As another year passes into the history books, CSUN has made great strides to become one of the top colleges in California. Here are some examples of amazing strides from our eight colleges that all offer a multitude of degrees and certificate programs.
The College of Health and Human Development (HHD) at CSUN has made significant strides in 2024 with key achievements and initiatives. Notable events include the inaugural HHD Heroes Award, presented to Mike Paciello, chief accessibility officer at Audio Eye, an accessibility innovator who has impacted the field of assistive technology. The HHD Research Excellence and Innovation Conference showcased student, faculty and staff research with a focus on diversity and collaboration.
Current fundraising initiatives include support for the Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing, which promotes mindfulness and stress reduction programs. As well as the Consumer Resource Center (Family and Consumer Sciences), which offers financial literacy and mentoring programs to empower students. The HHD Scholarship Fund continues to assist students to help sustain enrollment and provide financial aid to those facing challenges in their education.
HHD’s diverse academic programs and community-centered initiatives support students and the local community of Northridge as well as Los Angeles and Ventura counties. In 2025, HHD will continue to prioritize scholarships, innovative projects and technology and deep-impact learning experiences.
The Mike Curb College of Arts, Media and Communication experienced growth in all its departments. Department of Communication Studies student Mitul Kalra received the Wolfson Scholar Award. The CSUN Forensics Speech and Debate team won every tournament they competed in, including the Pacific Southwest Collegiate Forensics Association Spring Championship.
The CSUN Theatre Department had a record-breaking year, attracting over 4,500 patrons with sold-out productions like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The SpongeBob Musical. The Teenage Drama Workshop celebrated its 68th season.
With funding from the Golden Globe Foundation, the Journalism Department sent nine students to Uvalde, Texas, in January 2024 following the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting.
The Art & Design Department received re-accreditation, hosted the inaugural Create Path Summit, and welcomed The Kalli Arte Collective as the Virginia A. Orndorff Artist-in-Residence. The department also placed 3rd in the CORE at CSUN (Championing our Racial Equity at CSUN) challenge.
The Department of Cinema & Television Arts introduced Virtual Production with advanced tech, expanding its Entertainment Industry Institute and launching an online graduate program in Entertainment Industry Management. The department is co-hosting “Getting Real: Unscripted Internships” with the Television Academy Foundation to foster diversity.
College of Engineering and Computer Science.
The Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department has launched a new Master of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering. The program focuses on biomedical devices and signal processing, incorporating machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) techniques. Professors John Valdovinos and Xiyi Hang have secured grants from NASA, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Medtronic for research on deep learning, congenital heart patients and glucose monitors. Professor Kourosh Sedghisigarchi received funding from California Climate Action Grants for a UCLA collaboration, while professor S. K. Ramesh was awarded a $3 million grant for fostering culturally responsive environments.
The Civil Engineering and Construction Management Department (CECM) has seen significant growth and success in 2024, including the launch of the Construction Management Master’s program with a 40% increase in first-year enrollments. Notable achievements include American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Steel Bridge Team placing 3rd and ASCE GeoWall 4th at nationals.
In 2024, the Computer Science Department celebrated key achievements: Luis Olmos co-authored a paper on course scheduling optimization at the 2024 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), while Gustavo Flores presented a paper on smartphone gyroscopes at 2024 IEEE Conference Consumer Communications and Networking (CCNC). Marjan Asadinia secured a $146,368 grant for her National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Phase Change Main Memory (PCM) project and led her students to first place at CSUNposium. Spencer Yang served as the Principal Investigator (PI) on the project.
Being part of the College of Humanities, Melissa Weininger, assistant professor of Jewish Studies, and Jennifer Thompson, director of the Jewish Studies Program, gave insight on what the program accomplished in 2024. One of their achievements was a “peacemaking” series of events, which was supported by a DEI grant from CSUN. The events the Jewish Studies Program hosted this year include “Transforming conflict – a conversation with Aaron Hahn Tapper,” a talk with the founder of Abraham’s Vision, “a conflict transformation organization that ran educational programs within and between the Muslim, Jewish, Palestinian, and Israeli communities.” They also hosted an event titled “Breaking Barriers, Building Hope – a conversation with Adnan Jaber & Michal Greenfield” that was about “Standing together – a co-existence organization that builds community between Jews and Palestinians in Israel.” Thompson talked about these achievements when she said, “Amid [the community’s] diversity, their messages all boil down to a few important takeaways: peacebuilding is about relationships between individuals; we have to know ourselves well and focus on our own self-improvement to be able to build peace; and building relationships is a long-term process, not something that can be accomplished on a schedule.”
As we take a look at the achievements from the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Kimberly Olguin, the administrative support assistant for the Department of Criminology & Justice Studies, discussed a variety of accomplishments her department saw this year. Fourteen Criminology & Justice Studies majors traveled to San Francisco for The American Society of Criminology Annual Meeting on Nov.13-16. The department also partnered with the food pantry and received over 2,000 pounds of food and toiletries for homelessness awareness.
Lastly, two directors and three subjects of the 2024 documentary, “The Strike,” attended the department’s screening, as the film focused on incarcerated individuals who launched “a small hunger strike against solitary confinement at Pelican Bay prison turned into a massive statewide protest.” The screening had an outstanding turnout of over 130 attendees at the screening, set up by the department.
The College of Science and Mathematics had a former CSUN student, Akemi Hinzer, prepared the launch of the NASA Europa Clipper to Jupiter, “the largest the agency has ever built for a planetary mission,” in October, and the probe is set to reach Jupiter in 2030.
In May, Robinson Cecil, professor of Geological Sciences, was elected as a new Fellow of The Geological Society of America, “a scientific society with members from academia, government, and industry in more than 100 countries.” Also, Ravinder Arbol, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was awarded a one-year U.S. National Science Foundation – Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) grant, that “is to support further development of the open source 3D molecular structure viewer iCn3D into software with more features. The grant is for one year, and is worth $200,000 in direct costs.”
Nazarian College
David Nazarian College of Business and Economics marked a year of achievements and forward-thinking initiatives. On Nov. 19, 2024, the Workforce of the Future Symposium at The Soroya featured global artificial intelligence (AI) leaders, including IBM Consulting’s global managing partner Jesus Mantas, who was the keynote speaker and gave a panel discussion and Q&A on AI in industries.
The Creator Economy held an Open House Mixer on Oct. 29, which connected content creators with faculty and advertising executives, encouraging collaboration through CSUN’s REACH, AAF, AMA and PRSSA student clubs.
Dean Chandra Subramaniam was honored as one of the Greater Valley Region’s most impactful and powerful leaders for 2024. The fourth issue of Nazarian College Magazine was released, focusing on AI’s role in business education. The college also launched a strategic plan using AI to analyze feedback from 5,000 students, faculty, staff, alumni and community leaders to make room for improvement.
A proposed new building that will house the college’s current and graduate students is intended to complement Bookstein Hall by enhancing the operational capabilities of its centers and supporting high-quality graduate programs.
Michael D. Eisner College of Education
Michael D. Eisner College of Education is one of the largest public colleges of education in the state, and is a leader in grants that recruit and provide scholarships to men of color for an educational teaching profession. This year, Joshua Einhorn and his graduate school class began campaigning to raise funds for teachers at India’s Saraswati Free School.
In September 2024, StrengthUnited, a CSUN community organization within the college, was named one of the best places to work in Southern California. They were featured on the “Best Companies Group website and Best Places to Work in Southern California”l digital publication, presenting exposure to 700,000 business leaders across the country.
By April 2024, Shereen Allison, Deborah Buttitta and Josh Einhorn of the College of Education all received grants to support community-based learning projects.