Fourth-year biology student Kimberly Randolph is the first CSUDH student to be named an African American Scholar of the Aquarium of the Pacific, an honor which includes a $10,000 scholarship and educational opportunities with the Aquarium. Randolph, originally from Modesto, Calif., is among ten exceptional California university students chosen for the 2023 award. Though she didn’t grow up on the coast, as a child Randolph became interested in marine biology thanks to the BBC Planet Earth series and the gift of a pet hermit crab. “I started doing my own research on how to recreate hermit crabs’ natural environments, and how it helps them thrive” she says. “It made me think that people ... Read More
Ecology
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
Office of Sustainability to Re-Cast Campus’ Ecological Footprint
Working with the administration and faculty to help make the university as energy efficient and environmentally aware as possible, while guiding student interns as sustainability leaders among their peers, California State University, Dominguez Hills’ (CSUDH) new Office of Sustainability is dedicated to re-casting the university’s ecological footprint into a smaller mold. The Office of Sustainability is managed by Ellie Perry, who arrived in August 2017 as CSUDH’s first coordinator and assistant energy analyst. The new office helps address the “three major utility pillars” of sustainability on a campus: energy, recycling, and water in addition to other campus impact areas such as ... Read More
