In the Spotlight: Nov. 14-18, 2022

Kudos to these faculty, staff, students and programs 

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  • The Northern Arizona University cross country teams had a successful Mountain Regional competition, with the men’s team earning an automatic bid to the NCAA National Championships after winning the team title. 
  • Northern Arizona University has six Highly Cited Researchers this year. Since 2001, the Highly Cited Researchers list has identified global research scientists and social scientists who have demonstrated exceptional influence—reflected through their publication of multiple papers frequently cited by their peers during the last decade. NAU’s Highly Cited Researchers and their affiliated categories are: 
    • J. Gregory Caporaso – Biology and biochemistry and microbiology
    • Nicholas A. Bokulich – Cross-Field (has since left NAU)
    • Andrew D. Richardson – Cross-Field 
    • Yiqi Luo – Environment and Ecology (has since left NAU)
    • Ted Schuur – Geosciences 
  • Scott Drum, assistant professor in the College of Health and Human Services, attended the Southwest American College of Sports Medicine Conference with one graduate student and eight undergraduate students. NAU had two student presenters: Jordyn Keddy, studying undergraduate fitness wellness, and Seth Long, a graduate student. The overall experience was one of networking with peers, researchers and faculty from various universities across five states in the Southwest region; learning evidence-based best practices related to the field of exercise and sport science; and understanding how to choose concurrent, peerreviewed talks about the latest trends in the field. 
  • Northern Arizona University and VoiceOrder Solutions are partnering to embrace a leading-edge voice technology strategy for the hospitality, food and beverage industries. The relationship will allow NAU students to place orders, provide software design recommendations and contribute to advancing a leading-edge innovation. 
  • Peter Vadasz, professor of mechanical engineering, was featured in Stanford’s list of the World’s Top 2% Scientists in 2022. This ranking is considered the most prestigious of its kind and is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database. It includes more than 200,000 researchers from the more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account. 
  • Jaime Awe, professor in the Department of Anthropology, was an invited speaker of the MacMillan Center, Council of Latin American and Iberian Studies, and the Department of Anthropology at Yale University on Nov. 3. At the Yale Ancient Latin America Lecture Series, Awe presented the results of his ongoing research on “Ancient Maya Responses to Severe Drought and Their Implications for Understanding the Decline of Maya Civilization.” Awe also co-authored two recently published papers, “Exploring Maya Population History of Central Belize” in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 45, and “Ancient Lowland Maya Neighborhoods: Average Nearest Neighbor Analysis and Kernel Density Models, Environments, and Urban Scale,” published in the journal PLOS One. 
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