Spotlight

In the Spotlight: Feb. 1, 2019

Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs

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  • “Through the Eyes of Youth: Life and Death in the Będzin Ghetto,”an exhibit created by the Martin-Springer Polish MSI announcementInstitute, opens in Sosonowiece, Poland, this weekend after lobbying from institute director Björn Krondorfer. The exhibit follows the lives of eight Jewish youth from the ghetto. Doris Szpringer Martin, who founded the Martin-Springer Institute with her husband, Ralph, grew up in Będzin.
  • John Heick, associate professor in physical therapy and athletic training, was appointed incoming editor of Orthopaedic Physical Therapy Practice.
  • Dorothy Dunn, associate professor in the School of Nursing, authored “Compassion Energy: A Heideggerian Approach,” which was recently published. The book explores what keeps nurses in the field by analyzing the relational experiences between nurses and patients through a number of case studies.
  • Assistant professor in sociology Katsuya Oi had the article “Does Gender Differentiate the Effects of Retirement on Cognitive Health” accepted for publication into a highly esteemed journal for research on aging and the article “Does degree completion improve non-cognitive skills during early adulthood and adulthood?” in the Journal of Adolescence.
    Michael Langston was recognized as Officer of the Year
  • NAUPD Cpl. Michael Langston was recognized as Officer of the Year by the Flagstaff Veterans of Foreign Wars for his outstanding contributions to the NAU community in 2018.
  • The NAU Police Department received an award for public health excellence in law enforcement by Arizona’s Strategic Planning and EMS Recognition Programs manager. The department implemented a training program for patrol officers to administer Narcan in the event they encounter a victim of opioid overdose. They are one of only 30 departments statewide to train and outfit officers for this type of emergency situation.
  • The NAU MindsMatters research team had an article published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The team comprises professors in psychological sciences Heidi Wayment and Ann Huffman as well as Deborah Craig and Monica Lininger of the physical therapy and athletic training department. The article, “A Simple Field-Based Tool to Assess Concussion Symptom Reporting Behavior,” addresses the problem with understanding how effective concussion-education programs are in increasing the number of reported concussions.
  • The Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative (SHERC) held a Research Poster Presentation and Reception featuring funded researchers showcasing their research in health disparities. SHERC is a grant-funded initiative of the Center for Health Equity Research with the goal of increasing basic biomedical, clinical and behavioral research at NAU to address health disparities among diverse populations of the Southwestern U.S. SHERC research projects included:
    • Talima Pearson, assistant research professor in biological sciences with “Do pathogen genotypes, carriage, and social network differences lead to health disparities in MRSA/MSSA infections?”
    • Robert Kellar, associate professor of practice at the Center for Bioengineering Innovation, and Catherine Propper, professor in biological sciences with “Elucidating the effects of arsenic and estrogen on wound healing.”
    • Arachana Varadaraj, assistant professor in chemistry and biochemistry with “Fibrillogenesis mediated phenotype switching of breast cancer cells.”
    • Naren Rajasekaran, assistant professor in chemistry and biochemistry with “Investigating the anti-tumor cytotoxicity of reovirus treated NK cells for cancer therapy.”
  • SHERC pilot projects included:
    • Fatemeh Afghah, assistant professor in the School of informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS) with “A remote heart monitoring system for early prediction of AFib for rural population.”
    • Emily Cope, assistant professor in biological sciences with “Addressing asthma health disparities through diet-based manipulation of the gut microbiome-airway axis.”
    • Hendrik de Heer, associate professor in health sciences with “Addressing health disparities in childhood obesity, one summer at a time.”
    • Crystal Hepp, assistant professor in SICCS with “Characterization of populations linked to Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome: Infants with NAS and their mothers.”
    • Andrew Koppisch, associate professor in chemistry and biochemistry with “Novel ionic liquid formulations to combat diabetic foot ulcer infections.”
    • Jason Ladner, assistant professor of biological sciences with “High-throughput characterization of health disparities related to viral infections.”
    • Gerrick Lindberg, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry with “Developing room temperature preservation and storage strategies for medicinally-relevant biological molecules.”
    • Morgan Vigil-Hayes, assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems with “ARORA: Using augmented reality to gamify a universal social emotional learning intervention in low-infrastructure environments.”

 

Tallie Valverde