Recent News
LAES Students Travel to Seattle as Finalists in Boeing Innovation Challenge
May 8, 2020
Boeing Innovation Challenge participants
In January, a group of students flew to Seattle as finalists in the Boeing Innovation Challenge. Their mission? To bring innovative design ideas to commercial flights.
Boeing, the world’s largest plane manufacturing company, invited Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies (LAES) students Zach Cushing-Murray and Emma George and architecture student Chloe Regan to Seattle to pitch their project proposals to the Boeing team. While their design details are confidential, the students were able to share highlights from their experience designing and traveling to the Boeing headquarters.
The project proposal started as an assignment in LAES 302: Advanced Project-Based Learning in Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies. During the first week of class, students worked in groups to make designs for the competition.
“This project really highlights that special view and skill set that LAES brings to engineering problems,” said LAES co-director and computer science professor Michael Haungs. “It was a nationwide competition with tons of universities that even had more submissions than we did. It was really great to see that the Cal Poly team’s ideas made it to the next stage.”
The Innovation Challenge had three categories: Simplifying Commercial Airplanes, Creating Efficient, Adaptable, and Flexible Airplane Cabins, and Cross-Industry Aircraft Innovation. In Seattle, the students had the opportunity to work with Boeing subject matter experts to further develop and refine their design ideas. Working with Boeing professionals to enhance their proposals was one of Cushing-Murray’s most valuable takeaways from the experience.
“They’re all incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about what they work on,” Cushing-Murray said.
The team also traveled out of the city to Everett, where they were given a tour of Boeing’s Everett factory, the world’s largest building by volume.
Cushing-Murray said his LAES major introduced him to this opportunity and helped him with his pitching skills. The LAES curriculum combines engineering studies with arts and humanities to prepare students for interdisciplinary projects like the Boeing student innovation project.
“My liberal arts concentration is philosophy, and I took a debate class that really helped me with presentation skills and making pitches during our project,” Cushing-Murray said.
Haungs said he plans to keep fostering a partnership between Boeing and the Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies Department.
“Having that external customer was awesome,” Haungs said. “Hopefully we can work with them more in the future.”
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Cal Poly Alumni Serve AmeriCorps to Support Volunteer Work in the SLO Community (Q+A)
Apr 30, 2020
While some Cal Poly alumni move away to start their careers after they graduate, others choose to stay in San Luis Obispo and serve the community that shaped them.
Meet two alumni who graduated from Cal Poly in 2019 and joined AmeriCorps, a civil society program that engages adults in public service work. Although their work is different, both graduates serve AmeriCorps to support volunteer work in the San Luis Obispo community.
Oscar Velasco (History ’19), Boys and Girls Club
What do you do for AmeriCorps?
I work for the Boys and Girls Club in San Luis Obispo County, helping pair mentors with youth in the community.
How have you and your organization adjusted to the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter at home mandates?
My role with AmeriCorps has been impacted by the shelter in place. I am still working remotely but will be moved to work on the field and have a direct response with local communities that are affected by the pandemic. Right now, I have mobilized a group of volunteers to help me create a temporary food distribution in South SLO County to provide food items and essential supplies to families and our youth.
Why did you want to get involved with AmeriCorps?
It started with my experience here as a Cal Poly student. I was a history major, and that shaped me into wanting to work in education and become a mentor myself. I wanted to work with young people and help them as much as possible.
Why is mentorship important to you?
I think it really started when I was a youth myself. Growing up, I saw other people who might not have had the same opportunities as I did. And I realized I had those opportunities because of mentors I had. My coaches, my teachers, people in my community really invested in me and guided me to the right path. Because of those mentors who advocated to me, I had the opportunity to go to an institution like Cal Poly. But I realized that not a lot of young people have those mentors who can advocate and guide them to make good choices. I want young people to have the same opportunity I had.
How did your education at Cal Poly prepare you for the job?
I think being a student here, I got introduced to people who were involved in civil service and social justice work. It inspired me to pursue social activism. My senior project looked at the school to prison pipeline. I studied policies that treated young people unfairly and pushed them out of education and made them vulnerable to incarceration. That inspired me to do the type of prevention and interventional work that I do for the Boys and Girls Club — advocating and fighting for young people in low income and marginalized communities. Now, I’ve been given a platform for social justice, providing young people access to education and mentors and resources that will help them become healthy adults.
