In the Spotlight: April 5, 2019

Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs

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  • Ecoss director Bruce Hungate, Regent’s Professor of Biological Sciences, was named a 2019 fellow by the Ecological Society of America. Hungate was selected for his understanding of how soil nutrients regulate terrestrial ecosystem feedbacks to climate change and for developing new tools that fuse the molecular revolution in microbial ecology with quantitative ecological insights using stable isotopes, metabolic flux analysis and ecological theory. Elected for life, fellows of the ESA are those who have made outstanding contributions to a range of fields that advance ecological knowledge in academics, government, nonprofit organizations and the broader society.
  • The February issue of Northern Arizona Mountain Living Magazine featured a profile on School of Communication lecturer Annette McGivney. The article includes McGivney discussing the Healing Lands Project and the Grand Canyon National Park Centennial.
  • Creative media and film professor Kurt Lancaster published “Basic Cinematography: A Creative Guide to Visual Storytelling.” The book, supported through a Scholarly and Creative Activity Award from the Office for the Vice President for Research, features original cover and interior designs by Lancaster and a foreword by Netflix cinematographer Manual Billeter.
  • Mechanical engineering assistant professor Amir Arzani, along with graduate student Symon Reza, published “A critical comparison of different residence time measures in aneurysms” in the Journal of Biomechanics. The paper focuses on a study using image-based computational models of blood flow to compare methods of calculating residence time, an important factor of diseased arterial flows.
  • English department instructor Stacy Murison is the first writer in residence for the Flagstaff City-Coconino County Public Library. The position will include providing free services and events for the community such as assistance writing resumes and grants and creative writing workshops.
  • School of Music professor James Leve was awarded an American Council of Learned Society Fellowship worth $70,000 for the project “Disability Musical Theater: Dramaturgy, Performance, Accommodation, and Access.” The project will focus on how people with disabilities experience theater and how musical theater shapes how society views disability. The project’s goal is to make mainstream musical theater portray more accurate and inclusive representations of disabilities that would more traditionally be seen in non-commercial theater productions.
  • TheBestSchools.org featured Northern Arizona University on its 2019 list of The Best Online Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education Degree Programs. All accredited online degree programs in the country were reviewed before the top 40 were selected. Highlights of NAU’s program include small class sizes with student-to-faculty ratio of 17-to-1, options for distance learners between traditional and competency-based online learning and an online learning environment with outstanding student support for technical issues, tutoring and other resources.
Tallie Valverde