In the Student Spotlight: June 18, 2021

Kudos to these students

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  • Shih-Yun Tang, doctoral student in the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science (DAPS), was the lead author on the article, “Impacts of Water Latent Heat on the Thermal Structure of Ultra-Cool Objects: Brown Dwarfs and Free-Floating Planets” published in Earth and Planetary Astrophysics. The article studied the impacts of water latent heat for Y-class brown dwarfs and free-floating planets. Co-authors included DAPS assistant professor Ty Robinson and Lowell astronomer Lisa Prato.
  • Graduate student Brian Izbicki and Regents’ professor Michelle Mack, both from the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, co-authored the article, “Evaluating the Differenced Normalized Burn Ratio for Assessing Fire Severity Using Sentinel-2 Imagery in Northeast Siberian Larch Forests” published in Remote Sensing. The study used Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to test using the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio, which assesses fire severity, for two fire scars and 37 plots in Northeast Siberian larch-dominated forests.
  • The men’s and women’s track and field teams had several student-athletes compete successfully at the NCAA championships.
    • Junior runner Luis Grijalva was No. 2 in the men’s 5K and posted an Olympic standard time of 13:13.14. He earned First-Team All-American Honors for his performance and broke the NAU and league record time of 13:15.33 set by alum Diego Estrada in 2013.
    • Freshman runner Abdihamid Nur finished No. 3 in the men’s 10K with a time of 27:42.73. This was a personal best time that earned him First-Team All-American honors and also broke the Big Sky Conference record time.
    • Junior runner Jessa Hanson finished No. 11 in the 10K with a personal best time of 32:55.24. This earned her Second-Team All-American honors.
  • The NAU men’s tennis team ranked No. 8 overall in the Oracle Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Mountain Region rankings. Eban Straker-Meads also earned the Mountain Region’s Most Improved Senior award concluding the season tied for No. 20 in singles rankings and No. 10 in doubles with junior partner Facundo Tumosa.
  • The NAU women’s tennis team was ranked No. 2 overall in the ITA rankings, which is the highest the program has ranked in the Mountain Region. Three players also landed in the region’s rankings.
    • Freshman tennis player Gina Dittmann earned the Rookie of the Year award. She is ranked No. 117 nationally and finished the year at 15-1 overall.
    • Sophomore Mimi Bland finished the season ranked No. 9 in the region for singles. For doubles, Bland and her partner senior Ellie Millard finished in the No. 10 spot.
  • Senior kicker Luis Aguilar was named to the Phil Steele FCS All-American Second Team, the second All-American honor from Phil Steele during his career. Overall, this is the 10th career postseason All-American honor and he was previously recognized by the Associated Press and the American Football Coaches Association in the offseason.