Alumni Updates


Sophia Remer, International Studies, 2014
Submitted: June 20, 2019
Sophia Remer, International Studies, 2014, went onto culinary school in Sonoma County after graduating from HSU and worked as a professional baker. She has recently moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her partner (also a Humboldt graduate) who is getting his Ph.D. in Pollination Biology. Sophia is pursuing a dual degree Masters of Arts in Food Studies with an MBA program from Chatham University to combine her backgrounds in food and cultural studies.

John Baker, Journalism, 1998
Submitted: June 4, 2019
John Baker, Journalism, 1998, worked several years for multiple Bay Area newspapers before entering public service. He went back to school, earning an MPA from San Francisco State University, and currently works as a local government liaison for the State of California. He was elected to the South San Francisco Unified School District’s Board of Trustees in 2016, and currently serves as its president.

Paul Deis, Communication, 1999
Submitted: June 1, 2019
Paul Deis, Communication, 1999, retired from the Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer in 2009. Paul earned a Master of Arts from the University of Florida in 2011 and a Ph.D. in 2019.

Laura Aguada Hallberg, World Languages and Cultures, 1993
Submitted: May 24, 2019
After graduating from HSU, Laura Aguada Hallberg, World Languages and Cultures, 1993, returned home to the San Francisco Bay Area. She will be celebrating 24 years in education this August. After almost 20 years as a high school teacher (5 of them as a German teacher), she made the move into higher ed and is now an assistant professor and program lead of the EdD in Transformative Action in Education at University of the Pacific.

Sophia Remer, International Studies, 2014
Submitted: May 21, 2019
Sophia Remer, International Studies, 2014, went on to culinary school in Sonoma County after graduating from HSU and worked as a professional baker. She has recently moved to Pittsburgh, PA with her partner (also a Humboldt graduate) who is getting his phD in Pollination Biology. Remer is applying to the Master of Arts in Food Studies with an MBA dual degree program from Chatham University to combine her backgrounds in food and cultural studies.

Spencer Ruelos, Anthropology, 2013
Submitted: May 10, 2019
After graduating from HSU Spencer Ruelos, Anthropology, Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, 2013, went on to receive his Masters in Sexuality Studies from San Francisco State University. There he wrote a master's thesis titled: "EveryoneGames: Exploring Queer Gamer Identity and Community," where he examined the worldmaking practices of LGBTQ gamers in digital and physical spaces. While at SFSU, Spencer received the prestigious CSU Sally Casanova Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. He is currently continuing his studies of queerness, video games, and technology as a PhD student in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine.

John Soener, International Studies, 2016
Submitted: May 1, 2019
After having completed two years of Peace Corps service in Nicaragua John Soener, International Studies, 2016, will be attending graduate school at Indiana University. John will be pursuing a Masters in Public Affairs, focusing specifically on nonprofit management and policy analysis. His International Studies and Spanish degrees were a great way to start his career in public service and Peace Corps was an incredible career booster that has provided him incredible opportunities to fund graduate school.

Heidi (Foote) Bowman, English, 2009
Submitted: April 15, 2019
In the fall of 2017, Heidi Bowman, English, 2009, helped open the "sister charter school": CSArts-SGV. A free, public comprehensive high school in California's San Gabriel Valley, that embeds seven hours of conservatory arts instruction following the academic school day. Heidi has the distinct honor of being the Department Chair, and because of HSU's English Education program she graduated from in 2009, the department is the "Literature, Language, and Composition" team. The linguistics courses, the not-old-dead-white-guys literature courses, the pedagogy-built-into-my-soul courses, shaped her into an English teacher to be reckoned with!

Suzanne Heck (Keck), Sociology, 1992
Submitted: March 12, 2019
Suzanne Heck (Keck), Sociology, 1992, is married to Dave Heck and they have two children, Zoe and Dylan. They live in San Juan Capistrano in South Orange County. She is still true to her HSU campus recycling roots and is fighting the battle against single-use plastics!

