Achievements

Phil Chaon, Alisa Muniz, Justin Purnell, Felicia Aragon, Andrew Wiegardt and Brendan Higgins

Wildlife

Humboldt State University's Wildlife Quizbowl Team placed second in the student Quizbowl of the National Meeting of the Wildlife Society in Milwaukee. The single elimination tournament included 17 teams. HSU won the first match against University of Montana 95-25. The team won its second match against University of Wisconsin, Madison, 125-10, and its third match against Michigan Tech 85-70. The team was narrowly defeated in the final round by the University of Minnesota, Crookston, 105 to 100. This year marks the 13th time HSU competed at the National Quizbowl, with nine wins to date.

The quizbowl team included Phil Chaon (captain), Alisa Muniz, Justin Purnell, Felicia Aragon, and Andrew Wiegardt (alternate player).

The national meeting also included students presented "research in progress" posters. Muniz placed in top 20 (among 100+ posters, most by graduate and doctoral students). Student Brendan Higgins won several awards for some of his photos, including best of show.

Travis DiGennaro and Crystal Welch

Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Rangeland Resources Science majors Travis DiGennaro and Crystal Welch will share the $1,000 Paul Zinke Memorial Scholarship Award for 2013. Travis is an assistant for the introductory soils course, is enrolled in the Wildland Soils option of the range major, and hails from Napa, CA. Crystal Welch is also in the Wildland Soils option and has called Humboldt County and Port Orford, Oregon home. Travis and Crystal will be presenting an undergraduate research poster on actinomycetes found in mushroom compost at the Soil Science Society of America Annual Meetings in Tampa, Florida in November 2013. They join seven past HSU Zinke Award winners: Barbara Witmore (’05), M.S. New Mexico State University, currently employed by the Bureau of Land Management; Rosemary Records (‘06) now in a Ph.D. program at Colorado State University; Sarah Schuette (‘09), co-owner of Dirty Business Consulting of Arcata; Allison Rofe, (‘12) who is a rangeland management specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Ukiah, CA; Jasmine Westbrook (‘12), currently enrolled in a M.S. program at Montana State University; and Stephanie Winters (‘13), a seasonal employee with BKS Environmental of Gillette, WY.

Mark Colwell

Wildlife

Mark Colwell delivered an invited plenary talk on the challenges of conserving threatened species at the 5th Western Hemisphere Shorebird Group meeting in Santa Marta, Colombia on 20 September 2013.

Barbara Clucas

Wildlife

Wildlife faculty member Barbara Clucas recently co-authored a study suggesting that crows can recognize human faces. For the study, Clucas and her team approached crows in Seattle while directly looking at them and while averting their gaze. The crows scattered earlier when they were being directly stared at, suggesting that they have adapted to living in urban areas. The full article was published in the April issue of the journal _Ethology_.

Michael Kauffman

Biological Sciences

Michael Kauffman, of HSU's Redwood Science Project, has published _Conifers of the Pacific Slope_, a contemporary field guide for identifying Pacific Slope conifers. The book includes color plates for identifying 65 species, photos, maps and destinations for finding conifers in the field. In 2012, Kauffmann published _Conifer Country_, a natural history and hiking guide to the biodiversity of the region—as seen through the eyes of conifers.

Practivistas Dominicana

Environmental Resources Engineering

Students in Engineering lecturer Lonny Grafman's Practivistas Dominicana program recently returned from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where they worked with community members and local students to develop sustainable, appropriate technologies. Among the projects they completed this summer: designing and building a rural, public pharmacy from plastic bottles and blocks made from rice husks, rice husk ash, lime, cement and sand; redesigning and installing a rainwater catchment system to serve a grade school in the inner-city barrio of La Yuca; developing and constructing renewable energy systems for a local animal shelter. In 2014, students will return to La Yuca and in Las Malvinas, Dominican Republic.

William McMeekin, Simone Groves

Environmental Resources Engineering

Two HSU students in the Practivistas Dominicana Program worked with a team to design and build solar power cubes for a hard-to-adopt animal shelter in Dominican Republic. The student project upcycles intermediate bulk containers and uses photovoltaics to power vaccine refrigeration, kennel lighting, cell phones and laptops.

The animal shelter project named Ghetto2Garden is still under construction in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The students work is highlighted by Inhabitat at http://inhabitat.com/students-transform-liquid-shipping-containers-into-solar-lighting-cubes-for-dominican-animal-shelter/ and documented on Appropedia at http://www.appropedia.org/Ghetto2Garden_solar_power.

Faith Neff

Environmental Resources Engineering

Faith Neff ('15, Environmental Resources Engineering) was one of 26 students from around the country to participate in the 2013 Harvard Forest Summer Research Program, an 11-week program in ecological research for undergraduate and graduate students.

Neff was part of a two-person team that created and designed an aerial tram under the supervision of Paul Siquiera, an engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts and Mark Van Scoy, a Harvard Forest research assistant. Neff will present their study, “Monitoring ecosystem physiology and vegetation structure in recent clearings," at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union Dec. 9-13 in San Francisco.

The annual Harvard Forest Summer Research Program runs May to August in the Harvard Forest located in Petersham, Mass. Students conduct paid, supervised research focusing on the effects of natural and human disturbances on forest ecosystems, including global climate change, hurricanes, forest harvest, changing wildlife dynamics, and invasive species. The program is funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA and several U.S. universities.

Zoe Merrill, Rachelle Dilley, Stephanie Winters, Kyle Garvey, and Braden Pitcher

Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Five Humboldt State University students passed the rigorous “Fundamentals of Soil Science” exam offered on April 15, 2013, becoming Associate Professional Soil Scientists, according to test results from the Council of Soil Science Examiners. Zoe Merrill, Kyle Garvey and Braden Pitcher graduated with degrees in Wildland Soils in the Rangeland Resource Science major. Stephanie Winters graduated with the Rangeland Resources option and completed sufficient soils courses to be a federal Soil Scientist. Rachelle Dilley graduated with a degree in Botany.

The national pass rate for the spring 2013 exam was 63%. Those who pass the fundamentals exam will be eligible to take the Professional Practice exam after five years of professional experience, an additional step in becoming a Certified Professional Soil Scientist. Recent Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) discussions about program self-certification have included the fundamentals exam as one indicator of program quality. Humboldt State University Wildland Soils students (an option under the Rangeland Resource Science major) spend more than 200 hours in field or laboratory learning experiences, honing hands-on skills and field judgment of soil properties, limitations, and capabilities.

Harvey Kelsey

Geology

Harvey Kelsey, a research associate in the Geology Department, has been named a fellow of the Geological Society of America. Honorees are nominated by existing GSA Fellows for their contributions to the geosciences. Contributions may include publications, applied research, teaching, administration of geological programs, public education, editorial, bibliographic and library responsibilities.

Kelsey was honored for using field investigations of coastal environments to make important contributions to our understanding of the history and processes of great subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis in Cascadia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Japan.