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
College of Natural and Behavioral Sciences
Chemistry Lecturer Barbara Belmont Named LGBTQ+ Trailblazer
Chemistry Lecturer Barbara Belmont has been recognized as an LGBTQ+ Trailblazer in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Belmont, an analytical chemist from Pasadena, is “thrilled and humbled” by the accolade, which recognizes her excellence in teaching, as well as activism with Out to Innovate, a professional society dedicated to LGBTQ+ visibility in the sciences, mentoring, and scholarships for students. Having taught at CSUDH since 2002, Belmont is passionate about sparking students' curiosity in the sciences and adopting pedagogical best practices in her lectures and laboratories. She is also a firm believer in the value of ... Read More
CSUDH Professor Enjoys Side Project as TV Anthropology Expert
Whether it's the bones in the Paris catacombs or the historical use of psychedelics, television producers know who to call when they need some expert commentary: CSUDH associate professor of anthropology Sarah Lacy. In the last six months, she has been featured prominently on both the History Channel's The UnXplained with William Shatner and CuriosityStream's History by the Numbers, which also airs on Smithsonian Channel Canada. Lacy's foray as an expert commentator started as a fun YouTube project. She and Cal Poly Pomona history professor Rachael Hill starred in several short videos for Gamology's Experts React series, offering academic opinions on the accuracy of historical video games ... Read More
Chemistry Lab “Bootcamps” Help Get Students Up to Speed
Among the many unfortunate side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was the loss of in-person instruction for most courses at CSUDH. Some fields of study were impacted more than others by this loss, but for students in the chemistry department it was especially troublesome. Because so much chemistry education relies on in-person lab work, most students missed out on vital hands-on experience. This summer, faculty members of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry decided to do something about it. They created and held a pair of “Chemistry Lab Bootcamps” that were designed to get students up to speed–teaching them all the valuable lab skills they missed during their many months of ... Read More
CSUDH Biology Professor Making Big Waves With Her Shark Studies
Sitting offshore in a small boat in the Florida Keys, CSUDH Assistant Professor of Biology Samantha Leigh tosses chum into the shallow water. The pungent slurry of chopped-up fish parts is the best way to attract her targets, so she keeps a close eye on the long gillnets she has laid perpendicular to the shoreline. When Leigh spots a disturbance in a net, she jumps in and makes her way to a snared bonnethead shark, which she untangles and places in a live tank inside the boat. After netting a couple more, Leigh takes her catches to a lab facility, where the bonnetheads are released into tanks with ocean water flow-through systems. These allow the sharks to acclimate to their new ... Read More
