Achievements

Sayra Montesinos, Sean Ruzicka, Roland Carter and Zander Leigh

Environmental Resources Engineering

For at least 25 years, students from the School of Engineering have successfully participated in the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP) annual Mathematical Modeling Contest (MCM) and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM). The contest begins on a Thursday afternoon and ends on the following Monday evening. This year the competition started on January 23, 2025 and over 27,000 teams of up to three students from thousands of universities around the world produced a report summarizing their solution to one of six possible problems.

This year, two Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) student teams of two students each from the Cal Poly Humboldt School of Engineering entered in the competition. Both teams selected an ICM problem focused on constructing a model to track habitat change from forest-to-farm over time as the ecosystem evolves along with accompanying agricultural choices. The analysis was required to include both natural processes as well as human decisions.

Competing against over 6,000 teams that selected this problem, the ERE team of Sayra Montesinos and Sean Ruzicka was awarded the score of Honorable Mention, with less than 10% of the 6,000 teams receiving a higher score. The ERE team of Roland Carter and Zander Leigh was awarded the score of Finalist, with less than 1% of the 6000 teams earning a higher score.  Congratulations to Sayra, Sean, Roland and Zander for their achievement in this extremely competitive event. We appreciate your efforts which bring recognition to the School of  Engineering at Cal Poly Humboldt!

Press Release with Photos

Lily Yassemi

Computer Science

Award Winner: Lily Yassemi
Co-Curricular: Outstanding Student of the Year

Lily Yassemi was nominated by Michelle Gledhill and Victoria Petrillo for the Outstanding Student of the Year award in the co-curricular category.

Lily is the Founder and President of the Society of Women in STEM Humboldt organization and has been the President of the Computer Science Club at Cal Poly Humboldt. Lily is a trailblazer at Cal Poly Humboldt, demonstrating an exceptional balance between academic excellence, leadership, and extracurricular involvement.

It both clubs she raises funds through grassroots efforts and has produced rapid growth in club membership. In Society of Women in STEM club Lily has built a supportive community with resources and networking. For Computer Science club, Lily has organized industry talks, developed and led technical workshops, and facilitated networking opportunities that have helped students round out their education and build professional connections. She also brings an exciting and engaging mix of activities to the club’s meetings like workshops where students learn how to make their own apps.

She led the club’s participation in the prestigious International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), a globally recognized competition, where Cal Poly Humboldt achieved a top-10 placement—the first time the university has appeared on the ICPC global leaderboard. Lily also spearheaded the development of Hackathon for Social Good, an ambitious event that will bring students together to solve real-world challenges proposed by local non-profits. 

Lily pours an extraordinary amount of time and energy into her work.  Between leading two STEM-focused academic organizations, organizing high-impact events, and ensuring meaningful opportunities for students, she has made a lasting impact on both the campus and the broader community.

Congratulations Lily!

Cheyenne Ty

Computer Science

Award Winner: Cheyenne Ty
Academics & Research: Outstanding Student of the Year

Cheyenne Ty was nominated by Sharon Tuttle and Kamila Larripa for the Outstanding Student of the Year award in the academics & research category. 

Kami invited Cheyenne in Fall 2023 to join her National Science Foundation-funded project using mathematical models to investigate the impact of dysfunctional immune cells in the brain. A colleague gave her a very high recommendation after she took a mathematical proofs course with him.  

Cheyenne has been the most outstanding undergraduate researcher I have worked with.  She quickly came up to speed, devouring large volumes of peer-reviewed biological papers without a background in biology, learned a new coding language and became the expert coder in the group, and contributed a great deal to writing a manuscript, making figures, and overall project management in the first year together. She represented our group by presenting our project at the CSU Research Competition in April 2024. We published a paper from this work, and Cheyenne was with me every step of the way in terms of contributions, writing, revising and organizing supplemental material to be in line with best practices in reproducible research.  She is the first author on this paper due to her excellent work.

We are in our second year together of the same project, and have welcomed three new students into the lab group. Cheyenne has stepped into a mentorship role, and continues to push the project ahead with her independence and self-motivation. She is able to explain the necessary biology to our new lab members as well as I can. We are now adding metabolic pathways to our model, and Cheyenne again is delving into the biology and translating mechanisms into code and running simulations. She is a wonderful role model for more junior lab members, and someone I can absolutely count on to contribute to the project with both her work ethic and scientific insights. 

Cheyenne has two peer-reviewed publications (one as a first author) and has presented at multiple scientific conferences. This level of activity is quite extraordinary for an undergraduate student.

Her contribution to research projects in the areas of literature review, machine learning experiments, statistical and computational analysis, and programming has been exceptional. As a diligent student with a passion for both mathematics and computer science, her professionalism that surpasses her peers.

Congratulations Cheyenne!!

