Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs
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- Robert Kellar, associate professor of practice of biology, Nathan Nieto, the late associate professor of biology, and Andy Koppisch, associate professor of chemistry, were featured on the front cover of Arizona Technology Council’s magazine Tech Connect. “Medical Mending: Tissue Engineering to Heal Wounds” discusses the development of technology that incorporates anti-microbial materials into skin-wound healing scaffolds.
- Winona Reid, Jamie Emanuel and Wayne Dagel, training specialists at the Institute for Human Development-American Indian Vocational Rehabilitation Training and Technical Assistance Center, presented at the annual conference of the National Consortia of Administrators for Native American Rehabilitation. The three presented on topics of data mining with the organization’s annual performance reports and development of effective individual plans for employment.
- Assistant professor with the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute Crystal Hepp was featured in a piece published by The Arizona Republic. The article highlights Hepp’s driving research question: Where is the West Nile virus found in Arizona and in neighboring states coming from? Through DNA analysis, the evolutionary biologist found that at the southeast Phoenix metropolitan area was a hot spot.
- Truong Nghiem, an assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, received a grant from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers-Control Systems Society. The grant is for the advancement of the F1/10 Robo-Racing project in Flagstaff, which seeks to promote education and training in controls, advanced robotics and autonomics vehicles at NAU and the Flagstaff area. The money will help fund an undergraduate course for the spring semester and a high school summer camp in 2020.
- School of Art new media assistant professor Jaewook Lee and senior lecturer David Van Ness published their two-part discussion on propositions of teaching new art media at the university level. The works, published in the online journal TK-21 La Revue (parts one and two), highlight the exclusion of interdisciplinary curriculum in art schools across the United States.
- Erika Nowak, assistant research professor in the School of Earth and Sustainability, gave two talks by special invitation at the Herpetology in America conference in Quito, Ecuador, in November. Nowak discussed venomous and threatened snake conservation and management. NAU’s Center for International Education helped fund Nowak’s travel.
- Kyoungmee “Kate” Byun, assistant professor of interior design in the School of Art, curated and designed the exhibit “Our World Our Say Exhibition #1,” on understanding HIV risk and stories of resilience among adolescents who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Hai Phong, Vietnam. The exhibit is displayed at the Schneider Hall Galleries at the University of Louisville and will remain until February.
- Jiun-Yi (Jenny) Tsai, assistant professor of strategic communication, led a project with the NAU Media Justice project. The project, supported by the Online News Association in 2018-2019, creates an experiment to test efficacy and impacts of mobile news storytelling to empower rural indigenous communities. Journalism lecturer Rachel Tso, creative media & film principal lecturer Paul Helford and assistant professor of practice Brian Rackham were also on the team, joined by Loris Taylor, CEO of Native Public Media, and Tonantzin “Toni” DeAztlan Smith of Purdue University.
- Emeritus Regents’ Professor Bill Grabe and professor of English Fredricka Stoller had the third edition of their text “Teaching and Researching Reading” published by Routledge. The book charts the field of reading systematically and coherently for the benefit of language teachers, students and researchers. It contains reading-curriculum principles, evidence-based teaching ideas and 14 projects for teacher adaption and use.
- Ecoss professor Ted Schuur was among 62 scientists named fellows of the American Geophysical Union this week in San Francisco. Schuur was recognized for being a global leader in research that has fundamentally contributed to understanding the vulnerability of permafrost carbon to climate change. Learn more about the latest permafrost research by following the Permafrost Carbon Network on Twitter.
- Art foundations coordinator and School of Art lecturer Julie Comnick will show a solo exhibition at the LIC Factory in New York City through February. The exhibition is a painting and video project that explores the gradual dissolution of culture in contemporary society through the symbolic ruin of the violin. She will collaborate with New York University master’s student Alex Gray for the opening of the exhibit in January.