Christian Laubacher (Journalism ’19), Cal Poly Alumni Association
What do you do for AmeriCorps?
I serve at the Cal Poly Alumni Association, so I work to create sustainable volunteer infrastructure for the various alumni chapters all across the country.
How have you and your organization adjusted to the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter at home mandates?
I’m still able to help out at the Alumni office! The nature of alumni engagement has been pretty reliant on in-person interaction. Since that’s not able to happen right now, we’re shifting to find ways to engage and support our alumni virtually. We’re also taking this time to reflect and strengthen internal structures and procedures.
Why did you want to get involved?
I love Cal Poly and knew that four years just wasn’t enough for me, so I saw this as a super cool way to get involved with a different side of the university. (I was pretty involved within different student affairs departments on campus, so I wanted to try something new!) Starting just three months after graduation, I thought I could offer a really valuable perspective as a fresh alumni.
How did your education at Cal Poly prepare you for the job?
I had no experience working with alumni or in the development field prior to this. I’ve really had to “Learn by Doing” in this role and just hit the ground running. Being a student in CLA at Cal Poly affords you so many transferrable skills that you could apply to such a broad range of fields. In the journalism curriculum, you dip your toes into every aspect of the journalism world. This includes reporting and writing, but also includes video production, public relations, graphic design, public speaking, communication to diverse audiences, and many more skills. It requires you to be adaptable and well rounded. I think this ability to adapt, when coupled with the skills I learned to think critically, problem solve and work collaboratively have prepared me tremendously for this role and beyond.
What’s your favorite part about the job?
I love when I get to interact with alumni. It seems that wherever you go, Cal Poly alumni can’t wait to connect with you and share stories of their time as a Mustang. All of the volunteers are involved with their chapters because they want to meet other alumni, better their local community, and/or give back to Cal Poly. This passion that bonds Cal Poly alumni is something that’s really special to be a part of. For me, the heart of the Cal Poly Alumni Association’s mission is to help make Cal Poly a place where all alumni and students feel welcome and connected with one another. Any role I can play towards making that a reality is why I’m so happy and proud to do this work.
What are some of your career goals moving forward?
I’m going to grad school next year to get a master’s degree in higher education and student affairs! I love working on a college campus, specifically with students, so I’m excited to take what I’ve learned throughout my time with AmeriCorps and apply it to future endeavors.
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Anthropology and Geography Professor and Alumnus Travel to Easter Island to Record Famous Historical Sites
Apr 24, 2020
In 2010, anthropology and geography professor Terry Jones took a group of students to northeastern Nevada, where they had the opportunity to work as archaeologists for the first time. Ten years later, one of those students took him to Easter Island to help record some of the island’s famous statues.
Terry Jones and Kacey Hadick on Easter Island
Kacey Hadick (Anthropology and Geography, ’13) is the director of project development at CyArk, a nonprofit organization that uses innovative technology to digitally record and archive world-famous cultural heritage sites. CyArk’s high-tech 3D mapping helps preserve sites and makes them accessible to explore online. CyArk recently completed a project on Easter Island, where some of the famous sites are threatened by coastal erosion.
“A lot of the famous statues are right on the edge of coastal bluffs, and they’re falling into the ocean,” Hadick said. “There’s not enough funding to stabilize the sites, so they’re essentially trying to get a really good record of what’s there now. This 3D mapping is the most detailed recording you can do at an archaeological site.”
Hadick’s team traveled to Easter Island in 2017 and used laser scanning and photogrammetry to capture detailed three-dimensional records of the island’s sculptures and platforms. In February 2020, the team returned to the island to record the sites again. With both recordings of the same site three years apart, CyArk was able to see what has changed in the sculptures and platforms over the years due to coastal erosion.
“Because the recordings are so precise and accurate, you can tell exactly how the cliff has eroded over time,” Hadick said.
This detailed record helps groups on the island understand how coastal erosion is affecting the sculptures. They provide an accurate record that can help local groups make decisions that will help protect them.
