In the Spotlight: Jan. 18, 2019

Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs

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  • Postdoctoral scholar Jennifer Buz had a chapter from her thesis, “Photometric characterization of Lucideon and Avian Technologies color standards: Application for calibration of the Mastcam-Z instrument on the Mars 2020 rover,” accepted at the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers Optical Engineering. Her thesis talks about the photometric properties of the Mastcam-Z calibration targets, which will fly on the Mars 2020 rover. 
  • Sociology senior lecturer Jamie I. Bowie, was profiled in Communication Arts magazine’s insights feature. “The Sociology of Logos” discusses how he uses sociology to study logo trends.
  • Matthew Wangeman, a member of the Commission of Disability Access and Design and a staff member at the Institute for Human Development, co-wrote “Teaching disability studies and building a community of pedagogy through Facebook,” a chapter in “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Disability: Looking Towards the Future: Volume 2, 1st Edition.” The book identifies the practical and theoretical implications of interdisciplinary dialogue and challenges people in disability studies to reflect on their professional practice in terms of theory, practice and methods. Wangeman also has a documentary film “My Dad Matthew,” which won its fourth award from a film festival in New Delhi, India.
  • David Trilling, professor of astronomy, co-wrote “Deep Drilling Fields for Solar System Science” with physics and astronomy assistant professor Chad Trujillo and postdoctoral scholars Michael Mommert and Cesar Fuentes. The paper is a proposal of an ecliptic Deep Drilling Field that will discover 10,000 small Kuiper Belt Objects, mostly primitive rock and icy bodies that orbit outside of the solar system.
  • Bachelor’s Degree Center ranked NAU No. 7 in 10 Fastest Online Early Childhood Education Degree Bachelor’s Programs for 2019. The rankings are based on highest quality and fastest education degree. NAU earned a spot on the list for taking less than 24 months to complete their program.
  • Amirhossein Arzani, assistant professor in mechanical engineering, received a grant from the American Heart Association. The AHA Institutional Research Enhancement Award will allow him to study biochemical transport during atherosclerosis, the major form of cardiovascular disease.
  • Chad Trujillo, physics and astronomy assistant professor, was in Science Magazine’s “Top stories: 2018’s top breakthrough, our solar system’s most distant dweller, and pushback on USDA relocation plans.” He was included for having helped discover the most distant object in the solar system. The tiny dwarf planet is named Farout and is 120 times farther from the sun than Earth is from the sun.
  • Suzanne Botello, a psychologist in the Employee Assistance and Wellness Program, received a National Board of Certified Counselors Foundation Approved Clinical Superior Training Award. The scholarship will provide funding to help her get the required training to become an approved clinical supervisor and be better able to work with graduates that need clinical supervision to get their licensing boards.
  • Three Ecological Restoration Institute staffers wrote chapters in the book “A New Era for Collaborative Forest Management.” Melanie M. Colavito, a program coordinator, wrote chapter eight: “Use of Scientific Information to Inform Decision Making on CFLRP Projects.” Director Amy Waltz co-authored chapter seven: “Challenges and opportunities for collaborative adaptive management in forest landscape restoration.” Program coordinator Bryce Esch co-authored chapter one: “Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration in Action: An Overview of the CFLRP cases.” The book looks at a new approach to collaborative forest management.