Breadcrumb
Alumni Updates
Environmental Studies
Maggie Demorest
Environmental Studies, 2024
Maggie graduated with an Environmental Studies Degree with an emphasis in Ecology and Conservation from Cal Poly Humboldt in the spring of 2024. For the next year, she continued working at Freshwater Elementary School as an Instructional Aide, After School Program lead, and Nature Club teacher. She worked there until starting the Watershed Stewards Program (WSP) in October 2025. Her site placement as a WSP Corpsmember is with the Eel River Watershed Improvement Group and the CCC-Fortuna Fisheries Department. This position grants her the opportunity to help restore the Eel River Watershed through habitat surveys, spawner surveys, designing and conducting large wood installations that provide stream diversity and salmonid habitat. She also has the pleasure of being able to plan the Creek Days Environmental Education Fair, which provides over 300 elementary school students with hands-on environmental education every spring. Maggie says it is a blessing to be able to blend my environmental studies background with direct field work while exploring the beauty of Humboldt County every day.
Paige Williams
Environmental Studies, 2016
Paige has been living in Portland for the past 10 years and working as a software engineer for the past six years, mostly trying to work on applying software to environmental justice issues. Paige worked at a startup that was monitoring air quality in environmental justice communities for five years. She recently started working as a software engineer at Ecotrust, a non-profit based in Portland that works at the intersection of equity, environment, and economy. Paige has been focused on an Indigenous knowledge database, which has been built in partnership with the Tribal Marine Stewardship Network. She is excited about working with tribes in the Humboldt area. Ecotrust also has a partnership with Cal Poly Humboldt on their Indigenous Agroforestry Network. Paige says working here has really felt like a full-circle moment. She cites her interdisciplinary degree as one of the successes she's had over the past 10 years. She feels that it has given her a compass for which to apply her skills.
David Epstein
Environmental Studies, 1983
David Epstein, 1983, M.A. Environmental Education, celebrated his 30th year as President of The land Conservancy of New Jersey by winning the 2024 National Land Trust Excellence Award, the most prestigious honor in this field.
Abbey Ramirez
Environmental Studies, 2022
Since graduation, Abbey moved to Sonoma County on Pomo and Coast Miwok land, where she is the Head Gardener for Traditional Medicinals Tea Company (the company that makes Throat Coat!) She tends the educational garden, which serves as an herbal library, displaying many medicinal herbs the company uses in its teas. She is also the zero-waste coordinator working with the environmental department on getting the tea company recertified as a zero-waste facility. Abbey is still working with CCAT as a member of the Steering Committee, and she is always proud to say where her education came from!
Robin Rader
Environmental Studies, 2015
Robin is unsure when her last update was, but she had a baby two and a half years ago! She's been a stay-at-home mom ever since and is taking drone courses to get a commercial license for flying one. She's not exactly sure what she'll do with that, but she can be flexible with it and continue raising her son, so that’s a plus! Robin loves being a mom! She says it’s so awesome watching her son grow and learn. We garden, and he loves it. They hike, cook, and learn together; what a beautiful thing!
Ashley (Perez) Mezeske
Environmental Studies, Emphasis in second language proficiency, 2015
Ashley moved her family from Humboldt to rural Michigan in August of 2023. While living in Humboldt, Ashley worked briefly in the nonprofit sector, helping to provide resources for various aspects of childcare for a local organization. She has been a stay-at-home mother after having her first child in 2018. She plans to open up her own business with an interdisciplinary environmental lens this coming year. She says the concept of a “third place” and the loss we have of them in society has become very interesting to me lately. She loves Humboldt!
Shiloh (Green) Soto
Environmental Studies, 2016
After graduating from Humboldt, Shiloh earned her M.A. in interdisciplinary humanities at UC Merced, where she will also graduate with her Ph.D. in the spring of 2024. Her graduate work is housed in the Department of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and analyzes a public history project she directed with the San Joaquin Valley's city of Livingston. Shiloh moved back to Humboldt in 2022 and eventually found exciting work on campus in Cal Poly Humboldt's College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences as the College Graduate Programs & Recruitment Coordinator!
Claire Roth
Environmental Studies, 2017
Claire lives in Eugene, Oregon, and works as a Program Manager with the educational nonprofit Better Eugene-Springfield Transportation (BEST). BEST advocates for better, more convenient, and safer transportation for everyone, no matter their mode of choice or ability, and believes that community partnership and collaboration are the keys to finding sustainable and equitable solutions to transportation challenges and that the voices of the most vulnerable users of the transportation system should be continuously elevated.
Claire also serves on two local nonprofit boards: Shift Community Cycles and the Whiteaker Community Council. She believes that nonprofits fill the gap that governments cannot cover.
Shiloh (Green) Soto
Environmental Studies, 2016
After graduating from Humboldt, Shiloh earned her M.A. in Interdisciplinary Humanities at UC Merced, where she will also graduate with her Ph.D. in Spring 2024. Shiloh's graduate work is housed in the Department of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and analyzes a public history project she directed about the San Joaquin Valley's City of Livingston. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Shiloh and her spouse decided to move back to Humboldt with their child, and she found exciting work on campus in Cal Poly Humboldt's College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences as the College Graduate Programs & Recruitment Coordinator!
Nikki Jardin
Environmental Studies, 1999
Nikki Jardin recently launched an online and print publication created for people experiencing dementia-related illness, brain trauma or other cognitive impairment. Mirador Magazine is the first leisure-oriented magazine created specifically for this community. Nikki was inspired to create Mirador when she couldn't find accessible, magazine-type reading materials for her aunt who had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's Disease. The first two issues were published this past Summer & Fall, and a third will come off the press in late December. You can learn more at www.miradormagazine.com
Environment & Community
Jon Pede
Environment & Community (Social Sciences), 1990
Jon Pede retired from education after 33 years. He was a teacher (special education), assistant principal, district-level administrator, professor, and ending as middle school principal. He loved every minute of it and is now looking forward to a quiet life without a whistle, walkie-talkie, and school bells.
Jess Whatcott
Environment & Community (Social Sciences), 2004, BA in Political Science, 2011
After completing a Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Jess Whatcott (they/them) became a tenure-track professor in women's, gender, and sexuality studies at San Diego State University. Dr. Whatcott's first academic book about California's history of eugenics and confining disabled people in state institutions will be published by Duke University Press in August 2024.
Vince Smith
Environment & Community (Social Sciences), 1984
Smith recently retired after 36 years working for a private not for profit organization caring for and assisting individuals with intellectual disabilities. He and his wife, Deb, left Northern California in 1984 and settled in New Mexico. He credits HSU’s professors with steering him on a life journey of compassion and care for others.
Jessica A. Whatcott
Environment & Community (Social Sciences), BA in Political Science, minor in Women's Studies, 2012
After recieving my MA from the Environment and Community program, I was hired as a temporary lecturer for the new department of Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies. I am excited to be involved in this new program and engaging students in intersectional critical analysis.
Morgan King
Environment & Community (Social Sciences), 2003
In March 2011 I was hired on as the Sustainability & Waste Coordinator for Humboldt State, after working five years as a Program Manager for a sustainability non-profit. I live in Arcata with my wife and daughter, who will turn 5 in August.