Professor Terry Jones using a drone on Easter Island
When Hadick learned that CyArk needed an extra hand at Easter Island, Jones — his professor and mentor who took him on his first archaeological excursion — came to mind.
“It’s funny, Terry took me to my first archeological field school 10 years ago in 2010,” Hadick said. “It was nice 10 years later to be able to take him on one of my projects.”
Hadick said he gained the confidence to pursue a career in archaeology on that first excursion he took with Jones as a student ten years ago.
“Learn by Doing is the motto, and it really was that for me,” Hadick said. “I got my hands dirty — literally — as an archaeologist. From that experience, I gained the confidence to get a job in archaeology and to pursue it as a career.”
As Jones and Hadick moved from professor and student to colleagues over the years, the two kept in touch and even wrote articles together. Jones jumped at the opportunity to go to Easter Island and use CyArk’s innovative technology to record the sites.
“Terry is super knowledgeable,” Hadick said. “It was great to have him in the field; he was an asset. We were able to do some exciting work together.”
Jones was able to share his knowledge and expertise with CyArk, and the CyArk team was able to show Jones new technology at play in the field.
“Every day, I saw or learned something that trumped what I had seen or learned the day before,” Jones said. “Every day there was something more mind-boggling.”
Years ago, Jones had written a book about the possibility of prehistoric contact between Easter Island and South America. While archaeologists have considered this possibility, others are skeptical — including Jones himself prior to his trip, he said. But when he saw the stonework in one particular site on the island, he said he was stunned by its resemblance to Incan stonework.
“You can read about the statues, and you can see pictures of them, but to be able to see them in person was an unforgettable experience,” Jones said. “You get a much better understanding of the sites. You just can’t get that from books.”
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Join the Cal Poly Debate Team
Apr 23, 2020
From Debate Team Director John F. Patrick:
Our Debate Team is the longest standing competitive team at Cal Poly. The program has historically followed the trends in academic debating, beginning with direct challenge scrimmages and progressing through various tournament circuit debate styles as their relevance has waxed and waned. Today, while we still compete in tournament circuit events, the Cal Poly Debate Team is now focused on Civic Debate Conference events.
These events treat collegiate debaters as legitimate scholars whose research merits being shared not just between debaters, but with the wider academic and professional communities that are in need of debates. We are also very excited to have expanded our program to include a Spanish Language Division that is truly bilingual, with students debating in both Spanish and English.
An example of Cal Poly students debating against French military officers for diplomats and policy experts at the French Embassy in Washington D.C. for the 2019 Lafayette Debates can be found at https://tinyurl.com/yawtdgz7
Academic debating generally correlates to ongoing professional success after graduation, with our debaters reporting that their involvement with debate distinguished them from their peers on the job market and in their applications to graduate studies. Students majoring in political science, identity and cultural studies, history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics, business, sociology, engineering and the sciences have found that our events intersect with their areas of interest and expose them to a wider range of ideas outside their ares of study than if they had not joined the team.
If you are interested in how the Cal Poly debate team can ground and energize your academic experience, please reach out to our program directors, John Patrick (jopatric@calpoly.edu) and Chris Skiles (cskiles@calpoly.edu).
Students Volunteer to Connect Facilities in Need With Distilleries Producing Hand Sanitizer
Apr 23, 2020
Disinfect Connect helps connect facilities with hand sanitizer producers.
Gabe Pepper got the call the first Sunday of spring break. It was his older brother, Miles.
“My brother had spoken to the manager of our grandma’s nursing home in Northern California, and she was having a really hard time finding hand sanitizer,” Pepper said. “She was going out to the grocery store every morning to try and find some, which was potentially exposing her to the virus.”
Miles Pepper, who has experience with crowdfunding and startups, had called Gabe because he knew distilleries were making hand sanitizer, and wanted to find a way to connect distilleries with nursing homes and other facilities in need.
He asked Gabe if he could get a group of volunteers together to start calling around and making those connections, which grew into the free website Disinfect Connect.
Gabe Pepper and his friend and roommate, agribusiness major Eric Agresti, immediately jumped on it. They soon formed a team with three other Cal Poly students, handling everything from volunteer coordination to outreach and public relations for the website.
