Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs.
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- Sara Rinfret, a director and professor of public administration for the Department of Politics and International Affairs, was selected as the vice president and president-elect for the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA). NASPAA is the global accreditation body for all public administration education programs and will host its fall 2025 conference at NAU. Rinfret earned this position after a rigorous nomination process involving NASPAA’s more than 300 member schools.
- NAU alumna Shondiin Mayo contributed to the article “Historic Apology: Boarding school history ‘a sin on our soul,’” published in Indian Country Today. The news article covers President Joe Biden’s historic apology on behalf of the United States for its history of hosting more than 500 Indigenous boarding schools and the subsequent cultural genocide inflicted on Native American communities.
- The Department of Global Languages and Cultures is launching its new Spanish for the Health Professions undergraduate certificate program this fall. This program is designed to address the demand for health care professionals with cross-cultural communication skills by focusing on the cultural, social and linguistic knowledge necessary to treat and assist Hispanic patients.
- Multiple faculty members, students and alumni from the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science (APS) were presenters and co-authors acknowledged at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Science meeting in Boise, Idaho. The department members recognized include:
- Department Chair David Trilling
- Professor Josh Emery
- Assistant professor Haley Sapers
- Professor Stephen Tegler
- Associate professor Cristina Thomas
- Associate professor Chad Trujillo
- Postdoctoral scholars Annika Gustafsson, Lauren McGraw and Will Oldroyd
- Doctoral students Will Burris, Maria Chernyavskaya, Anna Engle, Kennedy Farrell, Lucas McClure, Ana Morgan, Ryder Strauss and Cece Thieberger
- Alumni Wilnelia Barea-Carrion, Colin Chandler, Jarod DeSpain, Max Hood, Rachel Huchmala, Oriel Humes, Jay Kueny and Audrey Martin
- Sam Hemmelgarn, a first-year APS doctoral student, was the first author of the paper “How Meteor Showers Can Guide the Search for Long Period Comets,” published in the Planetary Science Journal. The study investigates the procedures of detecting long-period comets based on the meteor showers they create when passing close to Earth’s orbit.
- Engle was the first author of the paper “Ice Formation, Exsolution, and Multiphase Equilibria in the Methane–Ethane–Nitrogen System at Titan Surface Conditions,” published in The Planetary Science Journal. This study looks into the effect nitrogen has on ice formation on Titan’s surface, Saturn’s largest moon. Other authors from NAU include Hanley, Grundy, Tegler, Lindberg, doctoral student Shaelyn Raposa, Thieberger and alum Shyanne Dustrud.
- Undergraduate APS student Hunter Brooks was a co-creator of the citizen science initiative “Exoasteroids” developed by the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab. The project’s website encourages citizens to use footage from telescopes to identify white dwarf stars with fluctuating brightnesses, as these may be remnants of planetary system host stars similar to Earth’s sun.