Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs.
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- Two-time Paralympian and incoming NAU junior Keegan Knott was selected to represent the United States at the 2025 Para Swimming World Championships in Singapore. Knott is one of 13 women and seven men chosen to join Team USA this September.
- Ron Gray, the chair of STEM Education and co-director of the Center for STEM Teaching and Learning, became a co-editor for the journal Science Education, which covers international issues and trends relating to science curricula, policy and teaching preparation.
- The Center for World University Rankings placed NAU in the top 3.9% of institutions worldwide in its 2025 school rankings list, which includes 2,000 global institutions. The center ranks universities based on the academic and professional success of their alumni, the number of faculty members with academic achievements and the quality of the research they publish.
- NAU received multiple high rankings within the U.S. News and World Report’s 2025-26 Best Global Universities list, which evaluates the performance and reputations of more than 2,000 schools around the world. These rankings include:
- No. 578 in global universities
- No. 114 in arts and humanities
- No. 50 in ecology
- No. 67 in environment/ecology
- No. 282 in geosciences
- No. 305 in plant and animal science
- No. 569 in social sciences and public health
- Jeff McKay, vice president of capital planning and campus operations, recently joined the board for the northern Arizona chapter of the American Red Cross, which aims to provide humanitarian assistance to local communities through donations and volunteers.
- John Doherty, librarian and head of research and instruction services for Cline Library, published his article “The Librarians of Time and Space: The librarian-hero in contemporary science fiction and fantasy” in the open-access Journal of Science Fiction. Doherty’s article examines the evolution of libraries and librarians in speculative fiction, highlighting their roles as guardians of knowledge and gatekeepers to otherworldly realms.
- NAU Athletics swept the 2025 Big Sky All-Sports Trophy standings, earning its 19th Men’s All-Sports Trophy and 10th Women’s All-Sports Trophy in program history. Both trophy standings are determined through a formula that accounts for each school’s regular-season finish and the results of all conference tournaments and championships each institution offers.
- NAU journalism alumna Charis Hayward received a Ministry of Education (MOE) Taiwan Scholarship, which provides up to 40,000 new Taiwan dollars a semester and a monthly allowance of up to 20,000 new Taiwan dollars for students studying abroad in Taiwan.
- Karli VanderMeersch, the 2024-25 ASNAU president and an NAU alumna, won a scholarship from Humanitarian Affairs Asia to travel to Thailand.