Jacqueline Heinzen, Anthropology, 2017
Submitted: February 11, 2019
Jacqueline Heinzen, Anthropology, 2017, received her MA in Applied Anthropology from HSU 2017. She has started work as a User Experience Researcher with Binary Defense, a cybersecurity firm based out of Hudson, Ohio. It's her first full-time job where she was hired specifically to apply her research skills as an anthropologist!

Diana Argueta, Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, 2017
Submitted: January 31, 2019
Diana Argueta, Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, 2017, returned to the world of immigrant rights after many years of being away, and she loves it! She is am currently a social worker case managing two programs housing children in custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and Unaccompanied Refugee Minors. She advocates for children who have no one to care for them in their country of origin or in the U.S. as they start their life over in this country and apply for political asylum.

Timi O'Malley, Anthropology, 1994
Submitted: January 12, 2019
Timi O'Malley, Anthropology, 1994, published "Consuming Love: The Joy of Sharing Meals" in December 2018. This is a memoir not only about food and the people that shared these meals with her, but the spiritual lessons learned along the way.

Joshua McKinney, English, 1984 (BA), 1987 (MA)
Submitted: January 8, 2019
Joshua McKinney, English, 1984, wrote his fourth book of poetry, "Small Sillion," which was released by Parlor Press.

Sophi Buetens, Journalism, 1985
Submitted: January 7, 2019
Sophi Buetens, Journalism, 1985, attended HSU from 1980 as a freshman through 1985 with one year on the Cal State international program in Madrid, Spain. Since then she has worked as a journalist and elementary and secondary school teacher (Spanish). Her two adult children live in Oakland. One is a software engineer and the other is studying at Berkeley to be a science teacher. She and her husband were thrilled to move back to Arcata after many years in the Bay Area.

Jennifer Werthman, Politics, 2017
Submitted: December 14, 2018
Jennifer Werthman, Politics, 2017, was engaged in January 2018 and had a baby boy named Jack on June 30. She began substitute teaching and will obtain a credential soon to become a high school government teacher!

Zachary Haitkin, International Studies, 2010
Submitted: November 6, 2018
Zachary Haitkin, International Studies, 2010, is currently residing in the city of San Francisco working at the headquarters for the rideshare company, Lyft. He began his career here over 4.5 years ago by making the transition from a Lyft driver to customer support associate. Since then, he has worked on the Operations team and led the effort to build a Competitive Intelligence network in an effort to improve Lyft's visibility into what competitors are doing at a market level. Most recently, he has moved over to Lyft's Growth team as a Project Manager to help lead the charge in the localization of the Lyft platform into Spanish and other languages.

Vicki Bugbee-Reed, Psychology, 1974
Submitted: October 30, 2018
Vicki Bugbee-Reed, Psychology, 1974, retired in 2009. She taught in Australia, right from HSU for three years and taught in Oregon most of the remaining years (almost 30 total) before retirement. She sailed a sailboat for six years from Newport, Oregon to Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Steven Steward Esq., Politics, 2001
Submitted: October 15, 2018
Steven Steward, Politics, 2001, currently works as a deputy district attorney for the Humboldt County Office of the District Attorney.

Janine Silvis, Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, 2012
Submitted: October 11, 2018
Janine Silvis, Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, 2012, is the Coordinator for Residential Education for College Ten at UC Santa Cruz. After graduating, Silvis served four years as a student affairs administrator at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the University of Oregon and then obtained a Masters of Education in Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration at the University of Vermont. Silvis applies their experiences and education to formulate interdisciplinary approaches to ending campus sexual assault, developing residential curriculum, and supporting minoritized students in higher education. Silvis has recieved several awards and recognition for national conference presentations and has published in scholary journals.

Greg Gottlieb, Politics, 1976
Submitted: September 15, 2018
Gregory Gottlieb, Politics, 1976, retired in 2017 from the U.S.Agency for International Development as Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance. He's now a professor at Tufts University, and Director of the Feinstein International Center, which does research on international humanitarian assistance. We welcome all Lumberjacks.