Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs.
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- Pamela Buzzard, a Cline Library associate librarian, conducted a data training presentation with three other librarians from across the country at the Medical Library Association Conference in Portland, Oregon, on May 21. Their presentation focused on the applications of the All of Us Researcher Workbench, a comprehensive collection of healthcare data based on a range of patient demographics, for college libraries.
- NAU was recognized as one of Money’s 2024 Best Colleges in America. Colleges on Money’s list earn their spots based on multiple factors, including cost of attendance, financial aid opportunities and acceptance and graduation rates.
- Kitchka Petrova, an assistant teaching professor at NAU Yuma, was recognized as one of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 2024 E. Kika De La Garza Education Fellows. As one of 32 accepted faculty and staff members from Hispanic-Serving Institutions excelling in their fields, Petrova was invited to travel to Washington, D.C., and spend a week meeting with agency leaders and exploring USDA services and programs.
- Maiah Jaskoski, a professor in NAU’s Department of Politics and International Affairs, co-edited the June 2024 special issue of the journal Studies in Comparative International Development with Tulane University professor Moisés Arce. The issue, “Development Elites, Impacted Communities, and Environmental Governance in Latin America,” explores environmental policy implementation, sustainable development regulations and the influences communities can have on these government actions. The issue also includes Jaskoski’s article “Opportunities and Choices During Environmental Licensing: Community Participation in Latin America’s Extractive Sectors,” which studies how public hearings in Latin American countries can help communities participate in decisions about local mining or hydrocarbon projects.
- Vito Miao, an applied linguistics doctoral student, received the Esperantic Studies Foundation’s 2024 Marjorie Boulton Fellowship for his dissertation “Investigating the Effect of Social Psychology and Global Englishes Interventions on Listener Perception and Comprehension of Global Englishes Varieties.” Miao was one of two awardees who earned a $10,000 prize for outstanding research in linguistic justice, intercultural communication, the artificial language Esperanto or other communication fields.
- Fred DeMicco, professor in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, co-authored the opinion piece “Lodging Strategy: University-Based Retirement Centers (UBRC)” on Hospitality Net. The article outlines the hypothetical benefits of retirement communities affiliated with university resources and argues they could alleviate social isolation.
- NAU Social won the Walls.io Best User-Generated Content & Lead Generation award for the real-time social media posts collected and presented during May’s commencement ceremonies. This honor is semiannually awarded to Walls.io software users who create social media displays that effectively collect and creatively unveil user content.
- Carly Banks, assistant director of visual communications, was featured as one of the Arizona Daily Sun’s 2024 Young Professionals of Flagstaff. Banks was commended for her exceptional work leading communication initiatives at NAU for more than a decade and as a photographer and videographer for groups across Flagstaff. She was also recognized for her status as co-founder of Flagstaff Team Trivia, co-owner of Sacred Mountain Fighting and Healing Arts and a board member of the Flagstaff Leadership Project.
- To celebrate the creation of its new Immersive Media and Games degree program, NAU’s College of Engineering, Informatics, and Applied Sciences (CEIAS) hosted its second annual Game Jam on June 29, an event where high school juniors and seniors gathered to compete and develop their own video games using Construct 3 software. This year’s Game Jam focused on the theme “Nothing is Permanent” and featured a winning game where the protagonist uses only a bar of soap to clean up a post-industrialization dystopian town.