English senior Chris King has been helping Disinfect Connect with content creation.
“It’s cool and rewarding to use skills I’m learning at Cal Poly as I’m writing the blogs in the blog section and managing social media,” King said. “It makes it feel like my major and my studies are worth my time. It’s really cool to take the Learn by Doing process outside of an academic setting and have to perform by doing it.”
During the long spring break, King and his colleagues volunteered around 12-15 hours each day to get the operation up and running.
One of the first big breakthroughs was a partnership mechanical engineering student Seth Ewing facilitated with the Washington Distillers’ Guild. Washington was one of the first epicenters of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, so that was one of the first places outside of California where the Disinfect Connect team focused their efforts.
“It’s been a really good exercise in business strategy and working in a team, but we don’t have profit as our main goal,” Pepper said. “It’s really cool that our end goal here is helping people and potentially saving lives.”
The team is beginning to build the database along the West Coast, with an ultimate goal of going national.
“We want to build that database out so registered distilleries and nursing homes are aware of what’s going on,” said Colin McAfee, a business administration student who’s volunteering as the project’s content manager. “The shortage of hand sanitizer and disinfectant is not limited to the West Coast, so it’s important that we get a national scale on the project.”
And though the project started with nursing homes and assisted living facilities in mind, the operation has expanded its list of vulnerable populations to include first responders, hospitals and others on the front line of the virus.
Gabe Pepper, a wine and viticulture major, is Disinfect Connect’s volunteer director, managing about 50 volunteers. Agresti is directing the website’s public relations response, while English major Chris King helps with content creation and public relations as the team’s social media manager. Ewing is the outreach director. All of the students are third-years.
Ewing, King, Pepper and Agresti are all roommates who are staying in San Luis Obispo. McAfee is working from his home in the Bay Area, and the rest of the team the students are working with is remote.
"Miles Pepper is leading Disinfect Connect, and some of his friends who work in tech are building the website and doing back-end development," Gabe Pepper said. The Cal Poly students are working on outreach, public relations and making sure the platform is being put to use.
“Due to the urgency and importance of the issue, we’re moving extremely quickly,” Agresti said. “It was just an idea when it first started, and now it’s a fully-functioning website servicing thousands of people. We’ve had to jump in and do things we haven’t really had experience in, and the sink-or-swim pace of everything forced us to adapt on the fly. It’s pretty fun.”
Disinfect Connect has a verification process: organizations in need of hand sanitizer fill out a form, and once that form is processed they show up on the site’s list.
“Distilleries have had no shortage of demand for sanitizer, and it’s been too much in a lot of cases,” Agresti said. “We have metrics that break down the type of facility, how much they need and shows when these places are expected to run out of their supply.
Being part of the team, and being able to not only learn about different aspects of the operation but carry them out, have been the most important Learn by Doing aspects of Disinfect Connect for the group.
“It’s cool and rewarding to use the skills I’m learning at Cal Poly,” King said. “This is a real-word thing with real-world consequences. You can’t afford to mess up an important phone call or have typos in press releases. It’s really cool to take the Learn by Doing process outside of an academic setting and have to perform.”
Pepper agreed.
“We’re able to take this experience and come back into classes able to contextualize what we’ve been doing and put that into the context of coursework,” Pepper said. “Looking back on my college career, this is the coolest and most helpful thing I’ve been a part of and that goes for everyone here.”
The team has set up a GoFundMe in order to keep the project running and allow the team to continue to provide services for free.
This story originally appeared on Cal Poly News.
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Two CLA Students to Represent Cal Poly in CSU Research Competition
Apr 14, 2020
Maddie Roman and Fionna Fahey, CSU Research Competition participants
Update: Fionna Fahey won first place in the undergraduate Humanities and Letters category!
The Annual CSU Student Research Competition is held to promote excellence in undergraduate and graduate scholarly research and creative activity by recognizing outstanding student accomplishments throughout the 23 campuses of the California State University.
Ten students from each CSU campus are selected to compete in the competition. Of the 10 students selected by the Academic Senate Grants Review Committee to represent Cal Poly, two are from the College of Liberal Arts: Fionna Fahey, an interdisciplinary studies senior; and Maddie Roman, an interdisciplinary studies junior.
