Achievements

Yaad Rana, Marcela Jimenez, and Joshua Martinez

Environmental Resources Engineering

For the last 16 years, student teams from the HSU Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) department have participated in a four day long math modeling competition. The competition consists of the Mathematical Modeling Contest (MCM) and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) sponsored by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP). Competing against nearly 17,000 teams from thousands of universities, each team produced a report summarizing their solution to one of six possible problems.

This year, a record six ERE student teams entered in the competition that began on Thursday evening, January 19 and ended on Monday evening, January 23. Four of the six ERE teams were awarded the score of Honorable Mention, with fewer than 12% of the other teams scoring higher, and approximately 50% of the other teams scoring lower. One team received a ranking of Meritorious Winners, with fewer than 1% of the teams scoring higher. Finally, the team of Yaad Rana, Marcela Jimenez, and Joshua Martinez received the highest ranking possible, Outstanding Winner. This team also received the Rachel Carson award and the Sigma Scholarship award which provides a $3,000 prize to each team member.

Bill Trush

Environmental Science & Management

Congratulations to Bill Trush, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Environmental Science & Management and Co-Director of the HSU River Institute for receiving the “Golden Pipe” award from the Salmonid Restoration Federation at their recent annual meeting in Davis, CA. The Golden Pipe is an award for innovators in the salmon restoration field. https://www.calsalmon.org/about/awards/golden-pipe-award

Mindi Curran, Tim Bailey

Geology

MSc (Environmental Systems-Geology) students Mindi Curran and Tim Bailey presented their work at the annual Salmonid Restoration Federation Conference in Davis, CA on March 30-April 2. This year's theme was "Restoring Watersheds and Rebuilding Salmon Runs." Both Curran and Bailey were invited to give oral presentations in the "Using Photogrammetric and Aerial Vehicle Technology to Support Salmonid Restoration Planning and Engineering" topical session, which was aimed to teach specific tools to researchers using high resolution imagery to quantify aspects of stream habitat.

Erin Kelly

Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Erin Kelly, Assistant Professor in Forestry, was awarded the Educator of the Year by the California Forestry Association. She received the award at the annual CFA gathering in Napa, California on March 2.

Dr. Kelly also joined the Forest Policy Committee for the Society of American Foresters (SAF), the largest professional society for foresters in the United States. The Forest Policy Committee has 10 members representing academia, industry, and non-profit organizations; members met in Washington, DC from March 6-7 to recommend federal policy priorities for SAF staff and board members to relay to federal legislators and agencies.

Steve Martin

Environmental Science & Management

Steve Martin had a peer-reviewed article titled 'Real and Potential Influences of Information Technology on Outdoor Recreation and Wilderness Experiences and Management' published in the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration.

Keith Parker

Fisheries Biology

The Switzer Foundation Environmental Fellowship flew HSU graduate researcher Keith Parker to Washington DC where he met with Senator Kamala Harris’ staff (Mar 13) and Congressman Jared Huffman’s staff (Mar 14). The subjects were Klamath River restoration and the 2016 Klamath Power and Facilities Agreement dam removal timeline. Keith spoke from the perspective of a Yurok tribal member living on the river merged with his thesis work in the Klamath basin. Klamath River environmental justice issues of blue-green algae blooms, health quarantines, fish kills, low water flows, and other issues disproportionately impact California’s three largest tribes in the basin.

Mark Colwell, Lizzie Feucht, Matt Lau, David Orluck, Sean McAllister, Amber Transou

Wildlife

Mark Colwell and current and former students (Lizzie Feucht, Matt Lau, David Orluck, Sean McAllister, Amber Transou) published a paper in Wader Study, an international journal dedicated to shorebird ecology and conservation. The work summarizes 16 years of monitoring to show that immigration is vital to recent population growth of Snowy Plovers in coastal northern California.

Adam Carter

Computer Science

Adam Carter will present his paper, "Using Programming Process Data to Detect Differences in Students' Patterns of Programming" at this year's ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) in Seattle, WA.

Walt Duffy and Sharon Kahara

Wildlife

"Ecosystems of California" won two 2017 PROSE awards, which are given by the Association of American Publishers. It won the award for environmental science, and the overall award for excellence in physical sciences and mathematics.For more information on AAP 2017 awardees visit:
https://proseawards.com/winners/

Mark Szymanski

Geology

Mark Szymanski (MS Student, Geology) received a $1,000 research grant from the Northern California Geological Society. Mark will these funds to measure oxygen isotope ratios of olivine crystals in lavas erupted over the last 750,000 years in the Sierra Nevada. Results from Mark's thesis will advance our understanding the controls of where mafic volcanoes form and how they evolve.