In the Spotlight: March 26, 2008

Kudos to these faculty, staff and students

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  • Jim Wilce, professor of anthropology, had an article, “Scientizing Bangladeshi Psychiatry: Parallelism, Enregisterment, and the Cure for a Magic Complex,” appear in the February issue of the journal, Language in Society.
  • Jeffrey Downard, chair of the philosophy department, recently received a National Endowment for the Humanities award of $200,000 to develop an approach to teaching ethics from the classic texts in philosophy. Julie Piering, assistant professor of philosophy, and Chris Griffin, associate professor of philosophy, will also be working on the grant.
  • Robert Schehr, professor of criminology and criminal justice, has published an article titled, “Shedding the Burden of Sisyphus: International Law and Wrongful Conviction in the United States,” in the Boston College Third World Law Journal.
  • Nadine Barlow, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been appointed associate director of the NAU/NASA Space Grant Program by the Arizona Space Grant Consortium Office at the University of Arizona. She replaces Barry Lutz, who resigned to become interim dean of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences.
  • NAU Police Department Sgt. Paul Sorenson was one of five northern Arizona law enforcement officers honored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, San Francisco Peaks Post 1709, during the group’s annual awards ceremony. Sorenson was named one of five law enforcement officers of the year. Also named were Flagstaff Police Officer Roy Taylor, Coconino County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Curtis, Williams Police Officer Robert McCarty, and Arizona Department of Public Safety Officer Dave Jansen.
  • The following NAU faculty and students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy gave presentations at the 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, held March 10-14 in League City, Texas.
    • Nadine Barlow, associate professor, presented “Quasi-MLE craters: An unusual crater morphology at high Martian latitudes.”
    • Nathalia Alzate, graduate student, gave a poster presentation titled, “Characteristics and distribution of central pit craters on Ganymede.”
    • Eric Beitia, undergraduate student, gave a poster presentation titled, “Martian H2O ice outliers may result from wintertime near-surface CO2 snows.”
  • J. Judson Wynne, biology doctoral student and cave research scientist of Merriam-Powell Center of Environmental Research, gave a poster presentation at the 39th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on March 13 in Houston, Texas. The presentation was titled, “Annual Thermal Amplitudes and Thermal Detection of Southwestern U.S. Caves: Additional Insights for Remote Sensing of Caves on Earth and Mars.”
  • Six undergraduate art education students will be featured in the April issue of SchoolArts magazine.
    • Devin Smith has been selected as a winner in the College/Preservice category in the annual SchoolArts Artist Trading Card contest. Joan AgundezHeather Elliot and Alison Phillips each received honorable  mentions. Artist trading cards are original works in trading card format and are exchanged among artists. More than 2,500 American and international entries were submitted for the contest. The students’ cards will be displayed at the National Art Education Association conference in New Orleans, March 25-30.
    • Articles written by Elizabeth Hintz and Neri Luzietti will be published in the same issue of SchoolArts. Both students wrote about original lessons they created for K-12 classrooms. Hintz’s article, “Bent into Shape,” details a simple sculpture lesson for kindergarten students. Luzietti’s article, “Social Realism,” details a collage technique for secondary students.
  • Kathleen Birch, an administrative specialist in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management and adviser to the NAU chapter of the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality, recently traveled with 11 HRM students to the society’s national conference in Pittsburgh. Sophomore Emily Benforado won the conference’s national award for highest GPA. She is on track to participate in an internship with Hyatt Hotels on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. Laura Yoccabel, also a sophomore, was elected Western Region chair. She will be a member of the society’s national board for the 2008-09 academic year. Yoccabel, Jesi Starkovich and Bobby Raquel received three of the 20 scholarships presented during the conference’s awards gala. Birch was one of eight advisers out of 72 chapters nominated for Adviser of the Year. It is the second year in a row she was nominated.