the first of its kind in the CSU system with a groundbreaking model for Indigenous food sovereignty, environmental justice, Indigenous Science, and climate resiliency through hands-on learning, research, and community-led partnerships. The lecture concludes with a tour of the lab, Wiyot Plaza and the Indigenous Garden.
Paul Michael Atienza - Outstanding Service Award
Lecture date: Thursday, April 15, 2027 from 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East, Room 102
Lecture title: "Bayanihan: Cruising Queer Futures from a Tagalog Filipinx/a/o/American in Goudi'ni & Jaroujiji"
Lecture description: Paul Michael (Mike) will reflect on "outstanding service" as it relates to the Tagalog/Filipino concept of "bayanihan" often understood as the spirit of communal support and cooperation. Queering this idea in the context of academic governance and the critical frameworks of Filipinx/a/o Studies, they reflect on their five years at Cal Poly Humboldt as a queer, Asian/American settler and the limits and possibilities of showing up and dreaming of better futures in a settler colonial university.
Paul Bordeau - Scholar of the Year
Lecture date: Wednesday, April 21, 2027 from 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East, Room 102
Lecture title: "Leveraging natural ecological interactions and animal behaviors to protect and enhance northern California's kelp forests"
Lecture description: Controlling outbreaks of kelp-grazing sea urchins is one of the greatest challenges facing managers of northern California kelp forests. Along our coasts, purple sea urchin populations have surged up to 60 times their historical averages, devouring remaining kelp and locking reefs into persistent, low-productivity 'urchin barrens'. An outbreak of sea star wasting disease decimated populations of the sunflower sea star (a key predator of urchins), and the absence of historical sea otters in northern California leaves purple urchins largely unchecked to devour bull kelp, an annual species that must re-establish from spores every year, making it far more fragile against continuous grazing than Southern California’s giant kelp forests. Current restoration efforts like manual urchin culling require intense, dangerous diving labor, making broad-scale recovery logistically and financially difficult along our rugged coastline. My students and I are exploring alternative restoration strategies that build on remaining and natural protective species interactions. My talk will highlight those interactions that can curb purple sea urchin grazing and their potential role in complementing ongoing restoration strategies to support kelp forest recovery on the north coast.
2024-2025 Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series
These lectures are open to all students, faculty, staff and the community.
Dale Oliver - Outstanding Service
Lecture date: Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Lecture location: The Great Hall
Lecture title: "Opportunities Abound for Service to the Common Good"
Young S. Kwon - Excellence in Teaching
Lecture date: Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 5:00-7:00 pm
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East, Room 102
Lecture title: "Beyond Facts: Paradigm Shifts in Exercise Biochemistry and Their Implications for Health"
Daniela Mineva - Scholar of the Year
Lecture date: Thursday, April 2, 2026, 5:00-7:00 pm
Lecture location: Fulkerson Recital Hall
Lecture title: "A Magical Journey Through Music"
2023-2024 Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series
These lectures are open to all students, faculty, staff and the community.
Andrea Juarez- Excellence in Teaching
Lecture date: Wednesday, February 26, 2024, 5:00-7:00 pm
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East 102
Humnath Panta- Scholar of the Year
Lecture date: Wednesday, March 5, 2024, 5:00-7:00 pm
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East 102
Loren Cannon- Outstanding Service
Lecture date: Wednesday, April 9, 2024, 5:00-7:00
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East 102
Sara Sterner- Excellence in Teaching
Lecture date: Wednesday, April 16, 2024, 5:00-7:00 pm
Lecture location: Goodwin Forum, Nelson Hall East 102
Past Distinguished Faculty Award Winner Lectures
Watch the recorded lectures of previous year's Distinguished Faculty Award Winners from 2021-2022 and onward.
Erik Jules- Scholar of the Year - 2022-23
Lecture Title: How climate change, fire suppression, and invasive species may be reshaping our forests
Erik will describe his research on recent changes to forests in our region, including changes that have resulted from non-native pathogens, climate warming, and fire suppression. Using several long-term studies, the talk will focus on an at-risk, high-elevation pine species and a botanically-rich forested ecosystem in the heart of the Klamath Mountains.
John Meyer- Scholar of the Year - 2022-23
Lecture Title: Which way (if any) toward sustainability?
Our climate crisis often feels very new, but is in some ways, as Kyle Powys Whyte has argued, “unprecedentedly old.” It has prompted many calls for a more sustainable society. But what could that mean and how might it be pursued? Does it require more deference to experts? Or more power to “the people?” In this talk, I argue that questions like these are inescapably political and that answers reflect differences in underlying values and visions of a good life. One goal of environmental political theory – my field of study – is to surface these values as a basis for imagining more deeply resonant strategies for social change.
Noah Zerbe- Excellence in Teaching - 2022-23
Lecture Title: Conversations from the Classroom: Strategies for Engaging Pedagogies
From flipped courses to playful pedagogy, it’s hard to stay on top of the latest innovations and emerging technologies in teaching, especially as faculty tend to be siloed into their classrooms. In this interactive session, we’ll draw back to the curtain and engage in a conversation about effective teaching. Come and share your favorite activities and assignments, or just bring your questions.
Cindy Moyer- Outstanding Service - 2022-23
Lecture Title: All I Really Needed to Know about Service, I Learned from Studying Music
Cindy will be joined by musical colleagues as she discusses and demonstrates musical skills that are also relevant for service work.
Sara Hart- Excellence in Teaching
Lecture Title: Jim Hart's Magical Mystery Tour
This is the story of how I came to Religious Studies, and of what the journey has taught me about learning, teaching, and being in the world. To imagine alternate moral horizons, to practice being wrong about our most committed worldviews, to engage impossible beliefs: these are the keys that I have found to community, purpose, and hope.
Meenal Rana - Excellence in Teaching - 2021-22
Sonja Manor - Excellence in Teaching
The Power to Change
Teachers have a unique and powerful ability to create change, not only for our students but for ourselves, our teaching, and our campus culture. As a Freshmen at Humboldt State University, I had no idea I was going to major in mathematics nor would I have believed I could. A note from a professor at the top of one Calculus test changed the course of my life. It is a great honor to now be able to play this role in the lives of my students. Each semester they help me change my classes to be more applicable, active, and inclusive. In this presentation, I will share some of the teaching philosophy, classroom projects, and interdepartmental collaborations that have transformed my classes.
Jeffrey Kane - Scholar of the Year
Restoring Fire-Adaptive Oak Woodlands in Northwestern California
The removal of fire in oak ecosystems in northwestern California over the past century has resulted in substantial loss of biodiversity and degradation of culturally managed landscapes. Efforts to restore oak ecosystems and reintroduce fire hold promise but often require removal of conifers to promote effectiveness. In this talk, Dr. Kane will share his research over the past decade that explores the impacts of fire exclusion and the ecological responses of restoration approaches within oak ecosystems of northwestern California.