Awards

Dr. Teresa Nguyen will use her Visionary Grant Award from the American Psychological Foundation to test a proposed culturally-sensitive model of marriage and relationship development.

The Green Music Center received an award for funding to support a theater piece, Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man. It is an environmental, cultural and spiritual parable derived from living in the foothills of Appalachia, one man among many seeking to make sense of the time, place and condition in which we live.  In the story, Ezell’s choices, traumas, ancestors and more intersect with themes of domination and resilience as he seeks to take advantage of an anticipated fracking boom and the opportunity to reconnect with the people and land of his raising.

This project's overarching objective is to demonstrate the value of NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) spaceborne lidar for systematic and timely wildfire severity prediction, and to assess how GEDI-detected structural changes due to wildfire and fuels treatments alter predictions of future wildfire severity in California forests. Our research will provide insights into post-wildfire recovery, forest management strategies to reduce wildfire risk, contemporary fire regimes, and potential fire impacts under extreme wind conditions and in wildland-urban interface areas.

Ingenuity Mars helicopter is history’s first aircraft to operate from the surface of another planet. It will support a ground rover’s exploration of the Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. The helicopter's battery has to be reserved to keep equipment within allowable temperature during cold Mars nights. The helicopter is not able to recharge from the MMRTG on the rover. Hence, the helicopter has to take off at a specific time frame in the day to avoid risk of losing reserve battery. This significantly limits the exploration flights of this aerial vehicle.

The Anthropological Studies Center (ASC) will perform record searches of the California Historical Resources Information System (CHRIS), on an as-needed basis, in response to individual requests by the State Water Board. Record searches will include inventories of records, maps and files housed at nine regional branches of the CHRIS.

The marine sciences is a field that falls behind other fields of science in promoting a diverse workforce. California Sea Grant is addressing this issue by providing support for undergraduate research at Minority and Hispanic Serving Institutions who recently received a Kelp Recovery Research Award, which includes Sonoma State University. Each institution who falls under this criteria are eligible to receive this one-time award, providing a unique opportunity to provide hands-on training to minority students in kelp forest research. Dr.

The marine sciences is a field that falls behind other fields of science in promoting a diverse workforce. California Sea Grant is addressing this issue by providing support for undergraduate research at Minority and Hispanic Serving Institutions who recently received a Kelp Recovery Research Award, which includes Sonoma State University. Each institution who falls under this criteria are eligible to receive this one-time award, providing a unique opportunity to provide hands-on training to minority students in kelp forest research. Dr.

This project seeks to expand upon the research conducted by the Bentley Lab at Sonoma State University and the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Science Lab by integrating terrestrial laser scanning data with a physics-based model framework to estimate fire effects on biomass, forest structure, and tree mortality in a wildfire affected oak-woodland and managed conifer forest in California.

This project will quantify forest structure changes in post-fire (Sonoma County) and managed stands (Mendocino County) via LiDAR voxel metrics. Data will be collected using a LiDAR handheld mobile laser scanner, and validated using limited destructive sampling. This study will add to the relatively new and growing body of work on LiDAR remote sensing to measure forest structure as a component of forest health.

The Anthropological Studies Center (ASC) will assist Worthington Miller in replacing exclusion fencing at Empire Mine State Historic Park. Ruins of abandoned, 19th century gold mines are in the vicinity of the project and the ASC will help ensure they are not impacted during the project.