Menstrual practices sanction how menstruators engage with public and private spaces. Informed by the sociocultural factors of menstrual health today, I conducted several ethnographic interviews to further explore how menstruators mediate their own personal needs and the demands of their community throughout menses. Finally, I will integrate these interviews within the broader discourse of Critical Menstrual Studies.

"Fawn Awareness" is a year-long health education initiative highlighting the often-overlooked fourth stress response: Fawn, or the “Submit” response. Seen across the animal kingdom, submission can be just as vital for survival as fight, flight, or freeze. In humans, Fawn often develops in childhood as a way to maintain a sense of security with inconsistent caregivers, later manifesting as difficulty setting boundaries and chronic people-pleasing. This project includes a YouTube video, news article, and research paper featuring expert insight and real-life anecdotes to raise awareness and promote mental health through understanding this misidentified trauma response.

Is a vertical file of newspaper clippings and ephemera still relevant in the digital age? This poster describes the changing nature of vertical files, pamphlets, and other ephemeral collections in the 21st century using the Humboldt State University Library Pamphlet Collection as a case study. The poster also considers how archivists and librarians continue to encourage student and researcher participation with ephemeral materials, whether paper or digital.

The Humboldt Room special collections at the Humboldt State University Library contains a large collection of delicate and vintage historical maps. Taking action to make searching the archive easier as well as to preserve the fragile status of historical maps has become a necessity. This can be accomplished by creating a “web-based digital map archive” and supplanting it with a Web Map component that allows users to search and download from the digital map archive.This poster introduces the concept of converting the map collection to a digital format, the methods used for developing an interactive web map, and the future status of the project.

Curated "Outdoorsy" social media accounts rival 19th century idealized landscape paintings, allowing people to present themselves as adventurous and fulfilled by sharing beautiful photos from their travels. These visualized false landscapes present a new age of imperialist beliefs as themes of colonialism have continued to live on through generations in our culture. In western culture, landscape has often been seen as a commodity to be presented and reconstructed for our enjoyment throughout history. Although Instagram culture has contributed to many changes within our national parks, this “new” culture of objectifying and commodifying the landscape is really nothing new at all.

The aim of this research is to gain insight into the experience of female religious leaders in Humboldt County, centering around the challenges, obstacles, and opportunities faced by women in these roles. How do such figures view their gender has affected them in terms of authority, personal spirituality, and relationship to religious tradition? By conducting a series of ethnographic interviews with local religious leaders, these questions have been explored across faith traditions. The examination of gender and power is not only limited to a religious setting, but extends broadly to society as a whole.

This poster showcases theatrical folkloric dance styles and companies representing diverse regions in Egypt. Dance, music and cultural arts began serving as a source of nationalistic pride in the years following Egypt's independence in the 1950's. This was the first time an appreciation of dance and dancers as folk artists was included in such a prominent role. Based on research and recent travels to explore folkloric dance in Egypt last year, this poster presents Maleya Leff, Fellahin, Raqs Sharqi, Tahtib, and Nubian dance forms. These vibrant regional dances have been developed and celebrated since the work of Mahmoud Reda's Reda Troupe in the 1960's and continues today.

I was interested in exploring the connection between art and leisure. To explore this topic, I showcased the work of many students from a variety of majors in an art exhibition in the Student Access Gallery. I designed the space with the artwork, and the Student Access Gallery coordinators installed the artwork. The gallery was open to the public for 2 weeks.

The prison ecology project (PEP) maps the intersection of mass incarceration and environmental degradation by investigating the environmental impacts and human health problems created by the prison industrial complex. It is the first to study the myriad of environmental issues associated with prisons such as: water pollution from prison sewage and industrial waste; threats to listed species through the construction of prisons in remote, environmentally-sensitive rural areas; and, environmental justice concerns regarding prisoners, staff and surrounding communities concerning clean drinking water, exposure to coal ash dust and toxic waste.

Rural communities like Del Norte County face additional challenges in obtaining a quality education compared with urban areas. According to the Rural Families Data Center, this achievement gap is due to excessive absence and truancy, low socioeconomic status, poverty, and high school dropout rates. Archival data from the last ten years was obtained from the CDE DataQuest website and analyzed to inform a report created by the California Center for Rural Policy for dissemination throughout the community. Generally test scores were lower for Del Norte and low-income students. These results show that more attention must be paid to education systems in rural communities to improve outcomes.