Achievements

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

Environmental Resources 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…

Brandon Browne, Raul Becerra

Geology

Brandon Browne and Raul Becerra ('16) presented research at the Geological Society of America Cordilleran Section meeting in Ontario, California April 5-7. Their research project focused on understanding the origin and eruption of volcanoes on the Kern Plateau in the southern Sierra Nevada.

Steven Martin

Environmental Science & Management

Steve Martin and former graduate student Jessica Blackwell ('15) published a peer-reviewed article in the April issue of International Journal of Wilderness -- Personal Locator Beacons--Influences on Wilderness Visitor Behavior.

Lori Jones

Environmental Resources 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.

Ian Kelmartin and Jay Staton

Fisheries Biology

HSU graduate students Ian Kelmartin and Jay Staton presented posters at the COAST-WRPI Student Research Poster Reception at the Chancellor's Office on March 8, 2016. COAST is the CSU system-wide affinity group for marine and coastal related activities.

Melanie Michalak

Geology

Melanie Michalak, Assistant Professor of Geology, recently published a paper with co-authors in the peer-reviewed, Geological Society of America journal "Lithosphere." The paper, entitled "(U-Th)/He thermochronology records late Miocene accelerated cooling in the north-central Peruvian Andes," investigates the relationship between large-scale tectonics and long-term climate changes reflected in the morphology and rock uplift of the Peruvian Andes Mountains. doi:10.1130/L485.1

Shannon Murphy, Daniel Barton

Wildlife

Wildlife graduate student Shannon Murphy won best overall student presentation for her talk "Parental care behaviors in Brandt's cormorant (Phalacrocorax pencillatus): effects on reproductive success and use as indicators of the marine environment" at The Wildlife Society - Western Section meeting in Pomona, California, with co-authors Stephanie Schneider, Richard Golightly, and Daniel Barton.

Alison O'Dowd

Environmental Science & Management

Alison O'Dowd recently published an article in the journal "Hydrobiologia" entitled, "Do bio-physical attributes of steps and pools differ in high-gradient mountain streams?" The research for this paper was done on three tributaries of the Smith River in Del Norte County. The article can be found by searching the DOI 10.1007/s10750-016-2735-5

Yuliana Rowe, Angelica Munoz, Thien Crisanto and Laura Hernandez

Wildlife

Yuliana, Thien, Laura, and Angelica were invited to present independent research at Washington D.C. at the ERN Conference in STEM (Emerging Researcher's National Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in late February. Yuliana Rowe was awarded 2nd place in Ecology, Environment, and Earth Sciences for her presentation on "The effects of climate-induced forest disturbances on spiders in Michigan."

Susan Marshall

Forestry, Fire & Rangeland Management

Professor Susan Marshall, Forestry & Wildland Resources attended the 2016 Society for Range Management Annual Meeting in Corpus Christi, TX. Susan served as 2015 President of the Range Science Education Council and 2016 Past President. She is also an Associate Editor or the Range Ecology & Management Journal and a member of the SRM Professional Accreditation Committee. While there she attended a special workshop looking at the federal Office of Personnel Management 454-Series for Rangeland Specialists with members of the OPM, RSEC and PAC groups. Susan also serves on the Certification Panel for California Certified Range Management specialist.