In conjunction with the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology(AT), for my service learning project, I sought to share intersectional knowledge with the HSU community and beyond of self-resiliency, while being mindful of one’s impact upon the earth through appropriate technology and food sovereignty. Students and community members worked together to construct a communal garden that included AT construction techniques and promoted ecologically sound sustainable food systems that are beneficial to the entire community. It was my goal to empower individuals to become agents of change within our global community and invoke values that promoted the well being of the environment and people.

Facial reconstruction is a method whereby the likeness of a person is reconstructed from the cranial skeleton. This projects involved researching facial reconstruction techniques and applying them to casts of hominin fossil skulls in the anthropology teaching collection. Species/specimens chosen to reconstruct include: (1) a juvenile Australopithecus africanus (the “Taung Child”), a 2.5 million-year-old hominin from South Africa; (2) an adult Paranthropus boisei skull; (3) also an adult Homo neanderthalensis found at the La Chapelle Aux-Saint, in France. To complete the reconstructions, we used a combination of tissue depth markers for humans and chimpanzees.

Research collected from attendees of the RNC shows that White Americans who feel uncertain about their American identity and possess a bias toward viewing their country as “White” might be particularly likely to turn to a candidate who uses rhetoric which excludes ethnic minorities as a means of reducing their identity uncertainty. This work examines the moderating role of American identity uncertainty on the relationship between implicit bias and American identification. These results are important because they display the relationship between American identification and the extent of Americans’ implicit biases as moderated by the extent of their identity uncertainty.

The California Air Resources Board has set goals for all public transit fleets in the state to be zero-emission by 2040. To meet that target, transit agencies are required to begin shifting to battery electric and fuel cell buses now. In 2019, the Schatz Center developed a model for the system-wide electrification of Humboldt County's public transit. This Battery Electric Bus Optimization (BEBOP) model cost-optimizes a one-to-one replacement of all buses on existing routes, generates recommendations for charging infrastructure, and calculates the electricity consumption profiles for each station. This model significantly expands the available development tools for rural planning agencies.

In late 2019 a novel coronavirus was identified in China, and over the next 2 months, had spread to over 20 countries; it was declared a global pandemic by the WHO on Feb. 11th. With over 3.2 million cases worldwide, there is tremendous need for a vaccine. This is a daunting task since there are still none commercially available for SARS or MERS. In this review, we analyze the current challenges facing researchers, the technologies for vaccine development which are emerging and promising, and the progress thus far. We found recombinant MHC assays based on SARS epitopes promising for drug development, and anticipate that nanoparticle technology will be the most efficient delivery system.

The Take Back the Night Organization bridges the gap between students and their community to build a support network for survivors. However, this semester, normal operations have been altered due to COVID-19, social distancing, and shelter-in-place which challenged our group to adjust the scope of our project. Using Instagram as our platform, we worked together to address the societal issues of sexual violence and domestic. We built a manual to promote healthy relationship communication. We included information on online services, hotlines, and other local resources available for sexual and domestic abuse aimed towards helping our Humboldt community during the pandemic.

Quasars are supermassive black holes that, through accretion, emit large amounts of radiation and eject large amounts of matter. Spectral emissions from quasars have proven to be highly variable, that is, quasar spectra change dramatically over time. The physical mechanism behind this variability in the accretion disk is not yet completely understood. High velocity outflows of matter have been observed in many quasars and could serve as a mechanism for changing the radiating matter in the accretion disk around the black hole, thus changing the quasar's spectra. Our team has analyzed quasar spectra to search for possible trends between radio properties and outflows.

Our project addresses the question of whether Phyllospadix spp., a surfgrass, can effectively buffer calcium carbonate uptake by calcifying intertidal organisms. This question has significant ramifications for the Humboldt County coastline, which is considered an ocean acidification “hot spot” due to its exposure to acidic water during periods of upwelling. Our group will observe Phyllospadix spp. and it's influence on calcium carbonate deposition on cockle clams and articulated coralline algae . The results will vary due to the abundance of Phyllospadix spp. and invertebrates in each aquarium, and will determine if the calcification rate will be higher in the presence of Phyllospadix spp.

In collaboration with HSU's P.E.E.R.S program and Lausanne, Swizterland's HEP school of education. Three HSU students collaborated with three Swiss students in order to create a lesson for highschool aged students from scratch as well as teach the lesson in in the United States and Switzerland. Our goal was to increase learning retention of the subject through research of effective methods and pedagogical strategies which we then utilize to regularly change and improve our lesson. Another goal included intercultural awareness and creating relevance for the students in a collaborative way with our peers that would translate into the individual classrooms in relation to the specific class.

This presentation emphasizes the importance of incorporating Yurok language and culture in early childhood development. I also include the learning experiences and exploration during this service learning opportunity at the Yurok Tribe Head Start program. I also connect the theoretical constructs that I learn in Child Development classes and the practical experience that I have gained during this service learning opportunity.