CSUMB students also gather top honors during SACNAS conference

Not to be outdone by their Hartnell peers, CSU Monterey Bay students took first and second places during the recent conference of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science.

SACNAS is a 40-year-old nonprofit organization that fosters Hispanic/Chicano and Native American scientists from college students to professionals.

The annual conference showcases work aimed at fostering scientists from Latino and Native American backgrounds, who are often underrepresented in the sciences.

CSUMB was represented by 15 undergraduates, four graduate students and four students from other schools who were part of last summer’s Monterey Bay Regional Ocean Science Research Experience for Undergraduates based at CSUMB. They presented research posters in ecology and evolution, general biology and marine biology.

Awardees were:

• Alison Aceves, marine science major, took first place in ecology and evolution. She spent last summer working at the Hatfield Marine Science Center at Oregon State University, studying host-parasite interactions of salmon in the Columbia River.

• Emily King, marine science major, took second place in marine biology. She also spent the summer at the Hatfield Center, researching larval fish behavior.

• Briana Becerra, biology major, took second place in ecology and evolution. She spent the summer at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, researching forest ecology

• Danielle Perry, a participant in last summer’s Ocean Science REU at CSUMB and a student at the University of New Haven, took first place in marine biology. She spent the summer working at Elkhorn Slough.

“The conference attendees I spoke with were highly complimentary of our students in how they presented their research, the quality of their work and their overall professionalism at the conference,” Corey Garza, associate professor in the Division of Science and Environmental Policy told the Cal State Monterey Bay News.

CSUMB students shine at SACNAS

Thirteen CSUMB students took part in the annual conference of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, which this year took place in San Antonio, Texas.

Three of them took top honors: Timothy Fuller, a senior marine science major, received the top prize in the general ecology category. He studies thermal adaptation in the European green crab.



Sean Windell and Mary McCormick, graduate students in the Applied Marine and Watershed Science program, were awarded first- and second-place honors, respectively, for their oral presentations in marine science. Windell’s work examined the value of habitat diversity in marine reserves; McCormick studied intertidal foraging habits of fished and protected spiny lobsters.

For more information, click here.

The science department at CSUMB has been growing some amazing talent, and they continue to impress. Go Otters! 

Science work paying off at CSUMB

Three members of this year’s graduating class at Cal State Monterey Bay and an alumna have won prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.

Michael Diaz of Upland, Liz Lopez of Sacramento, Emily Roncase of Ridgecrest and Stacy Mauzey of Salinas, were awarded the fellowships, which provide $90,000 to support three years of graduate education.

Diaz, mentored by Aparna Sreenivasan, researched potentially toxic cynaobacteria from local freshwater environments. He also investigated stomach bacteria pathogensis at UC Santa Cruz. A biology major, he will begin work on his Ph.D. in the cellular and molecular biosciences program at UC Irvine in the fall.

Mentored James Lindholm, Lopez worked on a project to monitor Marine Protected Areas along the Southern California coast and also conducted research at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center. She is considering graduate programs at the University of San Diego, Western Washington University and Oregon State.

Roncase, a biology major, worked with Henrik Kibak and Aparna Sreenivasan to investigate cyanotoxin levels in a freshwater lake in Watsonville. She also worked at the University of Illinois at Chicago, researching antibotic resistance at the molecular level. She is considering offers from a number of doctoral programs, including Scripps Research Institute and Brown University.

Stacy Mauzey, an alumna of Hartnell College and CSUMB, is now a graduate student in plant pathology at Washington State University. While at CSUMB, she worked with Carolee Bull in the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service facility in Salinas.

The NSF graduate research fellowships went to 2,000 students – from more than 13,000 applicants – across the country; 595 of them were awarded to undergraduates. CSUMB was the largest recipient of undergraduate awards in the California State University’s 23-campus system.

“Nine CSUMB undergraduates and one alumna have received NSF fellowships in the last four years,” said Bill Head, director of the university’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center. “This is a clear indication of the world-class education students receive at CSUMB and a reminder of how well public institutions serve the students of California.”

submitted by Joan Weiner, CSUMB