Breadcrumb
Achievements
Publications and achievements submitted by our faculty, staff, and students.
Maxwell Schnurer, Mark Taylor, Steven Ladwig, Tony Wallin-Sato, Arthur Monarque, Javier De La Torre
Communication
27 Cal Poly Humboldt Communication majors who are currently incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison presented at the National Conference on Higher Education on Friday April 10. Students in the program shared how resilience, student leadership, and collective voice shape a BA program inside California’s highest-security prison. Through live video conference to the largest prison education conference in the United States students discussed with conference attendees their leadership strategies, recruiting, curriculum input, and the creation of clubs and academic work centered on their vision. The room in Cleveland was packed including Cal Poly Humboldt staff and students who are alumni of the program. The recording of the presentation is available in the link above.
Maxwell Schnurer, Chelsey Castiglione, Lauren Nicolosi, Dean Washington, Shiloh Litke, Keith Flamer, Mark Taylor
Communication
On April 14th the Sexual Assault Prevention Committee hosted the third annual Anti-Violence Summit at College of the Redwoods. In partnership with the President's office at College of the Redwoods, the Social Work department CR and the Department of Communication at Cal Poly Humboldt, students from both schools collaborated to prevent and respond to sexualized violence. Communication Department Sexual Assault Intern Lauren Nicolosi, CRGS major Dean Washington and Communication major Shiloh Litke facilitated breakout sessions. Project Rebound director and College of the Redwood instructor Mark Taylor hosted the session with guests of Chelsey Castiglione (Prevention Coordinator) and Dr. Maxwell Schnurer chair of the Communication department and the Sexual Assault Prevention Committee.
Gabriel Roletti, Rosemary Sherriff, Lucy Kerhoulas, Jill Beckmann and Wallis Robinson
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Gabriel Roletti (ESM BS 2020, Forestry MS 2022) published his Master's thesis in Forest Ecology and Management with his co-advisors Rosemary Sherriff (GESA) and Lucy Kerhoulas (Forestry), along with other Humboldt alums Jill Beckmann and Wallis Robinson.
Paul Michael L. Atienza
Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Dr. Paul Michael L. Atienza was elected to the executive board of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) as the Northern California/Nevada region representative. Founded in 1979, AAAS is the primary research and teaching hub for Asian American Studies, an interdisciplinary field born out of the 1960s movements for racial justice, third world liberation, and student activism. Dr. Atienza will serve a three-year term starting April 2026.
Gabi Kirk
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Dr. Gabi Kirk will be presenting a virtual talk at the international workshop "Evanescent and Emerging Spaces: Land/World Struggles of Palestinians and Guarani" at Cardiff University (Wales) on April 22. This event will confront important and disturbing parallels between the genocides of Palestinians and the Guarani in South America, and the challenges of resisting neocolonial land theft and world grabbing. Dr. Kirk's talk at 8:45 AM PDT on April 22, titled, "Cultivating Sustainable Sovereignty: Palestinian Agrarian Lives in Transnational Focus," will share insights about Palestinian food sovereignty from her current book project.
The workshop is free and open to the public virtually, all sessions are in BST (8 hours ahead). For a full schedule and to reserve a free ticket/watch sessions, see the conference site .
Paul Michael Atienza
Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Dr. Paul Michael L. Atienza joined the closing summit of the NSF-funded Knowledge of AIDS (KOA) Research Community Network (RCN). KOA-RCN seeks to form a scholarly community for social scientific, humanistic, and socio-technical researchers, artists, and community advocates of HIV/AIDS broadly situated within the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The final meeting in late March focused on forms of civic engagement that emerged and continues to actively respond for HIV/AIDS advocacy and resources. KOA-RCN seeks to develop multiple outputs in the coming years that include a robust online community and support for ongoing research collaborations.
Amy Rock
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
The framing article for a special issue in the Professional Geographer has been published. The article, In Their Own Voices: The Stories and Status of Women in Geography in the United States (Oberhauser, Dixon, Li, Mossa, Rock, and Sultana), summarizes the articles that share the results of a 4-year project. The special issue, Moving the Needle on Gender Equity: An Analysis of the Status of Women and Marginalized Groups in Geography, covers a range of methods used to assess current and historical conditions for women and marginalized groups within academic geography, celebrating progress and identifying continuing barriers to equitable representation in the discipline, and offers recommendations for continued growth. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2026.2633341
Dr. Armeda C. Reitzel
Communication
Dr. Armeda C. Reitzel, Professor Emeritus, Communication, has been selected to join the Peace Corps as a Virtual Service Pilot Participant. Beginning in May 2026, Dr. Reitzel will work with staff in Ukraine to co-teach a "Summer English and Culture Club for Ukrainian Teens." This assignment builds on Dr. Reitzel's expertise in teaching English as a second language and intercultural communication.
Ryder Dschida
History
On February 28, the Humboldt County Office of Education and the Cal Poly Humboldt History department ran the annual county-level History Day competition on the Cal Poly Humboldt campus. Well over 300 local school children, from 4th grade through high school seniors, present their History Day projects in numerous locations across the campus. The awards ceremony was held in Forbes Gym, where many of the projects were on exhibit for all to inspect. Cal Poly Humboldt has been hosting this event since the 1990s and is the only university that hosts a county-level event in the United States.
Dr. Amy Rock
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Minding the Gender Gap: Working Toward Parity for Women in U.S. Academic Geography (Mossa, J., B. Dixon, S. Sultana, A. Rock, and B. Kar, 2026) has just been released in electronic format. The latest release from the Status of Women in Geography Project, this piece examines 50 years of gender composition of Geography departments in higher ed, finding that while parity has been reached at lower ranks, female full professors still lag behind, even when compared with other social sciences. A map by Dr. Rock related to this project is currently hanging in Founders Hall outside the Geography Department. (Full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2026.2621345)