Breadcrumb
Previous Students
| Name | Project/ interest | Graduation year |
Tokay Alberts
| Tokay Alberts was a wildlife major interested in studying museum practices and reproductive biology. In his free time, he enjoys embroidering, playing Dungeons & Dragons, painting, and collecting South African succulents. His favorite animals are sea otters and thylacines. BIOL 499 Project: "Identifying Pleistocene Ursus fossils from dental morphology analyses of American black bear (Ursus americanus) and brown bear (Ursus arctos) specimens". Tegan will be using specimens from Humboldt's Vertebrate and Wildlife Museums, in addition to UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Museum of Paleontology. | 2023 |
| Shea Daly | Shea served the vertebrate museum in a variety of roles, including as an interim student collections manager. She is a talented artist and speaker and conveys boundless enthusiasm when teaching and leading museum tours. | 2023 |
| Christina Glitzow | BIOL 499 Project: Assisting Dr Silvia Pavan with DNA sequencing Trowbridge's shrew, Sorex trowbridgii. | 2024 |
| Chloe Good | I started volunteering at Cal Poly Humboldt’s vertebrate museum in April of 2023 where I worked on specimen preparations for the collection. I quickly fell in love with the meticulous work of preserving and documenting the diverse array of mammals in the collection. Now, as a student enrolled in the 499 Directed Study course, I have been working on cataloging and correcting each of the specimens collection information. This will help create the opportunity for vital information to be readily accessible to other institutions and researchers, fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing through platforms like ARCTOS. From the hands-on experience of preparing specimens to the academic rigor of cataloging, my time with Cal Poly Humboldt's vertebrate museum has been one of the many highlights throughout my academic career here. | 2024 |
Andrea Gonzalez-Gaona
| Andrea was a general biology major planning to attend veterinary school outside of the states to pursue her dream of becoming a Zoo veterinarian for large, exotic animals & smaller domestic ones. She does not intend on working for a zoo, but rather with wildlife conservation agencies. In her free time, she enjoys painting, playing the guitar, video games, cooking, exercising, epically binging shows/movies, and going on adventures with her adventurous cat Juneau and boyfriend Jeff. She is always willing to try new challenges and is very excited to be working and learning the literal ins and outs of so many amazing species in her time at the museum's laboratory. BIOL 499 Project: Assisting in the prep lab by skinning, articulating, and taxidermizing mammal and avian specimens specimens to be added to the museum's teaching and research collections. | 2023 |
Aviva Saadatfar
| Aviva is excited to be a part of a community that addresses conservation in a meaningful way. She loves learning about all kinds of plants and animals in her classes and enjoys field work as well. Her favorite outdoor activities are hiking and birdwatching, and she absolutely loves filling her home with houseplants. She also cherishes the time she gets to spend with friends and family. Her favorite bird is the green-winged teal - because they are so cute and funny. Her favorite type of flower is an orchid - she loves how beautiful and diverse they are! BIOL 499 Project: "Mechanisms of echocation in the shrew". Aviva uses CT scans of museum specimens to study the hyoid-tympanic anatomy of various shrew genera and its relation to echolocation. | |
Ghennya Shain
| Ghennya Shain, a biochemistry major, has been our intrepid taxidermy live mounter. She braved the live mounting of both a skunk (you might have smelled it around SciC!) and 'Jeb' the gray fox (pictured here). Beyond her interest in the fringe, Ghennya is a talented chemist and, as part of her undergraduate research project, tested mammlian hair samples from our museum for the presence of 2,4-D Amine Weed Killer. |
updated 31 Jan 2024