Kudos to these faculty and staff
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- Northern Arizona University’s online bachelor of social work program was ranked No. 13 by Best MSW Programs. The mission of NAU’s social work program, grounded in the history, purpose, and values of the profession, is to educate competent generalist social workers for practice with diverse populations and multi-level social systems in local, regional and global contexts.
Jamie Rappaport Clark, Thomas Sisk and Judith Posnikoff - Tom Sisk, Olajos-Goslow Professor of Environmental Science and Policy and director of the Landscape Conservation Institute, recently received the Spirit of Defenders Science Award from Defenders of Wildlife. His work focuses on engaging diverse voices in conservation planning and science-based landscape-level analysis of wildlife habitat. NAU alumna Marcey Olajos, donor and founder of the endowed professorship Sisk holds, introduced Sisk at the event.
- Ethnic studies professors Jerry Garcia and T. Mark Montoya were guest speakers at the 14th Annual Celebraciones de la Gente: A Day of the Dead Festival held this weekend at the Museum of Northern Arizona. Garcia gave talks entitled, “Mexican Cockfighting, Culture, and Masculinity” and “Broken Families: Mexican Repatriation”, and Montoya’s talks were titled “Saving our Stories” and “The Boundaries of Belonging.”
- Cindy Browder, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was an invited speaker at the 2017 Rocky Mountain Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) held on 25-28, in Loveland, Colorado. The theme of the meeting was “Energy in the Rockies,” and Browder’s presentation was part of a symposium dedicated to renewable energy and environmentally-friendly catalysis. Her talk was titled “Polymer electrolytes for sustainable power storage devices.” Browder and her collaborators have developed materials for power storage using an epoxy-based electrolyte and have pursued methods to employ sustainably sourced feedstocks for its preparation.
- Jut Wynne, assistant research professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Merriam-Powell Center, was appointed vice chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Cave Invertebrate Specialist Group. He will assist the group in promoting its mission and elevating the importance of managing and conserving cave-adapted insects globally.
- Catherine Gehring, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, recently published a paper through the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) discussing research on soil microbes and their ability to pass on genetics that help them adapt to climate change. Commentary about her work highlighted the impressive research being conducted at NAU over a two-decade period.
Daniel Palm, associate vice president for global initiatives; Santiago Fernandez, executive director and board member, Universidad de Fidelitas, President Rita Cheng, Javier Trejo-Sainz, resident director, NAU in Costa Rica - NAU hosted Santiago Fernandez, executive director and board member of the Universidad Fidelities (UFSJ) in San Jose, Costa Rica, on the Flagstaff Mountain campus on Oct. 11. Fernandez met with President Rita Cheng and associate vice president for global initiatives Daniel Palm to discuss expanding partnership opportunities. The UFSJ collaboration in Costa Rica is NAU’s most popular Spanish language study abroad program, which includes courses on the USFJ city campus, as well as excursions to various parts of the country for cultural context. NAU has sent approximately 70 students per year to UFSJ since the creation of the partnership in 2013.
