Breadcrumb
Achievements
Publications and achievements submitted by our faculty, staff, and students.
Tony Nichols
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Geography major Tony Nichols won third place in the Tom McKnight Undergraduate Student Paper Award at the California Geographical Society annual conference in Huntington Beach, CA, for her paper Finding Belonging: Interviews with Queer People Across Humboldt County. In her paper, Tony highlights how queer residents in Humboldt County experience belonging, exclusion, and uncertainty across different community spaces, underscoring the importance of “third places” and supportive local environments in shaping LGBTQ+ well-being.
Ari Dixon
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Ari Dixon won third place in the undergraduate Student Cartography Award at the California Geographical Society Annual Meeting in Huntington Beach, CA. This map uses a creative visualization to highlight woman-owned breweries across the U.S. West Coast, using proportional symbols to show the number of breweries within 100-mile buffers and callout boxes to spotlight specific brewery stories in Washington, Oregon, and California.
Will Bellairs
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Geospatial Science and Technology major Will Bellairs won first place in the Tom McKnight Undergraduate Student Paper Award at the California Geographical Society Annual Conference in Huntington Beach, CA. Will's paper, titled Map Games: Learning Map Literacy through Engaging Play, demonstrated the design and classroom testing of an interactive educational map game he developed to increase elementary school students' geographic learning.
Ari Dixon, Margaret Dailey, Liam Blackburn, Myles Chrispeels, Sawyer Hofstetter, Tony Nichols, Will Bellairs, Astra Mattingly, Kyra Kranyak-Schwartz, Paul Blank
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Nine students from the Geography and Geospatial Science and Technology programs represented the department at the California Geographical Society Annual Conference in Huntington Beach, California, where they presented original research and cartographic work. In the paper presentation sessions, Will Bellairs, Myles Chrispeels, and Tony Nichols shared their research. Liam Blackburn, Margaret Dailey, and Sawyer Hofstetter presented their work during the undergraduate poster session. Ari Dixon, Astra Mattingly, and Kyra Kranyak-Schwartz presented in the cartography session. In addition to the student presentations, Geography faculty member Nicholas Perdue organized a special paper session honoring Joe Leeper. During that session, Emeritus Professor Paul Blank delivered a touching tribute.
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.