In the Student Spotlight: May 7, 2021

Kudos to these students

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  • 2021 graduates Anna Barrett and Hannah Gish each won a Fulbright Award to be an English teaching assistant abroad. Barrett will teach in South Korea and Gish will teach in Spain. Alumni Anthony Danza and graduate Keizer Tumbagahan are alternates for the program.
  • Junior Matthew Greyeyes, honors biomedical science major, received Honorable Mention in Native health from the Udall Undergraduate Scholarship for Native American Initiatives. The Udall Foundation was established in 1992 to honor Morris K. Udall’s impact on the nation’s environment, public lands and natural resources and for his support of the rights and self-governance of American Indians and Alaska Natives.
  • Students Allison Harmon, Adriana Avery, Jennifer Sloan, Justyne Mason and George Testo will participate in the Helios Scholars at TGen program this summer. The program is an internship in biomedical research, and each student will work on a full-time project under the mentorship of a TGen scientist in areas such as diabetes, neurological disease or cancer.
  • The NAU men’s cross country and track and field team ranked No. 17 this week on the Division I Men’s Outdoor Track & Field Rating Index. The team has five event squads ranked within the top 15 for their respective events: No. 1 for 5,000-meter, No. 4 for shot put, No. 6 for discus, No. 11 for 1,500-meter and No. 13 for hammer throw.
  • Freshman distance runner Abdihamid Nur was named the Big Sky Men’s Athlete of the Week while junior distance runner Taryn O’Neill earned the title of Big Sky Women’s Athlete of the Week after their performances at the West Coast Relays. Nur finished No. 1 in the 10,000-meter run with a time of 27:47.27 and O’Neill finished No. 4 in the women’s 5,000-meter race with a time of 15:36.14.
  • The NAU Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Mini-Baja team placed No. 5 overall, No. 4 in endurance, No. 2 in suspension and No. 28 in design presentation out of 128 universities in the Baja SAE competition. The team, made up of mechanical engineering students, were tasked with designing and building a single-seat all-terrain sporting vehicle that serves as a prototype for a reliable, maintainable, ergonomic and economic production vehicle for the recreational user market. The team was led by faculty adviser David Willy, senior lecturer of mechanical engineering.
  • From the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS), doctoral student Alireza Shamsoshoara, associate professor Fatemeh Afghah, assistant professor Abolfazl Razi, doctoral student Liming Zheng and Regents’ professor of forestry Peter Fulé, co-authored the article, “Aerial imagery pile burn detection using deep learning: The FLAME dataset” published in Computer Networks. The study provides a fire image dataset to help with methods for fire detection and segmentation that will assist firefighters and researchers in developing fire management strategies.
  • From the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science (APS), doctoral students Annika Gustafsson and Colin Chandler, along with associate professor Chad Trujillo, co-authored the article, “(6478) Gault: Physical characterization of an active main-belt asteroid” published in Earth and Planetary Astrophysics. The study presented results of photometric and spectroscopic observations of Gault, an asteroid belonging to the Phocaea dynamical family and not previously known to be active.
  • Christian Tai Udovicic, doctoral student of APS, was selected for the 2021 LPI Exploration Science Summer Internship. The program will focus on activities that support missions to the Moon using the Orion vehicle, the Deep Space Getaway, a crew lander and robotic assets on the lunar surface.
  • Andy Lopez, doctoral student of APS, co-authored the article, “Dione’s Wispy Terrain: A Cryovolcanic Story?” published in The Planetary Science Journal. The study examined the water phase on the surface of one of Saturn’s icy satellites to see if it might harbor cryovolcanic activity induced by a subcrustal body of water.
  • Undergraduate researcher Jordyn Upton received a runner-up prize at the regional American Association for Microbiology conference for the poster titled, “The Rabie-c’s: Testing the capabilities of a molecular assay for non-invasive rabies virus surveillance.” Assistant professor of SICCS Crystal Hepp and Faith Walker, assistant research professor of forestry, were advisers on the project.