Achievements

Mathew Nyberg, Brian Draeger, Brian Weekly, Eileen Cashman, & Michael Love

School of Engineering

"Analysis of Vortex Pool-and-Chute Fishway" published in the American Journal for Undergraduate Research, Dec 2016 Volume 13 Issue 4. http://www.ajuronline.org/current-edition/.

Brian Draeger, Mat Nyberg, and Brian Weekly completed this research while pursuing B.S. degrees in Environmental Resources
Engineering. The analysis presented in this paper was conducted as a semester project for a River Hydraulics course instructed
by Dr. Eileen Cashman. The students’ interest and effort toward this project has continued beyond their course work under the
direction of Dr. Cashman and Dr. Margaret Lang.

Emily Klee, Aaron Kent, Jake Coniglione, Daniel Burgett, Heidi Otten, Jason McMack, Patrick Hasset, Jax Gill, Jake Burns

School of Engineering

Again this winter, the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP) sponsored the annual Mathematical Modeling Contest (MCM) and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM). Student teams from the HSU Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) department have participated in this four day long contest for the last 15 years, and did so again this year. Competing against over 12,000 teams from thousands of universities, each team produced a report summarizing their solution to one of six possible problems.

This year, three ERE student teams entered in the competition that began on Thursday evening, January 28, and ended on Monday evening, February 1. The team consisting of Emily Klee, Aaron Kent, and Jake Coniglione, and the team consisting of Daniel Burgett, Heidi Otten, and Jason McMack, selected a problem that required understanding the drivers of water scarcity as they created intervention strategies for a region of the world to mitigate the water crisis. Both teams' reports were awarded the score of Meritorious Winners. Only 9 (0.3%) of the 3,209 teams working on this problem scored higher, and 83% of the teams received lower scores.

The team consisting of Patrick Hasset, Jax Gill, and Jake Burns selected a problem that required they build a mathematical model to determine an effective strategy for a person taking a bath to add heated water to raise the temperature back to near starting levels while minimizing the overall use of water. Patrick, Jax, and Jake competed against 4,094 teams and were awarded a ranking of Meritorious Winners, awarded to only 8% of the entries. Only 13 teams received a higher score.

Congratulations to the members of all three teams for their high achievement in this event. We appreciate your efforts, which bring recognition to the Environmental Resources Engineering Department and to Humboldt State University.

Josue Candelario, Kelly Fuentes, Jacob Hurd, Tony Mitchell III, Joshua Martinez, Noe Martinez, Cristina Olivares, Yaad Rana, Raymond Rios, David Rivera, and Eunice Romero

School of Engineering

Environmental Resources Engineering Department students' recently competed in the Mid-Pacific Student Conference’s (Mid-PAC) Water Treatment Competition. At the competition, Humboldt State took first place overall competing against Fresno State, San Jose State, Tongi University, University of the Pacific, UC Berkeley, Chico State, UC Davis, Universite Laval, University of Nevada, and Sacramento State. HSU students also took first place in the construction category, second in water quality, and third in presentation. Students who competed include: Josue Candelario, Kelly Fuentes, Jacob Hurd, Tony Mitchell III, Joshua Martinez, Noe Martinez, Cristina Olivares, Yaad Rana, Raymond Rios, David Rivera, and Eunice Romero. The conference and competition is sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

"Mid-PAC is an international competition with multiple categories, such as: steel bridge competition (teams have to construct a 20' bridge), concrete canoe (teams must design and race a canoe), and waste water treatment that we participated in this year. Humboldt has historically been involved with the waste water filter competition and is now tied for most wins in this competition with UC Berkeley, and Reno,” says Yaad Rana, a ERE student who participated in the competition.

“The competition started in 1998 as part of the conference, and as an environmental engineering school we always expect to do great in the water treatment field as other schools focus on other civil engineering topics,” says Rana. “The design for the competition at HSU starts with small groups of students creating filters and testing them at a local competition held by the local chapter of ASCE members. After this period we join together to try and create the most effective design to take to the international competition. The local competition is really just to get ideas out there from the students who are willing to participate from HSU. When we are all together we hashed out the final design and continued testing and preparing the design report and presentation,” says Rana.

The team this year consisted of four poster presenters (Noe Martinez, Cristina Olivares, Josue Candelario, and Kelly Fuentes), twp PowerPoint presenters (Eunice Romero and Josh Martinez), two operators (Yaad Rana, Ray Rios, David Rivera, and Tony Mitchel III), and one construction manager (Jacob Hurd). So everyone had the opportunity to be involved. Rana was the team Chair, along with Co-Chairs were Josh Martinez and Eunice Romero.

This year we won the following awards: 3rd place presentation, 2nd place water quality, 1st place construction, and 1st place overall.

“We all worked really hard and had a blast doing it. I am also relieved because I am confident that next year's team will be in good hands, since this will be my last time participating. The younger students now have the passion for the competition, and that is key for HSU's continual success at Mid-PAC,” says Rana. “We represented Humboldt really well (at one point Josh was separating recycling at the competition as the other schools didn't seem to care that they were making a huge mess overflowing a trash can), and we brought home the trophy which was actually created at Humboldt (a wooden toilet bowl mounted on a redwood stump)!"

Here is a Google Drive link to photos from the competition that may be used in Humboldt State publications:
https://drive.google.com/a/humboldt.edu/folderview?id=0B-AEKEKoaMHxRHVv…

Lori Jones

School of Engineering

Lori Jones, a senior student in Environmental Resources Engineering and Applied Mathematics received a 2016 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). This fellowship will support her plan to assess the environmental impacts of tidal energy conversion arrays. Jones will be comparing the natural variations in the sedimentary environment and sea-floor characteristics of test sites with the changes that would be caused by a tidal energy converter array. She will use a three-dimensional hybrid modeling approach, validated with a small-scale physical model, capturing near and far field effects of the flow regime and sediment transport.

