Cal Poly Humboldt professors Tani Sebro, Department of Politics; Sara Sterner, School of Education; and Ho Yi Wan from the Department of Wildlife are the recipients of the 2022 McCrone Promising Faculty Scholars Award.

Selected for their potential in a specific field, each faculty member will receive $1,500 to support a program of creative activity, scholarship or research. Besides, Wildlife graduate student Daniel Nayeri won the Alistair and Judith McCrone Graduate Scholarship. Nayeri was selected for demonstrating potential for success in his chosen field and will have $3,000 applied to his tuition for the upcoming academic year.

The awards honor President Alistair McCrone and recognize the achievements of outstanding new Humboldt faculty members and students.

Below are brief biographies of the 2022 McCrone Promising Faculty Scholars and the Alistair & Judith McCrone Graduate Fellowship Award winner.

Professor Tani Sebro, Department of Politics, is an expert in Asian studies, particularly Myanmar politics, ethnic identity, nationalism and refugee rights. Her main research location is on the Thailand-Myanmar border and she has secured field research funding through the Fulbright ASEAN US Scholar Program. In the spring of 2021, in response to the coup in Myanmar, she worked with the Burma Studies Group to provide critical support to at-risk Burmese scholars and students. She is also a recognized expert in political ethnography and co-founder of the American Political Science Association’s Task Force on Political Ethnography. Her work in political ethnography represents the fusion of her training in anthropology with her research in political science. Sebro is well on her way to becoming a renowned scholar in the international community.

Students consistently rank her as a teacher, and she has recruited several political science majors for the Global Politics concentration, which is her chosen field. She is an excellent academic advisor and she is the club advisor for the Politics Club. She also teaches courses for the International Studies program, and she designed and implemented a fully online International Education Week in Spring 2021.

school of education Professor Sara K. Sterner the scholarship contributes significantly to the field of child and adolescent literacy development and teacher education. The impact of his work goes far beyond Cal Poly Humboldt and has the potential to dramatically change the experiences of children and adolescents in K-12 classrooms through their experiences teaching literacy. equitable, inclusive and culturally appropriate. The broad scope of Sterner’s research program focuses on equity and inclusivity in children’s and youth literature with a particular focus on teacher preparation. The overarching goal of her scholarship centers on dismantling white supremacy in K-12 schools. One of her greatest contributions to the field was her development and exploration of the concept of white reading, a term she coined in her thesis work and her 2019 publication, The phenomenon of blank reading: a post-intentional phenomenological exploration.

Since joining Cal Poly Humboldt, Sterner has published two peer-reviewed articles, including one in the top tier Children’s Literature Review. Sterner has also had nine accepted presentations at conferences, including the prestigious Literacy Research Association and the American Educational Research Association. Currently, she is writing a book on post-intentional phenology. Sterner, along with two colleagues, is also completing the process of analyzing data from a study they conducted with a focus on humanizing online spaces. The writing collective was approached to consider the possibility of publishing the manuscript. In addition to Sterner’s scholarship promise, his research aligns with Humboldt’s mission and values ​​which focus on fairness, informed action, and diversity of people and perspectives with the goal of becoming the stewards of learning to make a positive difference.

Professor Ho Yi Wan, Department of Wildlife, has been a highly productive researcher, publishing 13 peer-reviewed articles in prestigious journals over the past two years. His work spans the globe, from California to Iran, spanning desert, forest and marine ecosystems, and includes research on invertebrate gastropods, owls, brown bears, and more. It covered an impressive range of geographies and taxa, all united by the common theme of the need for an expert spatial analyst to summarize critical conservation and management data.

Wan has also served as principal investigator or co-director on nearly $100,000 in grants awarded since arriving at Humboldt. Wan is also dedicated to supporting a diverse student body, which he models in the department beginning with his research lab. Wan has made a sincere effort to reach out and be available to our many agency partners that many faculty and students work with, including Spotted Owl and Roosevelt Elk projects. Although busy with his research activities, Wan has also been a dedicated teacher, focusing on updating material for two key courses. Wan sits on the thesis committees of nine graduate students and has served as reviewer for several publications in support of his professional colleagues.

Wildlife graduate student Daniel Nayeri has been passionate about wildlife since childhood and was determined to visit protected areas for cheetahs in Iran and wanted to help conserve entire species populations. Nayeri earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Tehran University. Despite the continued restrictions imposed by the Iranian government on the conservation community, he has participated in as many conservation projects as possible, helping undergraduate and graduate students in environmental sciences at the University of Tehran in their theses and research projects, study design, field surveys, questionnaire surveys. , and spatial modeling.

Nayeri’s master’s thesis aims to study how spotted owl habitats are responding to climate change and increased forest fires. The spotted owl population has continued to decline in recent decades due to habitat loss from logging, wildfires, climate change, and invasive species. Nayeri enjoys communicating scientific findings through writing and presentations, and has published three peer-reviewed scientific articles in international journals since enrolling at Cal Poly Humboldt. Nayeri is an advocate for promoting diversity and inclusion in academia. His dream job is to be a wildlife researcher who conducts hands-on, solution-oriented research. He also hopes to educate and inspire the next generation of researchers and help them achieve their goals.