Achievements

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.

Laurie Richmond, Mary Mangubat, Erik Meusborn, and Andrew Todd

Environmental Science & Management

Cal Poly Humboldt students from the Environmental Science & Management (ESM) major Mary Mangubat, Erik Meusborn, and Andrew Todd are co-authors on a recent publication in the Journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. The publication is titled Fisheries of the middle: building collaborations between seafood and agriculture to revitalize and enhance mid-scale food production. The research began as an undergraduate research project in the ESM Planning & Policy capstone class where students were exploring common challenges among the seafood and agriculture systems in our local region -- working for community clients Ashley Vellis (Ashely's Seafood) and Megan Kenney (North Coast Growers' Association). It then evolved to include the ideas and voices of many other scholars and practitioners working in seafood and ag systems. The piece argues for the development and sustenance of "middle scale" seafood systems in addition to those focused on smaller-scale or direct-marketing strategies.

Sherrene Bogle

Computer Science

Dr. Sherrene Bogle received a travel award to attend the NSF ACCESS Regional AI Workshop on January 22, 2026 at University of Southern California. She presented a poster on "ACOSUS - An AI-driven Counseling System for Transfer Students". The NSF funded ACOSUS, on which Dr. Bogle is a co PI, is designed to complement existing advising by providing personalized readiness assessments, success predictions, and actionable recommendations for computing transfer students.

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray

Environmental Studies

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray interviewed Alexander Menrisky, author of a new book called Everyday Ecofascism, about the violent side of environmental politics for the University of Wisconsin web-magazine and podcast, Edge Effects.  You can find the interview and more about the book here: https://edgeeffects.net/alexander-menrisky/