Fahey’s research project aims to highlight the resilience fostered within sex work communities by (re)membering the erased histories of sex workers in San Luis Obispo.
“Sex work has been a highly contested issue in academia and politics,” she said. “However, this project aims to act in solidarity with sex worker movements.”
Roman’s research is related to anonymous England-based street artist, Banksy, who has been active since the 1990s, and whether his street art should be considered real art and how the public view Banksy's work. She said, “This experience taught me that having a strong interest in my topic and putting in time to prepare allowed me to be more confident when presenting.” She looks forward to sharing about Banksy and hearing opinions on his works. “I am fascinated by his works and street art as a whole,” she said.
Finalists will make oral presentations before juries of professional experts from major corporations, foundations, public agencies, and colleges and universities in California. They will be judged on their oral presentations and written abstracts.
Typically, presentations happen in person -- this year's Annual CSU Student Research Competition was to be held at CSU East Bay. However, the competition will now occur virtually as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fahey and Roman submitted a digital form of their research, and they will complete the Q&A portion of the presentation via video conferencing on the scheduled date of the competition, April 24.
Regardless of the changes to the competition, the student researchers learned a lot by participating.
“I have learned that competitive public speaking is difficult and that undergraduates are producing amazing research,” Fahey said. “I look forward to connecting with more undergraduates and seeing all of their important research.”
Dawn Neill, a professor of anthropology in the Interdisciplinary Studies in Liberal Arts Department advised both Fahey and Roman. She insists that all the credit for development and execution of the excellent work goes to them.
“Though I had the pleasure of guiding Fionna’s research and providing feedback, it is her mastery of complex feminist theory and careful archival research that brings her project into clear focus,” Neill said. “And Maddie’s project blends traditional notions of art and art history with a boundary-spanning exploration of street art.”
“Both Fionna and Maddie have produced great individual student research projects highlighting the strength of the interdisciplinary methods the new ISLA program prioritizes. I am both happy and proud to see their work representing CLA, Cal Poly and the ISLA program.”
'You Can Pay It Forward.' Theatre & Dance Department Creates Patterns for People to Make Their Own Masks
Apr 13, 2020
Laina Babb models a face mask in the opening page of instructions.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread through the United States, and protective face coverings became the norm, costume shop manager Laina Babb of the Theatre and Dance Department spent days creating accessible patterns that students and alumni can use to fashion their own face masks out of fabric.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread through the United States, and protective face coverings became the norm, costume shop manager Laina Babb of the Theatre and Dance Department spent days creating accessible patterns that students and alumni can use to fashion their own face masks out of fabric.
“Initially, this was for hospitals but morphed into putting it out there for the community, because of the changing recommendations,” Theatre and Dance department chair Josh Machamer said, referring to the updated CDC guidance encouraging people to wear protective masks in public.
“Making fabric masks alleviates the need for masks that are better suited for hospitals,” Babb said. “It’s a nice way to be creative and be able to do something constructive when we’re all sitting at home figuring out what’s going to come next.”
The patterns are available to students through the department’s Canvas page, which also contains a multitude of resources to help them through the virtual Spring quarter.
“You don’t know how many people are going to make them, but knowing it’s out there for people, that’s part of what our job is,” Machamer said. “We make sure there are resources and they still have a connection to us, whether they’re students, alumni or faculty.”
The two mask patterns are a simpler, pleated mask and a more stylish “duck-bill” mask, which has more space in front of the face and a pocket where people can put a filter.
“This came internally from Cal Poly with Laina’s idea,” Machamer said. “We’re putting our departmental name behind it; we’re putting our expertise behind it and we’re showcasing ways in which we’re adjusting and being flexible in the shift and dynamic for the Spring Quarter.”
Machamer also sent the mask patterns to Theater alumni.
“All of our alumni had to go through the costume construction class, so it’s a great way to harken back to remembering some of those skills. And now they can see the benefits of what they’ve learned in everyday life,” he said. “You don’t necessarily know where these skills will come in handy, but being able to combine the hard skills of knowing how to sew with the aspect of creativity, collaboration, ingenuity and service are attributes of larger transferable skills.”
Babb is also in the process of making about 30 masks for some of San Luis Obispo’s essential city workers.
