CAL Students Excel at Annual SDSU Student Symposium (S³)
More than 500 SDSU students participated in the 2025 event: 11 from CAL received awards
Every year the San Diego State University Student Symposium brings students together for the chance to share their research with the public via poster exhibitions, oral presentations, or performances.
It is an excellent opportunity to sharpen public speaking skills and network with other students, faculty, staff and potential employers. Participants receive constructive feedback from judges to help them enhance their projects. In addition to looking great on a résumé for graduate school or careers, presenting gives students eligibility for cash prize awards ranging from $150–500 in nearly 20 categories.
This year, nine President’s Awards of $500 were awarded to students making the most outstanding oral presentations across all disciplines.
From CAL, geography student Andrés Peñalosa Reyna (mentored by Amy Quandt, associate professor of geography) received this award for his presentation, “Bosque Urbano De Las Californias: A Transnational Urban Forest In Urban Mediterranean North America.”
Reyna’s research focuses on understanding the human dimensions of Tijuana-San Diego’s urban forest. “Much effort is being made to increase urban tree density with expectations that doing so will reap multiple social and environmental benefits,” he described in his abstract notes. “However, not enough research is focusing on the strategies that guide the production of urban forests.
“The project addresses the lack of data on urban forest strategies and how they differentiate among decision makers in border regions. This research aims to examine urban forest strategies by decision makers through semi-structured interviews using the Tijuana-San Diego region as a case study. It has the potential to help guide urban forest policy by providing data on the production of urban forests to stakeholders.”
Reyna received a bachelor’s degree in geography in 2023 and will earn his master’s in May. He is the first in his family to enter graduate school. “Winning the President's Award is an honor that means a great deal to me and my family,” he said.
Reyna represented SDSU at the 39th Annual California State University (CSU) Student Research Competition April 25-26 at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. He competed with more than 200 scholars from across the 23 CSU campuses.
In September he heads to UC Irvine, where he was accepted to the Urban and Environmental Planning and Policy doctorate program at the School of Social Ecology.
Other awardees from CAL
Undergraduate Award of Excellence
Jaime Antoshak
Linguistics and Asian Middle Eastern Languages
(co-presenters: Leyla Galindo (CHHS), and Ainsley Jennieve Perez (COE)
Mentor: Henrike Blumenfeld (CHHS)
Project title: “When words collide: An eye-tracking study examining the impact of top-down and bottom-up input during bilingual picture-word matching”
Dean’s Awards
Siddharth Suresh Babu
Big Data Analytics (master’s)
Mentor: Gabriela Fernandez
Project title: “Mapping Public Sentiment: A Data-Driven Analysis of Covid-19 Discourse on Social Media in Italy”
Emma Puckett
Language, Culture, and Society
Mentor: Elisa Sobo
Project title: ”AI and the Student Experience: Gender Perceptions and Student Fears in AI Platforms”
Food and Security Award
Osvaldo Napoles Robledo
Geography (master’s)
Mentor: Fernando Bosco
Project title: “Resilience and Community Building among Street Food Vendors: A Foodscape Case Study of the City of San Diego”
Hispanic Serving Institution Award
Fernanda Carrillo
Big Data Analytics (master’s)
Mentor: Gabriela Fernandez
Project title: “Noise-Induced Hearing Loss in Latino Farmworkers”
Research Award for Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice
Amy Zarate
English
Mentor: Marissa Vasquez (COE)
Project title: “Am I Being ‘˜Served’?: A Critical Autoethnography by a Latina Transfer Student at a Hispanic Serving Institution”
Charles Wei-hsun Fu Foundation Philosophy Award
Maximus Miesner
History (master’s)
Mentor: Eve Kornfeld
Project title: “Come and Get These Memories”: Motown Records, Detroit & the American Dream in the Postwar Era
Provost's Awards
Erin Petersen
Sociology and anthropology double major
Mentor: Jocely Killmer
Project title: “Is Flagging Dead? The Cultural Significance of Visibility Behaviors to College-Aged Queer Youth In San Diego”
Vanessa Castro
Spanish
(co-presenter: Kimberly Garcia)
Mentor: Lauren Schmidt
Project title: “Linguistic Attitudes and Perceptions of Indigenous Languages Among Students and Professors at a private University in Oaxaca City”
Nathan Rosenthal
Economics: specialization in quantitative analysis
Mentor: Joseph Sabia
Project title: “Disparities in Social Security and Medicaid Program Participation among Same-sex vs. Different-sex Couples: Evidence from COVID-19 Pandemic Shocks”
Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Graduate Mentor Awards
Audrey Beck, associate professor of sociology.
Also note: Erika Robb Larkins, anthropology professor and director of the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies was a mentor for students from the SDSU Imperial Valley campus — Emily Figueroa Salazar, who won a Provost’s Award. Project title: “The Right to Stay Cool: Coping with Extreme Heat in the Imperial Valley.”