Joanna Murphy and Ryan Gustafson

School of Engineering

Joanna Murphy and Ryan Gustafson, two recent graduates from the Environmental Resources Engineering B.S. program, just published a peer-review article in "Desalination." Joanna and Ryan looked at heat and mass transfer in membrane distillation, a novel process that can produce high quality water from waste heat. They developed a new model that helps scaling-up the process and validated it experimentally in the lab. As a result, a larger-scale membrane distillation system is now being constructed at HSU. More details here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0011916415300837

Leabeth Mae Peterson

School of Engineering

Leabeth Mae Peterson received the SWE Outstanding Collegiate Member award by the Society for Women Engineers, honoring collegiate members who have made an outstanding contribution to SWE, the engineering community, and their campus. She will be honored at a formal ceremony at WE15, the world's largest conference for women engineers, scheduled for Oct. 23, 2015 in Nashville, Tenn. The conference gathers over 8,000 women at all stages of their engineering careers.

Logan Baumgartner, Alan Ramirez, Xuesi Feng, Friedel Pretorius, Zachary Ruiz, Tahsa Sturgis, Dustin Fredricey, Matti Nylander, and Julian Quick, Joanna Murphy, Jacob Rowe, and George Corbett

School of Engineering

Each winter, the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP) sponsors the annual Mathematical Modeling Contest (MCM) and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM). As they have for many years, student teams from the HSU Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) department participated in this four day long contest. Competing against thousands of universities, each team produced a report summarizing their solution to one of four possible problems.

This year, four ERE student teams entered in the competition that began on Thursday evening, February 5 and ended on Monday evening, February 9.

The team consisting of Logan Baumgartner, Alan Ramirez, and Xuesi Feng selected a problem that required they build a mathematical model to analyze the quantity of the medicine needed, possible feasible delivery systems, locations of delivery, and the speed of manufacturing of a vaccine or drug to optimize the eradication of Ebola. Logan, Alan, and Xuesi competed against 5,356 teams and were awarded a ranking of Successful Participant.

The team consisting of Friedel Pretorius, Zachary Ruiz, and Tahsa Sturgis selected a problem that required modeling churn in an organization with the intent of aiding managers and decision makers to build successful systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and evaluating employees. The team's report was awarded the score of Meritorious. Only 12 (2%) of the 641 teams working on this problem scored higher, and 88% of the teams received lower scores.

The team consisting of Dustin Fredricey, Matti Nylander, and Julian Quick selected a problem that required building a model for sustainability and a 20-year sustainable development plan for one country on the United Nations Least Developed Countries list. The teams used their model to evaluate the effect of their 20-year plan on the country's sustainability. Teams searched for pertinent data and grappled with how economic development must consider ecosystem health and social equitability. Dustin, Matti, and Julian competed against 1,496 teams and were awarded a ranking of Successful Participant.

The team consisting of Joanna Murphy, Jacob Rowe, and George Corbett also selected the economic sustainability problem. Their team was awarded the ranking of Outstanding Winner. This ranking was only awarded to 4 of the 1,496 teams working on this problem. Joanna, Jacob, and George also received two additional honors. Their submission was selected to receive the Rachel Carson award, which honors an American conservationist whose book "Silent Spring" initiated the global environmental movement and whose work spanned many disciplines concerned with the local and global environments. This award is presented to a team for excellence in using scientific theory and data in its modeling. Finally, the team only one of two teams that was given the Two Sigma Scholarship Award, which provides a stipend of $3,000 for each of the three team members and a $1,000 award to the ERE department.

Congratulations to the members of all four teams for their high achievement in this event. We appreciate your efforts which bring recognition to the Environmental Resources Engineering Department and to Humboldt State University.

Keith Parker, Anthony Barella

School of Engineering

Based on their demonstrated potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the US science and engineering enterprise, Keith Parker and Anthony Barella of the Indian Natural Resources have been selected to receive 2015 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellowships.

The award covers $34,000 per 12-month Fellowship Year for Parker's and Barella's pursuit of graduate degrees. The GRFP Fellowship period is 5 years, or less if a student graduates and complete the fellowship before the 5-year period ends. Financial support is provided for a maximum of three years. Humboldt State will receive a $12,000 Cost of Education Allowance in lieu of all required tuition and fees for each of the three years selected by the students for fellowship funding.

Lori Jones

School of Engineering

Lori Jones, a senior undergraduate in the Environmental Resources Engineering department, recently received funding through the CSU’s Water Resources and Policy Initiatives (WRPI) and US Department of Agriculture to investigate osmotic membrane processes as a Watershed Management Intern. Under the guidance of her advisor Andrea Achilli, she will develop three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models and investigate membrane fouling for two different osmotic hybrid systems – RO-PRO and FO-RO. These systems, which employ reuse of wastewater effluent, are designed to reduce the energy requirement of desalination through renewable power generation (RO-PRO) or osmotic dilution (FO-RO).

Team Leader: Luke Halonen. Team Members: Julian Quick, Skira Brathwaite, Kevin Brenes-Melgar, Solomon Clark, Matthew Collins, Anthony Eggink, Grant Goddard, Lori Jones, Mathew Nyberg, and Arrow Walker. Faculty Advisor: Douglas Saucedo

School of Engineering

On May 8th, the team received the Honorable Mention (2nd place) award for innovative system design and excellent analysis in the Hydrogen Education Foundation’s 2014 Hydrogen Student Design Contest. The team designed a modular, drop-in hydrogen fueling station that can be installed in under a 7 days, and dispense 5 kg of high pressure hydrogen fuel in under 5 minutes. See http://hydrogencontest.org/ for more details.