Breadcrumb
Achievements
Find out what our students, faculty, and staff are being recognized for.
Dr. Amy Rock
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Minding the Gender Gap: Working Toward Parity for Women in U.S. Academic Geography (Mossa, J., B. Dixon, S. Sultana, A. Rock, and B. Kar, 2026) has just been released in electronic format. The latest release from the Status of Women in Geography Project, this piece examines 50 years of gender composition of Geography departments in higher ed, finding that while parity has been reached at lower ranks, female full professors still lag behind, even when compared with other social sciences. A map by Dr. Rock related to this project is currently hanging in Founders Hall outside the Geography Department. (Full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2026.2621345)
Margaret Wickens Pearce
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Former Geography faculty (1998-2001) and Potawatomi Nation tribal member Margaret Wickens Pearce was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship for her “Foregrounding Indigenous understandings of land and place in maps that visualize Native Peoples’ knowledge, history, and stories.” The Fellowship is an $800,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who demonstrate exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more. This follows multiple NSF grants and a 2023 Guggenheim award. While at Humboldt, Margaret and Mary Beth Cunha established the Kosmos Lab from which students then and now have won an avalanche of state and national awards for their innovative cartography.
Dr. Laura Johnson
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Dr. Laura Johnson has joined the Embodied Philosophy teaching community to offer a transformative course, Yoga for Ecological Grief. Blending yin and restorative yoga, meditation, pranayama, poetry, and socio-ecological awareness, this course invites you to stay present with the realities of our time rather than turn away. This self-paced, pre-recorded offering provides accessible movement, guided meditations, mudras, reflections, and curated resources to help you engage ecological grief as a pathway toward connection, resilience, and meaningful action. Learn more about the course and about Dr. Johnson's offerings at A Restful Space.
Dr. Gabi Kirk
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Dr. Gabi Kirk published an essay with Jewish Currents, "In California, Jewish Groups’ Win Is Students’ Loss." It is a critical analysis of California's recent bill, AB 715, which aims to combat antisemitism in K-12 education but may threaten free speech and academic freedom, especially on the topic of Palestine-Israel in the classroom.
Dr. Amy Rock
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Dr. Amy Rock presented "Minding the Gender Gap: Working toward parity for women in U.S. academic geography", as part of the Stories and Status of Women in Geography session at the Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conference in Albuquerque, NM, on November 6-7, 2025. This research tracks the gender (im)balance in Geography programs in the US, which carries implications for retention and mentoring of both students and faculty. The full paper (authors Mossa, Dixon, Sultana, Rock, and Kar) has been accepted for publication in The Professional Geographer and will be available soon.
Dr. Laura Johnson
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Dr. Laura Johnson was honored when her Old Town Eureka-based yoga studio, A Restful Space, won Best of Humboldt in the annual North Coast Journal contest. A Restful Space offers radical rest practice and communal grief tending with an emphasis on ecological, collective, and systemic grief. Over the summer, Laura also published a children's book with art from Pen+Pine called 'The Little Book of Rest.' You can find a copy at the North Coast Co-Op or Eureka Books, or reach out directly to Laura at laura.johnson@humboldt.edu. You can learn more about A Restful Space at www.arestfulspace.com
Dr. Amy Rock
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
"Experiences of Women AAG Presidents: Leading Through Diverse Voices" (Li, Mossa, Dixon, Oberhauser, Rock, Sultana, and Mukherjee, 2025) has just been released in electronic format (https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2025.2500588). The first in a series of articles on the status of women in Geography, this article focuses on the experience of women presidents of the American Association of Geographers, specifically the challenges they faced and the changes they brought to the organization and the discipline. This article will be bundled into a special issue of the Professional Geographer, encapsulating two years of research by the team.
Samantha Ramos
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Geography major Samantha Ramos won second place for student paper at the California Geographical Society annual conference for her research on the spatial patterns of migrant deaths at the Arizona border.
Andre Oliva
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Geospatial Science and Technology major Andre Oliva won first place in the digital map competition at the California Geographical Society annual conference for his research looking at the accessibility of veteran services in the state of California
Frank Cortes
Geography, Environment & Spatial Analysis
Geography major Frank Cortes won first place in the student map design competition at the California Geographical Society annual conference for his map showing Indigenous languages in Mexico.