Breadcrumb
College of Natural Resources & Sciences
Get Your Hands Dirty Studying Science on California’s North Coast
There’s no better place to study science than at Cal Poly Humboldt. Our community is a living laboratory with the Pacific Ocean, ancient redwoods, and other diverse ecosystems for you to explore.
The College of Natural Resources & Sciences boasts a wide variety of science-focused areas of study, from biochemistry to zoology. Our multiple fieldwork opportunities, Place-Based Learning Communities, and extensive research faculties paired with our stellar faculty and staff create an environment for you to feel inspired, challenged, and engaged with the science all around you.
Undergraduate Research
Many universities reserve research experience for graduate students. At Cal Poly Humboldt, you may conduct your own research or assist professors with their projects as early as your freshman year. Either way, you’ll put theory into practice, building a fundamental understanding of concepts and methodologies. With opportunities to present at local and national conferences, you’ll learn how to explain your findings, too. Experiences like these offer a glimpse of what it’s like to be a professional scientist and will help you discover your passion.
Fieldwork
Located on the North Coast of California, Humboldt is surrounded by ancient redwoods and close to the Pacific Ocean, mountains, and rivers. You’ll find the region’s natural environment is the perfect outdoor classroom where learning happens through real-world experience. Track elk, hike through forests to measure redwoods, or take water samples from California’s second largest river—Humboldt provides a wide range of opportunities for fieldwork, which helps develop critical thinking and collaboration skills, and a passion for learning that will take you far in life.
Personal Attention
College is a time to expand your horizons and find out who you really are, and our attentive faculty are here to support you every step of the way. From the moment you begin your program, you won’t be just another face in the crowd. You’ll be part of a community as you get to know your professors. They’ll challenge you, but they’re accessible, too. Whether through mentoring or one-on-one feedback, they’ll help you build the knowledge and skills to be successful at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Undergraduate Programs
Cal Poly Humboldt offers a wide array of science majors and programs, led by highly skilled faculty who foster a supportive environment. You will develop the critical thinking skills needed to solve complex problems in science, engineering, and natural resources, leaving you well-prepared for professional careers and higher levels of study.
Graduate Programs
Cal Poly Humboldt has an established reputation for its graduate programs in the biological, environmental, engineering, and natural resources sciences, which provide the knowledge and experience necessary to address today’s scientific problems.
Equipped for Excellence
Cal Poly Humboldt has a diverse range of research facilities, labs, and special collections as essential tools for conducting research and gaining real-world experience. Utilizing a renewable energy technology research center, a marine laboratory, and the largest botanical collection in the CSU system, you will actively engage with research during your undergraduate years.
Place-Based Learning Communities
Learning goes beyond the classroom at Humboldt—we learn from the environment we are in. Our Place-Based Learning Communities provide you with a tight-knit community of like minded peers before classes even start.
We start right away—you’ll be immersed in major-related fieldwork, seminars, and classes with students like you before the semester even begins. These connections will help you navigate college life, gain confidence, succeed academically, and gain a sense of belonging within the Humboldt community.
Alumni Updates
James David Ackerman
Biological Sciences, 1973, 1976
After graduating with a B.A. (1973) and M.A. (1976) in Biology, James ventured to the Deep South for his Ph.D. at Florida State University in Tallahassee, a cultural challenge without a doubt. With a predoctoral fellowship from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, he studied the interactions of orchids and orchid bees in Panama. This was parlayed into a Ph.D. (1981) and a job at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where I have been teaching and studying ever since, making a career primarily of orchid biology and biological invasions. In 2024, the University bestowed upon him the title of Distinguished Professor, a rare honor for which he is grateful to the people of Puerto Rico, and perhaps interrupted the fossilization of an aspiring academic dinosaur.
Paul Sheppard
Forestry & Wildland Resources, 1982
Paul Sheppard ('82 Forestry) representing the Old College Try Barbershop quartet, which formed up at HSU in 1981 and sang on campus for a year or two, would like to share that since graduating from HSU, the quartet has been meeting up every now and then to sing and bird, and reminisce about Humboldt.
They even "met" online in 2020 to sing the Humboldt Alma Mater virtually, the way choirs and ensembles did to wait out the pandemic with music.
They just met up this year in the Mojave Desert, Southern California, and put up a video of their 2025 reunion:
Exactly 10 minutes long.
Joseph Caminiti
Environmental Resources Engineering, 2018
Joseph has been working with CALTRANS District 1 for almost 6 years now, and he highly recommends it for many reasons, such as great benefits, fantastic work-life balance, great staff, multitude of disciplines including planning, safety, hydraulics, electrical, and the list goes on!
Achievements
Find out what our students, faculty, and staff are being recognized for.
Regina Jorgenson
Physics & Astronomy
Dr. Regina Jorgenson is helping lead an astronomical study investigating Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)- powerful flashes of radio waves from deep space whose origins are of great interest to astronomers, yet not well understood. The project will support a post-baccalaureate fellow who will use some of the largest telescopes in the world to study the host galaxies of FRBs to better understand both the sources of these cosmic explosions, as well as the intergalactic matter through which the FRB signal travels – essentially giving us a new way to detect and measure previously unseen matter in the universe. Project funding comes from the National Science Foundation.
Pedro Peloso
Biological Sciences
Biological Sciences faculty Dr. Pedro Peloso was a senior author on a new paper addressing long-standing confusion in the naming of a group of South American tree frogs (genus Boana, family Hylidae). The study was led by Gisele Cassundé, one of Peloso’s former students from Brazil. Using a combination of genetic and anatomical data, along with an extensive review of literature spanning two centuries, the authors resolved a complex taxonomic puzzle—clarifying species identities and providing a foundation for the description of several new species. The paper was published in the journal Zootaxa.
Reference: Cassundé, G. F., M. J. Sturaro, A. O. Maciel, G. R. Lima-Filho, M. L. Lyra, M. T. Rodrigues, C. F. B. Haddad, A. Aleixo, and P. Peloso. (2005) "Neotype Designations for Hyla geographica Spix, 1824 and Hyla geographica var. sive semilineata Spix, 1824, and Comments on the Phylogeny, Taxonomy, and Diversity of the Boana semilineata Species Group (Anura: Hylidae)." Zootaxa 5660, pp. 505–528. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5660.4.3.
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!