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I am the Director of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center (UROC) at CSUMB, where I have the privilege of working with a dynamic group of staff, students, and faculty mentors engaged in authentic, discovery-based research and creative scholarship. For students, the benefits of engagement in high-impact practices such as undergraduate research are well documented -- apart from disciplinary expertise, they include increased self-efficacy, agency, confidence, and persistence. For faculty, engaging undergraduates in research activities can be an effective means of integrating their teaching and research/scholarly activities. We help our UROC students conduct research & creative scholarship in local, national, and international settings, and to disseminate their results via conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications. Through UROC, CSUMB students compete at the highest levels, garnering prestigious fellowships (e.g., NSF GRFP Fellowships, Goldwater Scholars, etc.) and often continue on to top-notch graduate programs. I also serve as the Project Director of the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement (McNair Scholars) Program on campus, as well as the subaward PI and campus co-coodinator for the CSU Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program at CSUMB; I also am a member of the Program Oversight Committee for the statewide CSU alliance (CSU-LSAMP).
I came to CSUMB in 2015 from the University of Washington, where I spent 16 years as a faculty member and administrator at the primarily-undergraduate Tacoma campus. There, I taught courses in environmental science, biology, ecology, and entomology, and developed and led study-abroad research courses; I also served as Director of International Programs, where I worked with faculty to develop study-abroad programs aligned with their teaching & research interests, and also Director of Undergraduate Education, with oversight over the first-year program and undergraduate research. I have authored/co-authored over one hundred scientific articles, book chapters, and technical reports exploring biological control and predator/prey population dynamics in agroecosystems, ecotoxicology, and the conservation of biological diversity in natural and managed systems -- as well as the scholarship of teaching and learning (including a forthcoming book on how to design and implement a campus research center). I have presented my research at more than seventy invited seminars and contributed conference talks. My research in the life sciences blends field and lab data and mathematical models; international research projects include fieldwork in Costa Rica (biodiversity of rainforest and subsistence farms; sustainable coffee production), and Kenya (forest ecology, ecological restoration, and interactions of birds, arthropods, and elephants) as well as a collaboration studying ecosystem services and food web ecology, as part of the August T. Larsson Guest Researcher programme with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. From 2018-2022, I was a Science Policy Fellow through the Entomological Society of America, working with partners in Washington D.C. to promote continued/improved support for science in the United States. Finally, I help organize and lead an NSF- and CO-supported CSU-LSAMP Alliance Research Expedition program each year in Costa Rica. Over the years, I have had many opportunities to work with undergraduates in research in both domestic and international settings -- and have had the chance to see how truly transformative such experiences can be for all involved. Designing, implementing, analyzing, and communicating the results of research/scholarly work is a high-impact practice that can be one of the most challenging and rewarding elements of the undergraduate experience -- and I am excited to be a part of continuing to help facilitate these kinds of experiences at CSUMB with UROC!
Link to my Google Scholar Citations page
Link to my Elsevier PURE research profile
Popular media/press:
September 2024 campus press release for Designing and Implementing a Successful Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Program (Unruh, Haeger, Banks & Dong). Routledge Press.
Brief bio:
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 1997. “The effects of landscape heterogeneity on insect populations: a study of pattern and scale”.
M.S. Applied Mathematics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 1990. "A numerical scheme for approximating a partial differential equation model for fish population dynamics".
B.A. Mathematics, Pomona College, Claremont, CA, 1986.
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS:
Director, Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center (UROC), California State University, Monterey Bay, 2015-present.
Project Director/PI, Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement (McNair Scholars) Program, California State University, Monterey Bay, 2015-present.
Campus co-coodinator, subaward PI, and member of Program Oversight Committee, California State University Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (CSU-LSAMP) program, California State University, Monterey Bay, 2015-present.
ESA Science Policy Fellow, Entomological Society of America, 2018-2022.
Executive Leadership Committee member, GANAS Graduate Pathways, UC Santa Cruz, 2020-2025.
Associate Editor, Agricultural & Forest Entomology (Royal Society of Entomology, Wiley) 2023-present.
Associate Editor, Arthropod-Plant Interactions (Springer) 2025-present.
August T. Larsson Guest Researcher, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, Sweden 2014-2017. Member of the Ecosystem Services & Conservation Research group.
Affiliate Professor of Environmental Science, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, University of Washington, Tacoma, September 2015-present.
Professor/Associate Professor/Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, University of Washington, Tacoma, 2010-2015/2005-2010/1999-2005.
Director, Office of International Programs, University of Washington, Tacoma, 2010-2015.
Director, Office of Undergraduate Education, University of Washington, Tacoma, 2011-2013.
Adjunct Faculty - Washington State University, Department of Entomology, 1999-present.
