background 0background 1background 2background 3

Immigration Rights and Resources for the Campus Community

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. 

Students collection samples

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. 

Wildlife faculty and student in the field

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.   

Professor helping students

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.

Student in the Marine Lab

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.

PBLC student at ocean

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:

https://youtu.be/s-qMruOoW5E

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! 

View All Alumni Updates

Achievements

Find out what our students, faculty, and staff are being recognized for.

Submit an Achievement

Student

Ismael Chowdhury & Dana Johnstun

Biological Sciences

Two graduate students from Dr. Sean Craig's lab in Biology have won awards at the International Bryozoology Association (IBA) meeting in Tokyo, Japan! Current student Dana Johnstun won an "outstanding presentation" award, while former student Ismael Chowdhury won a "travel award" to go to the meeting and give 2 presentations.  Both students will publish their work in the Conference Proceedings (along with 1 additional former student from Sean Craig's lab, Sheena Stephens-Norton)

Faculty

Kamila Larripa

Mathematics

Kamila Larripa and collaborators from other institutions had their paper published by BIT Numerical Mathematics. This work introduces algorithms for factorized tensor regression, advancing scalable data science methods for high-dimensional structured data. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10543-025-01078-5 

 

Student

Alex Juan, Andre Buchheister, Darren Ward, Rafael Cuevas-Uribe

Fisheries Biology

Congratulations to recent Fisheries Biology M.S. graduate Alex Juan (’24) on publishing his thesis research in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes! Co-authored with his advisor Dr. Andre Buchheister and two other Fisheries faculty (Drs. Darren Ward and Rafael Cuevas-Uribe), Alex studied the growth, maturity, and mortality of invasive Sacramento pikeminnow in the South Fork Eel River. His work provides the first documentation of sexual dimorphism in this species and offers critical life history insights that will support ongoing efforts to manage invasive pikeminnow and aid the recovery of threatened native fishes.  Check out his first peer-reviewed paper here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10641-025-01734-3.  

View All Achievements