“This is an opportunity for people to feel like they can take some sort of control in this unknown environment, which is really important,” Machamer said. “It’s not just a hobby, but ultimately essential. You can make a mask not just for yourself, but for friends. You can pay it forward.”
This story written by Gabby Ferreira originally appeared on Cal Poly News.
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Professor Earns International Book Prize for Her Book on Post-WWI Berlin
Mar 9, 2020
Cal Poly History Professor Molly Loberg was recently awarded the Hans Rosenberg Book Prize for her book titled “The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin: Politics, Consumption, and Urban Space, 1914-1945.” 
The Hans Rosenberg prize is presented each year by the Central European History Society for the best book in the field. Loberg accepted the award in January at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City.
“The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin” focuses on the post-World War I metropolis and how political and commercial entities fought for the attention of the city’s crowds through advertisements, posters, parades and violence. Loberg was inspired to write the book after discovering a photograph of a 1920s Berlin street scene, including several posters plastered around and on top of each other, all competing for the attention of passersby.
The prize committee praised Loberg’s new perspectives on Berlin’s iconic 1920s culture and her examination of subsequent Nazi uses of the city. The committee noted: “The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin” gains power from comparison to current-day struggles in other streets in cities all over the world.” Loberg’s book demonstrates how the modern city street “offers possibilities for both authoritarianism and anarchy” yet also exists as a “lived symbol of the relationship between citizens and the state.”
Loberg has taught at Cal Poly since fall 2007 and is a Fulbright Scholar and a Humboldt Fellow. She has produced numerous acclaimed articles and presentations focusing on consumer culture and German history, among other subjects. In 2013, she earned the History Article Prize from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians for the best article by a woman historian in all fields for “The Streetscape of Economic Crisis: Politics, Commerce, and Urban Space in Interwar Berlin.”
Last quarter, Loberg spoke about “The Struggle for the Streets of Berlin” as part of the Kennedy Library’s Conversations with Cal Poly Authors series. The conversation can be heard here.
This story originally appeared in Cal Poly News
Philosophy Professor Awarded Grant to Study Predictive Policing
Feb 28, 2020
Philosophy Professor Ryan Jenkins
Cal Poly philosophy Professor Ryan Jenkins received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the ethics of using artificial intelligence to assist police officers in anticipating crime before it happens.
Researchers from Cal Poly, (including philosophy professors Patrick Lin and Keith Abney), and the University of Florida have partnered to conduct the study, which was awarded a total of $509,946 to fund three years of research.
Artificial intelligence can be used to predict criminal activity in advance based on past crime statistics of a particular area. By taking this historical data into account, the AI tries to predict the time and location of possible crimes.
However, the morality of “predictive policing” is subject to considerable debate. Those in favor of the practice believe it to be an asset to a police department, providing a tool to make police work more efficient. Critics maintain that the technology violates the rights of those within communities targeted by the algorithm and reinforces racial bias among police officers.
Jenkins’ research team plans to analyze the ethical dilemmas involved in predictive policing in general; develop equitable solutions to problems arising from the establishment and implementation of this technology; and determine best practices with regard to the design and use of the technology. Their ultimate goal is to work directly with police departments to make their use of the technology more ethical, humane and just.
“As algorithmic crime-fighting tools become widespread in police departments, and as the skepticism grows, it is crucial that questions of fairness, equity and discrimination are addressed,” Jenkins said. “Distrust makes it harder for police to do their jobs, and we want to help alleviate some of the distrust that may come from using these tools.”
The researchers hope for the study to benefit both citizens and police departments, providing insight into the most ethical way to conduct predictive policing. The findings of the study, they expect, will also apply to other uses of artificial intelligence such as in court systems and medical fields.
Story originally appeared in Cal Poly news
With more than 30 workshops, “Inclusion Starts with Me” Teach In Sparks Conversations About Diversity and Inclusivity
Feb 25, 2020
Nearly 3,000 attendees participated in more than 30 workshops and talks across campus on Thursday, Feb. 13 for the “Inclusion Starts with Me” Teach In. Teach In sessions informed and inspired students from all majors to think about diversity and inclusivity and act in their work fields and social environments.