College of Natural Sciences

2019–2020

Resilient and impassioned, graduating senior Breanne Lencioni has gone from living in her car with her daughter to pursuing a PhD. Read the Chico State Today article to learn more about her inspiring story. 

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Dr. Hyewon Pechkis was awarded the Outstanding Early Career Faculty Award. 

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The CSC² program received a 2.2 million dollar National Sciences Foundation grant; Lorena Navarro serves as our college lead. This will allow us to continue some of our innovative student support efforts. Read the Chico State Today article for more details. 

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The Conversations on Diversity and Inclusion Committee awarded Dr. Carolina Alvarado as the 2019-2020 recipient of the Taking it to the Classroom Award. This award recognizes an outstanding faculty member who possesses the courage and creativity required to successfully engage diversity issues in the classroom.

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Dr. Hyewon Pechkis was awarded an NSF CAREER grant, titled “CAREER: Making a Difference in First Generation and Underrepresented Students' Education through Research: Quantum Coherence in a Bose Thermal Gas”. This grant, $430,000 over 5 years, will allow her to fund equipment for student research in low-temperature physics and travel for conference presentations.

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In February 2020, Undergraduate Mariby Cruz went to the Emerging Researchers National Conference in Washington, D.C., where she won 2nd place in the undergraduate oral presentations in biological sciences. Her talk was entitled "Analysis of tropical tree growth: a validation of Growth Simulation, a stochastic bootstrapping model." Mariby conducted the research in collaboration with Drs. Diana and Milton Lieberman in the summer of 2017, while she was working in Costa Rica as a teaching assistant for the CSU-LSAMP Costa Rica Summer Research Training Expedition.

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On February 13, 2020, Stephanie Bianco was awarded the 2020 Outstanding Professor Award. President Hutchinson, Provost Larson, members of the Cabinet, Academic Senate Officers, and friends, family, and colleagues celebrated Stephanie's accomplishment with a surprise visit to her classroom. Stephanie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science and a Director at the Center for Healthy Communities. Congratulations Stephanie!

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After donating rare books to The American Institute pf Physics, Dr. David Kagan was interviewed for the Ex Libris Universum page. 

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Geological and Environmental Sciences professor Sandrine Matiasek and a team of students examine the magnitude of water contamination that resulted from the Camp Fire, as well as the possible public health and environmental implications for urban and environmental users in Butte County and beyond. With more than 14,000 structures lost to the fire, as well as hundreds of businesses, thousands of cars, and widespread infrastructure, the implication for impacts is significant.

Dr. Hyewon Pechkis and students from the Department of Physics presented their research at the American Physical Society's Far West Section Meeting on November 1st and 2nd. They presented multiple posters and a contributed talk. John Permann, Yoanna Guzman, and Thomas Garcia won an award for Best Poster at the APS Far West Section Meeting.