Barbara Clucas and graduate student Stephanie Stragier

Wildlife

Dr. Barbara Clucas and graduate student Stephanie Stragier were awarded a grant from the Sequoia Park Zoo to support a study investigating habitat quality of the Western snowy plover, a threatened coastal bird species. In Humboldt County, some chicks are hatching at smaller body sizes, which may be linked to habitat degradation or climate change. This project will analyze chick measurements and habitat quality during the 2024–2025 breeding seasons to identify potential causes, ultimately aiming to inform conservation strategies for the species’ recovery and improve monitoring methods. This work will also provide research experience for Humboldt wildlife undergraduate students.

Alyssa Semerdjian

Biological Sciences

Alyssa Semerdjian received a Ranges Imaging Mini-Award for a project that will use 3D models generated from MicroCT scans to study nasal turbinates - tiny bones inside the noses of mammals that help them maintain body temperatures and conserve water. The study will focus on rodents from the family Heteromyidae. Members of this family can be found across North and Central American from extremely dry deserts to wet tropical forests. This work will provide new insights into the adaptive significance of nasal turbinates, and how morphology and physiology can vary in closely related small mammal species that occupy different habitats.

Elijah Harnar, Roland Carter, Zander Leigh, Shea Ciuca Duffy, Erika Ospenson, Nicholas Weiser, Kyle Ellis, Andrew Bricken, Sean Ruzicka, Kyle Amann, Jason Dyck, Felix Canari, Leonardo Castro, Eden Hill, Celeste Joyner, Erick Herrera, Teophil Edward, Hector Manuel, and Micah Matias.

Environmental Resources Engineering

Our Cal Poly Humboldt engineering team won first place in the Water Treatment Competition this weekend at the annual American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Mid-Pacific Conference, hosted by UC Berkeley!

The Water Treatment Competition challenges students to design a sustainable and effective filter for treating simulated wastewater.

Our students spent two semesters building and improving their filter, and all that hard work paid off. The judges were impressed by their teamwork, school spirit, and ability to effectively communicate technical content.

We’re incredibly proud of their achievement and the way they represented Cal Poly Humboldt on a regional stage. Go Lumberjacks!

This year’s winning team included:
Elijah Harnar, Roland Carter, Zander Leigh, Shea Ciuca Duffy, Erika Ospenson, Nicholas Weiser, Kyle Ellis, Andrew Bricken, Sean Ruzicka, Kyle Amann, Jason Dyck, Felix Canari, Leonardo Castro, Eden Hill, Celeste Joyner, Erick Herrera, Teophil Edward, Hector Manuel, and Micah Matias.

Jordyn Neal, Sam Rodrigues, Allison Bronson

Biological Sciences

Undergraduate alumna Jordyn Neal (now an M.S. candidate at CSU Fullerton) & Assistant Professor Allison Bronson had their recent publication in the Anatomical Record featured as the journal's "Editor's Choice" article for May 2025. The publication described inner ear shape in four species of sharks, part of a team effort including undergraduate alumna Samantha Rodrigues and data scientist John Denton. The Editor's Choice interview with Neal & Bronson is available through the American Association for Anatomy website.

Joshua Smith

Chemistry

Chemistry & Biochemistry faculty Joshua Smith is a co-author on a paper with an international team working on using triplet state Baird-aromaticity in photosensitive processes. In this study triplet state Baird-aromaticity is used to stabilize the quencher molecules used in fluorescence imaging. The paper was published in the Royal Chemical Society's open access journal, Chemical Science. 

Bakouri, O. E.; Johnson, M. A.; Smith, J. R.; Pati, A. K.; Martin, M. I.; Blanchard, S. C.; Ottosson, H. Search of Improved Triplet-State Quenchers for Fluorescence Imaging: A Computational Framework Incorporating Excited-State Baird-Aromaticity. Chem. Sci. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1039/D5SC01131K.

Justin Luong

Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Dr. Justin Luong received CSU Agricultural Research Institute funding to assess how solar micro grids affect coastal prairie plant communities and soil properties. The study aims to determine land use strategies that maximize ecosystem services for native plant biodiversity, sheep forage, and solar energy. The project involves mentorship and training for undergraduate (Gabriel Abundis, Claudia Alfaro-Hernandez, Logan Holey) students and a graduate student (Angelina Garcia) to improve retention of diverse natural resource managers and scientists in rangeland sciences. Results of this study will inform California policy related to rangeland management and solar energy, as well as natural resource management. 

Cynthia Le Doux-Bloom

Fisheries Biology

Dr. Cynthia LeDoux-Bloom received a $145,000 grant from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board to develop a monitoring strategy for improving the effectiveness of water quality, sediment, and flow monitoring efforts throughout the Elk River (Humboldt Co.) watershed. The monitoring strategy will be developed in conjunction with the Science and Coordinated Monitoring Workgroup composed of government agencies, non-profit agencies, and landowners. Findings shall serve as the basis for a monitoring plan.