Achievements

Amy Sprowles

Biological Sciences

Dr. Amy Sprowles has received the prestigious CSU BIOTECH Andreoli Faculty Service Award, which honors a CSU faculty member who has made outstanding contributions to biotechnology programs across the California State University system. Dr. Sprowles was recognized for her exceptional leadership and impact on students through her role as Director of the CIRM Bridges Program, which provides Humboldt students with research experiences in regenerative medicine, and for her leadership in the design of Humboldt's PBLC first-year experience. She is continuing to grow biomedical research and education on our campus as the director of the new Humboldt-CIRM Shared Resources Laboratory.

Kaci Dodd, Natalie Swearingen, Isamar Lopez-Argueta, Allison Bronson

Biological Sciences

Students Natalie Swearingen and Kaci Dodd, alumnus Isamar Lopez-Argueta, and Assistant Professor Allison Bronson presented their research on the ear anatomy of cartilaginous fishes at the Northeast Pacific Shark Symposium in Newport, Oregon.

Darren Ward, Nick Som

Fisheries Biology

Drs. Darren Ward and Nick Som received a grant for research on salmon populations and habitat in the Redwood Creek estuary. The project will build on ongoing monitoring efforts to better understand salmon population abundance and life history. New work will include fish tagging and tracking, water quality assessment, food web studies, and expanded habitat monitoring. Findings will generate information to guide habitat restoration efforts in Redwood Creek and help inform future estuary restoration projects.

Project partners include the California Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Redwood National Park, the Yurok Tribe, California Trout, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Funding is provided through a subaward from UC San Diego, with primary support from NOAA.

Tawanda Gara

Environmental Science & Management

Dr. Tawanda Gara’s open-access reprint book based on the Special Issue “Remote Sensing of Vegetation Function and Traits,” which he guest edited, was published in Remote Sensing. The book is a collection of research papers from diverse scholars across the globe that focus on studying plants and ecosystems using remote sensing and data-driven methods. This achievement reflects a collaborative effort to advance ecological monitoring and environmental science using geospatial technology.

Pascal Biwole

School of Engineering

Professor Pascal Biwole, of the School of Engineering, and his team have published several papers, including: 

"Thermal mass vs. insulation trade-off in bio-based buildings: Climate-dependent energy performance of hemp, straw, and wood-based constructions", by Amer Bakkour, Salah-Eddine Ouldboukhitine, Pascal Biwole, and Sofiane Amziane, Energy and Buildings, Volume 358, 2026,

"Retrofitting Towards Net-Zero Energy Building Under Climate Change: An Approach Integrating Machine Learning and Multi-Objective Optimization", Ibrahim Mahdi, Pascal Biwole, Fatima Harkouss, Farouk Fardoun, and Salah Eddine Ouldboukhitine. Buildings 16, no. 3: 537, 2026. 

"Experimental evaluation of literature-established delignification techniques on poplar wood", by Yi Hien Chin, Christophe Vial, Yoshiki Horikawa, Joseph Gril, Rostand Moutou Pitti, Salah-Eddine Ouldboukhitine, Nicolas Labonne, and Pascal Biwole, Wood Science and Technology, Vol 60, 22, 2026.

"Gradient-Delignified Wood as a Sustainable Anisotropic Insulation Material"  by Chin, Yi Hien, Salah-Eddine Ouldboukhitine, Christophe Vial, Joseph Gril, Rostand Moutou Pitti, Nicolas Labonne, and Pascal Biwole, Energies 18, no. 20: 5519., 2025

"PEMFC cathode humidification: Can direct water injection compete with membrane humidifiers? A direct comparison study" by Flavien Marteau, Pedro Affonso Nóbrega, Cédric Sernissi, Pascal Biwole, Iona De Bievre, Christophe Vacquier, Christian Beauger, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Volume 172, 2025.

Jim Graham

Environmental Science & Management

Dr. Jim Graham received continued funding from California Trout (CalTrout) that will pay for a graduate student to perform GIS habitat modeling in the Eel River Watershed, and develop a subsequent Riparian Climate Refugia (RCR) data set. The data will provide information on where riparian corridors (vegetation growing near natural bodies of water) contain remaining climate refugia on the CA North Coast. Climate refugia are landscape features that provide environmental protection and can allow species to persist through climate change effects. The data will be particularly useful to land managers, who can use it to make more informed restoration and conservation decisions.

Gabriel Abundis, Sage Brislen, Trinity Edwards, Bailey Glashan, Logan Holey, Lee Minicuci

Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Gabriel Abundis, Sage Brislen, Trinity Edwards, Bailey Glashan, Logan Holey, Lee Minicuci (graduate student) are all independent student researchers in the Rangeland Resource Science Program that were able to share their research from Cal Poly Humboldt through poster presentations at the Annual Society for Range Management in Monterey, California.

Sean Dillon, Marina Dunlop, Tristan Fritsch, J. J. Madrigal Garcia, Bree Gentil-Guijosa, Logan Holey, Noah-Charlie Regan, Jennifer Salguero, Derek Tremaine. Nicholas Verhey, Kai Zerbo, Todd Golder

Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Sean Dillon, Marina Dunlop, Tristan Fritsch, J. J. Madrigal Garcia, Bree Gentil-Guijosa, Logan Holey, Noah-Charlie Regan, Jennifer Salguero, Derek Tremaine, Nicholas Verhey, and Kai Zerbo competed at the Annual Society for Range Management in Monterey, California with their coach, Todd Golder. This year they ranked nationally in the rangeland plant identification competition, with Cal Poly Humboldt ranked 2nd place nationally in the U.S and 5th place globally with other universities from Canada and Mexico.

Lowen M. Hobbs, Hanna D. Hobbs, Robert W. Zoellner

Chemistry

Professor Emeritus Robert W. Zoellner and his two former students, Lowen M. Hobbs and Hanna D. (Phillips) Hobbs (both now in the U. S. Coast Guard), have published their second peer-reviewed article together, entitled “The limits of low-spin zinc oxidation states from density functional theory computations:  Fluoro-zinc complexes, [ZnFn]x, where n = 1 through 6 and x = 2+ through 3-, including complexes Ccontaining the η1-F2-, 1-η1-F3-, and 1,3-η2-F3-ligands”: L. M. Hobbs, H. D. Hobbs, R. W. Zoellner, Computational and Theoretical Chemistry 2026, 1258, 115701 (12 pp.).

Eileen Cashman

School of Engineering

Dr. Eileen Cashman received a grant to lead a sea level rise planning and economic study for the Murray Field Airport in Eureka. The airport provides critical services to Humboldt County, including air freight, postal delivery, air ambulance, and Coast Guard operations, but faces growing vulnerability to sea level rise, making this study essential to inform long-term planning decisions for its future. The study will assess sea level rise impacts and develop conceptual designs for possible adaptation options. Evaluation will include flood prevention strategies, economic impacts, and alignment with community goals. 

Funding is provided by the California State Coastal Conservancy.