This year, I had the opportunity to work with the Clarke Historical Museum, one of the largest in Humboldt County. I helped set up exhibits, worked on projects, and participated in community events. I learned how a small community preserves and shares its history through this. Balancing this with college was challenging, but the support from Josh and the Clarke staff made it manageable. This experience deepened my appreciation for public history and inspired me to pursue future work that connects education, culture, and community engagement.

Huntington’s disease (HD) is associated with CAG trinucleotide repeats in the HTT gene, which encodes the huntingtin protein. Our central hypothesis is that overexpression of normal huntingtin, with the eventual inhibition of cells’ autophagy pathway or other route of clearance, will lead to a disease-like state. In order to address this hypothesis, we are developing a novel human cell model that will allow us to assess how excess huntingtin is managed and/or cleared by cells, and precisely how cell death occurs upon buildup of huntingtin protein. Using this model as a starting point, it is possible to study the response of human cells to huntingtin overexpression.

Propaganda has affected politics for centuries. This research identified underlying themes/differences between U.S. and Nazi propaganda from World War II. Methods included a literature review as well as collecting and analyzing propaganda from that time. A trend that emerged during research was that both forms of propaganda espoused the ideal of defeating an enemy that was a threat to national security. U.S. propaganda focused more on maximizing resources and instilling fear among its citizens, while Nazi propaganda rallied citizens to perform their “natural duty”. This research brings to light key trends in the nature of propaganda and reflects how it influenced our modern culture.

My intention with this story is to explore the triumph of love in the face of imperfection and the inescapable qualities of the Self.

Since 2020, Critical Race Theory in schools has become a controversial topic nationwide, particularly among conservatives. Despite this, most public schools are not teaching or talking about CRT - So, where does this misinformation originate? This presentation explores the origin of this issue, common narratives of opposition and their sources, and examines who the people opposed to CRT are - behind the Facebook comments. This presentation expands on the roots of resistance to CRT to understand obstacles to implementing future liberatory, anti-racist curricula in predominantly conservative communities and learning environments.

In this poster, I describe the process by which we inventoried items and analyze how technology evolved in concert with broader shifts in the Redwood timber industry. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of how archival research and data collection processes are conducted within the realm of historical archaeology and also reflects Humboldt County's independence. The material analysis presented in this project will showcase logging technology’s environmental, cultural and economic impacts on the landscape and lifestyles of the region’s inhabitants.

The Humboldt coastline has a long history of industrial development and heavy disturbance. In 1999, the California State Water Resources Board surveyed Humboldt Bay, classifying it as a toxic hot spot. Clean-up efforts have been ongoing since the release of this report. Utilizing California mussels as bioindicators, we can quantify the levels of toxins found in the waters on our coasts with the help of Flame AA and correlate with the visual health of gill tissues. Using this new data, we can better understand the pollution problem and aid in the clean-up efforts.

This study aims increase understanding of the taphonomic processes associated with the decomposition of nonhuman mammalian remains (as a proxy for human remains) in human altered substrates. Most prior taphonomic research has been restricted to regional studies focusing on the decomposition in environments outside of direct human interaction. This study will focus on temperature, weight, and organic matter fluctuations between the various artificial substrates in the beginning and termination of the decomposition process in order to better understand the effects substrates have on taphonomic processes.

As a bilingual Environmental Studies student, I am committed to applying my education to address environmental issues and advance environmental justice in Spanish speaking communities. Through my service learning position with the local non-profit, Redwood Community Action Agency, I will utilize my Spanish speaking ability to the RCAA's community outreach efforts aimed at the Latino/a community of Humboldt County.

After harvesting the merchantable conifers decades ago, many secondary forests in northern California regenerated naturally and are now fully stocked with low value hardwoods intermingled with conifers. Partial harvesting to reduce hardwood densities and release conifers is expected to enhance tree vigor and reduce risk of stand-replacing wildfire. Planting a new cohort of merchantable conifers in the understory would enhance structural complexity and future value. A flexible new forest restoration treatment called variable-density retention (VDR) was designed to achieve these objectives.