Adjunct Professor -- North Carolina State University, Department of Mathematics, 2020-present.
Affiliate Associate Professor, Department of Plant, Soil & Entomological Sciences, University of Idaho, Spring 2010-2015.
Associate Adjunct Professor of Forest Resources - University of Washington, Seattle, Winter 2010-2015.
Affiliate Member, Invertebrate Section, Department of Zoology, National Museums of Kenya, September 2010-2014.
GRANTS (since 2015):
U.S. Department of Education, Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program grant, 2022-2027. PI.
Koret Foundation, Koret Scholars Program at CSU Monterey Bay: Developing Undergraduate Research, 2025-2026. PI.
Global HSI Equity Innovation Hub at CSUN, Innovation Scholars at CSU Monterey Bay. PI. 2024-2025.
CSU HSI Community Grant, Apple Scholars at CSU Monterey Bay, 2022-2024. PI.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Hispanic Serving Institutions Education Grants Program. Increased Degree Attainment in FANH Sciences: Creating a Regional Pipeline, 2021-2025. PI.
Koret Foundation, Koret Scholars Program at CSU Monterey Bay: Developing Undergraduate Research in the Social Sciences, 2020-2025.PI.
U.S. Department of Education, Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program grant, 2017-2022. PI.
U.S. Department of Education, HSI-STEM Title III grant. Research-based interventions to increased STEM degree attainment. 2016-2021. PI.
U.S. Department of Education, HSI-STEM Supplemental Title III grant, Building Closer Peer and Professional STEM Connections in Distance Learning, 2020-2021, PI.
U.S. Department of Education, HSI-STEM Supplemental Title III grant, STEM Education Research and Practice, 2019-2021. PI.
INVITED PRESENTATIONS (since 2010):
Symposium talk, 29th International Conference on Difference Equations and Applications, Paris, France (2024).
Symposium talk, 108th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America, Waikoloa, HI (2024).
Symposium talk, 107th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America, Seattle, WA (2023).
Symposium talk, 40th Southeastern-Atlantic Regional Conference on Differential Equations, North Carolina State University, NC (2022).
Invited talk, Hyde Seminar, Washington State University, WA (2022).
Symposium talk, Tenth International Conference, Inverse Problems: Modeling and Simulation (IPMS), Malta (2022).
Symposium talk, 106th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America, Santa Rosa, California (2022).
Seminar, Estación Biológica de Doñana, Seville, Spain (2021).
Invited talk, HSI Project Directors Conference, Office of Post-Secondary Education’s Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Division, U.S. Dept. of Education (virtual) (2021).
Symposium talk, Mathematical Congress of the Americas, Buenos Aires (virtual) (2021).
Symposium talk, Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, St. Louis, Missouri (2019).
Symposium talk, Computational and Mathematical Population Dynamics, Florida Atlantic University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL (2019).
Symposium talk, Mathematical Methods and Modeling in Engineering and Life Sciences Meeting, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2018).
Seminar, Estación Biológica de Doñana, Seville, Spain (2018).
Symposium talk, 5th International Symposium on Biological Control of Arthropods, Langkawi, Malaysia (2017).
Graduate seminar course, Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden (2017).
Seminar, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA (2016).
Symposium talk, XXV International Congress of Entomology, Orlando, FL (2016).
Workshop & symposium talk, Council on Undergraduate Education (CUR) biennial conference, Tampa, FL (2016).
Workshop, AAC & U Diversity, Learning, and Student Success conference, Philadelphia, PA (2016).
Symposium talk, Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America, Honolulu, HI (2016).
Seminar, Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA (2015).
Symposium talk, 27th IFIP TC7 Conference on System Modelling and Optimization, Sophia Antipolis, France (2015).
Friday Seminar, Department of Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden (2015).
Hanover Forest Science Seminar Series talk, Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan (2015).
Symposium talk, 62nd Annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America, Portland, Oregon (2014).
Seminar, Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira, Helsinki, Finland (2014).
Seminar, Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden (2014).
Claremont Colleges Mathematics Colloquium, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California (2014).
Science Seminar, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, California (2014).
Symposium talk, 61st Annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America, Austin, Texas (2013).
Symposium talk, 4th International Symposium on Biological Control of Arthropods, Pucón, Chile (2013).
Department of Mathematics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California (2012).
Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Los Angeles, California (2012).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (2012).
Symposium talk, International Conference on Mathematical & Theoretical Biology, Pune, India (2012).
Department of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, California (2012).
Symposium talk, Int'l Workshop on Simulation and Modeling, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan (2011).
Symposium talk, Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 31st Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon (2010).
Seminar, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya (2010).
Seminar, Estación Biologica de Doñana, Seville, Spain (2010).
Workshop: Evolutionary dynamics in cancer, Almagro, Ciudad Real, Spain (2010).
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