By Nicole Gregory, contributing writer

Cal State Fullerton professor William “Bill” Hoese has been inspiring students of biology, ornithology and the environment for more than 20 years with a unique blend of in-class time, field research and practical career guidance for future employment.

Hoese is the 2023 recipient of the Wang Family Excellence Award —Outstanding Faculty Innovator for Student Success.

He shares his knowledge and enthusiasm for the environment with scores of CSUF students by emphasizing research in the diverse landscapes of Southern California.

“I try to do some kind of field-based activity with most of my classes,” he said, adding that he and his ornithology class are soon heading to a field trip to Bolsa Chica to observe a tern colony that nests there. He’s also gearing up for his class to camp at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to visit the nearby Salton Sea. “We’ll look at the birds that are using that as a resource as they migrate through Southern California,” he explained.

The California coast is also rich with possibilities for student research. “Last semester with the intro class, we took everybody to the tide pools on the coast,” Hoese said. “For a lot of the students, it’s the first time they’ve been to look at tide pools. It’s just a fantastic place to go to introduce students to the biodiversity that’s around here.”

He grew up in San Diego enjoying the coast, the mountains and the deserts of the area. “All of those were favorites of mine,” he recalled.

He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University and then went on to receive his doctorate at Duke University.

Over the years, Hoese said, he’s added a key component to his classes: teaching students how they can earn a living as a biologist or environmentalist.

“A lot of our students are really interested in the sorts of things that you can do with a biology degree,” he said. “In the ornithology class, I invite former students and other people that are professional biologists to come and talk to us about the work that they do. So that applied nature of the ornithology class is a real strength and something that came about as a result of talking with the students about what they thought was important and the skills that they wanted. Introducing them to the whole host of careers that are biology-related or even bird-related — that’s been a really fun thing to develop as part of this class.”

Student Gerardo Avila, who is studying tortoises, said this about his work with Hoese: “In his tortoise lab, Dr. Hoese has been my primary mentor, guiding me on how to operate within the Boyd Deep Canyon Reserve by Palm Desert, and provided me with many tips and equipment for fieldwork. In this project, I am currently studying the activity of desert tortoises, and we track their movements. We take notes on-site about their behaviors, and we also have cameras placed in front of seven burrows that record them.”

Hoese inspired Avila to expand the possibilities of this study.

“He always has a friendly demeanor and is very supportive to me and my lab peers,” Avila said. “I even applied to the Scholars Transforming through Research program by the Council of Undergraduate Researchers with him as a team, which led to us visiting Washington, D.C. and Alexandria, Va., for a conference.”

Many of Hoese’s former students have gone on to find good jobs in biology fields. Jennifer Ibarra, was the first in her family to go to college, liked animals and wanted to work with them in their natural environment.

She enrolled in Hoese’s ornithology class in 2019.

“As a result of that, she met with lots of people who do bird and biology-related research for their careers and who were alumni from Cal State Fullerton,” said Hoese, and this enabled Ibarra to see herself as a potential biologist.

“Then she did independent work with me working out in the desert, looking at the effects of traffic noise on foraging by desert animals,” Hoese said. After graduating, she got a job working with California condors and reached out to Hoese.

“She said, ‘Hey, let’s figure out a way to get your class up to Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge to see these condors.’ And so we did,” said Hoese, still amazed at this turn of events. “So at this point now, she’s the role model for all the students in the class.”

It was a proud moment for Hoese. “To have her have this whole experience where she learned about all these opportunities, and then she turned around and gave back to Cal State Fullerton, my class, and my students was just fantastic,” he said.

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