Alumni Updates

Kelly Curtin

Art, Art Education, 2012

Kelly Curtin, 2012 Art, joined Teach for America right after graduation and taught high school Special Education and English in San Jose, Calif., for the past four years. This past year, Curtin made the switch to Montessori education, and currently teaches middle school humanities at a Montessori middle school in Campbell, Calif.

Marisa Penkauskas

Journalism, 2012

Marisa Penkauskas, 2012, Journalism & Mass Communication, is the marketing manager for Interactive Fitness, a company producing interactive stationary bikes, based in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Justin Tretten

English, 2012

Justin Tretten, 2012 English, moved back to Colorado after graduating HSU. In Colorado, Tretten earned his teaching license. He now teaches sixth grade language arts in a middle school.

Yang Yang

Geography, second BA: International Studies, 2011 (Spring)

After I graduated from Humboldt in May 2011 with two BAs in Geography and International Studies, I went to London School of Economics and Political Science to pursue a MSc in Human Geography and Urban Studies Research. After completing my course work at the LSE, since August 2012, I proceeded to the PhD program in Cultural Geography at University of Colorado at Boulder to do research in ethnic studies in China.

Tyler Evans

History, International Studies, 2011

Tyler Evans, 2011 History and 2014 Secondary Education Credential, received a Master’s of Arts in History from San Diego State University after graduating from Humboldt. Evans is currently the AVID program coordinator and elective teacher at Temescal Canyon High School in Lake Elsinore, Calif.

Salina Cuddy

English, 2011

Salina Cuddy, 2011 English, has begun a Master of Arts program in Sociolinguistics at the University of York in England. Cuddy’s focus is language and power, looking particularly at language and gender as well as language and class.

Omar Alejandro Garcia

International Studies, 2011

After working at Solar City, I am currently working in Taiwan as an English Teacher and preparing for an International Business Masters degree. I am still playing baseball and running my audio-blog about identity and cross-cultural interactions. I would like to thank Rosamel Benavides in the World Languages and Cultures Dept as well as the International Studies Dept for providing me a solid foundation to conquer career challenges, domestic and international.

Josh Bartee

English, 2011

These days I'm pursuing a PhD in English Literature at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Since graduating, I have had two papers accepted for conferences. The first, which I presented in May of 2011 to the Robinson Jeffers Association in Monterey, CA, is a look at the poet’s diachronic influence on the environmental ethics of rock climbers. The second paper, presented in November of 2011 to the Western Literature Association in Lubbock, TX, concerns the hominin relationship with fire as read in Loren Eiseley's "The Angry Winter" and a selection of poems by Robinson Jeffers.

I keep busy studying, cycling and making all kinds of fun connections between poetry and natural history.

Andrea Castillo

Art, 2011

Recently graduated in Art Studio and am working for a non-profit Center for the Arts in Los Angeles at a Summer Art Camp for kids.

James Caton

History, 2011

The flexibility of HSU’s B.A. in History afforded James the opportunity to chart a path for the future by exploring topics that interested him. Upon completing his degree, he began studying economic theory. He completed an M.A. in Economics from San Jose State University in 2013 where he studied monetary theory and history. He completed my Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University in 2017 where he focused on non-equilibrium, agent-based models of systems of exchange. As of Fall 2017, he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics at North Dakota State University where he teaches macroeconomics, entrepreneurship, economic computation, and economic development.