In the Spotlight: Dec. 20, 2019

Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs

Do you have a spotlight item to share with the NAU community?

E-mail your announcements to Inside@nau.edu, or use our online submission form.

  • Astronomy and planetary science assistant professor Ty Robinson was one of the authors on a paper published by Cornell University. “Detecting and Characterizing Water Vapor in the Atmospheres of Earth Analogs through Observation of the 0.94 Micron Feature in Reflected Light” looks at developing an efficient observational strategy by characterizing the atmospheric water vapor content of water-bearing worlds.
  • Josh Emery, associate professor in astronomy and planetary science, was one of the authors of “Episodes of particle ejection from the surface of the active asteroid (101955) Bennu.” The paper, published in Science Magazine, describes close-range observations of mass loss on the near-Earth asteroid.
  • Northern Arizona University was one of eight schools in the U.S. to receive the FY19 General Douglas MacArthur Award. The award is based on a combination of the achievement of the school’s commissioning mission, its cadets’ performance and standing on the command’s National Order of Merit List and its cadet retention rate. NAU was recognized as the top performing program in the 5th Brigade of Army ROTC.
  • English professor Monica Brown was a featured speaker at the recent Regional Anti-Defamation League event in which Phoenix Coyotes president Ahron Cohen was honored with the Torch of Liberty Award. Brown, an award-winning author inspired by her Peruvian and Jewish heritage to bring diverse stories to children, also shared her poem, “Tree of Life,” at the event.
  • Astronomy and planetary science professor Devon Burr co-authored “Investigation of target property effects on crater populations in long lava flows: A study in the Cerberus region, Mars, with implications for magma source identification.” The paper, recently published in ScienceDirect, It found that ages decrease with increasing distance from the inferred source.
  • School of Music director Todd E. Sullivan was elected to a three-year term (2019-2022) on the National Association of Schools of Music Commission on Accreditation. The Board of Directors, which represents a variety of musical backgrounds, is made up of a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, the immediate past president, the chair and the associate chair of the commission on accreditation, the chair of the commission on community college accreditation, a non-degree-granting member, nine regional chairs and three public members.
  • Members of the Astronomy and Planetary Science department (including both faculty and students) were first or co-authors on at least 15 presentations at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting last week in San Francisco. The five-day AGU conference is the largest international Earth and space science meeting in the world.
NAU Communications