Custodian Mario Villegas has been with CSUDH Facilities Services for almost seven years, contributing to keeping the campus looking great on a daily basis. As someone who says he “loves to learn something new every day,” Villegas is proud to work on campus and “be part of a community where people are encouraged to get an education.” In his position at CSUDH, Villegas is responsible for keeping his assigned area of the campus ship-shape. Whether he's cleaning classrooms or restrooms, or making sure the carpets are cleaned and vacuumed and trash is picked up, Villegas knows that he's making vital contributions toward creating a safe and healthy environment for the Toro community. “I do the ... Read More
CSUDH Alumni Bring OT Skills to Their Texas Practice
CSUDH Occupational Therapy (OT) alumni Hiram Corona Martinez and Vanessa Yanez long dreamed of running their own practice - and in June 2021, their plans came to fruition with their Bravo Therapy & Independent Living Center in San Antonio, Tex. The married couple's practice quickly become a success due to their patient-first focus on quality care. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple began to recognize certain patterns in health care that they wanted to change and do differently, explains Yanez. “We saw a real lack of diversity in health care administration and management. Many of them didn't understand our culture, even though a lot of the patients and clients ... Read More
CSUDH Alumna Helps the Public Stay Healthy
During her first meeting as a member of the McNair Scholars Program, CSUDH alumna Kristi Sprowl (BS, '16) was asked how she would impact the world if given the chance. Her answer: “I would like to create opportunities for people of color to live in equitable spaces, and also be a part of what health equity looks like for them.” Today, after years of hard work and study, Sprowl is living her dream as the community impact director for the American Heart Association in Atlanta, Ga., while simultaneously working towards a doctorate of public health at the University of Georgia. She attends night school with other working executives in the field–the people who will be “creating and ... Read More
CSUDH Biology Professor Recognized for Research
CSUDH Associate Professor of Biology Sonal Singhal has been honored by the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) for her research work on lizard speciation. Her paper “Strong Selection Against Hybrids Maintains a Narrow Contact Zone Between Morphologically Cryptic Lineages in a Rainforest Lizard” was named one of the 25 top works in speciation research by women authors by Evolution, SSE's prestigious international journal. Singhal co-authored the paper in 2011 with Craig Moritz, who at the time was director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. Singhal's research focused on a pair of lizard species living in a “hybrid zone” of the Australian ... Read More
Gerth Archives Wins New Grants
The CSUDH Gerth Archives and Special Collections has been awarded two grants to assist in cataloguing several of its notable collections. The archives received a $100,000 grant from the California State Library to support CSUDH's LGBTQ History Access Project. The funds will enable the archives to hire an archivist to catalog, arrange, and describe several collections related to the Southern California LGBTQ community. They will also allow the Gerth Archives to stage a speaker's series related to the collections. “The Archives is very pleased that we were able to get the grant because there are a limited number of prominent LGBTQ archives in the state,” says Greg Williams, director of ... Read More
