News at NAU
Featured updates from around NAU
Drama by design
To celebrate a 20-year collaboration between the Department of Theatre and the VisualDESIGNLab, the School of Communication Gallery is showcasing a visual record of theater production posters from the past two decades in the exhibition “The Long Road Together.” It started with a collaboration between Kathleen M. McGeever, chair of the Department of Theatre, and…
The Shand Garden: collaborating to create a shared future
The School of Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM) and the Department of Biological Sciences are working together to revive an outdoor learning space that connects their learning with food production. The Shand Garden, named after late biology professor Richard Shand, was established about 15 years ago as a teaching and research-focused garden. Last spring, most…
Helping people with disabilities maintain their independence
For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), technology can play an important role in making everyday life more accessible and independent. NAU’s Institute for Human Development is looking for participants for a study that could help improve their quality of life and support their independence. The retrospective study called Living Independently Via Enabling Technology…
Campus and community
Drama by design
To celebrate a 20-year collaboration between the Department of Theatre and the VisualDESIGNLab, the School of Communication Gallery is showcasing a visual record of theater production posters from the past two decades in the exhibition “The Long Road Together.” It started with a collaboration between Kathleen M. McGeever, chair of the Department of Theatre, and…
From desk to community: Growing connections and making an impact
NAU’s Axe of Service website has recorded more than 6,800 service hours from 4,000 users in the last year. Two of those users, Rachel Kanyur and Lydia Nelson, continue to find ways to give back to the Flagstaff community. With four months left in the calendar year, why not join them? Kanyur, a student recruitment…
Team of NAU, Flagstaff experts takes second place in global XPRIZE Wildfire competition
A group of NAU and Flagstaff-based scientists and engineers just captured a coveted award at the XPRIZE Wildfire Competition, winning $250,000 and global recognition. Team Snuffed won the methodological innovation award and second place overall in the competition’s Space-Based Detection & Intelligence track, beating out a handful of other finalists and an initial field of more than 300 other teams. This is the team’s latest accomplishment on the road to developing hardware and software…
Create, repair, upcycle: Everything you can do at the MakerLab
The average American throws out more than 80 pounds of clothes every year. The MakerLab at Cline Library wants to bring that number way down. For a decade, the MakerLab housed a collection of 3D printers and other high-tech tools, but its most popular tool is a sewing machine. Thanks to a grant from the Arizona State Library, it’s getting new machines and offering Repair Labs so the NAU and Flagstaff communities…
Kathleen King named the 2026 Homecoming dedicatee!
While rain sprinkled outside, a group of 30 faculty, staff and students gathered with anticipation in an empty School of Hotel and Restaurant Management classroom on Sept. 16. Down the hall, Kathleen King was facilitating a headshot and resume writing session for freshmen. Little did she know that an ambush was headed her way. Equipped…
Get ready to drive your curiosity at the Flagstaff Festival of Science
Science isn’t just something we learn in a classroom; it is part of our everyday lives. This year, the Flagstaff Festival of Science, which runs from Sept. 25-Oct. 4, will give children, teens and adults alike the opportunity to explore the science around us with a wide variety of events and activities that hit on…
Co-designing a STEM curriculum for Indigenous kids
They say success is nothing without someone to share it with. That’s certainly true in Tuba City, an 8,600-person town in the Navajo Nation. “Members of the Navajo Nation love celebrating,” said Anne Hamlin, a research associate at NAU’s Center for STEM Teaching and Learning (CSTL). “They turn out to basketball games, parades, flea markets and fairs in droves. I once tabled at the…
Northern Arizona Disability Resource Fair returning in October
It’s bigger, it’s better and it’s back! For the third year, the Northern Arizona Disability Resource Fair returns to Flagstaff on Oct. 3 at the High Country Conference Center. The community event, presented by the Institute for Human Development (IHD) and Care 4 the Caregivers, offers helpful resources and the opportunity to connect with local…
Purr-pose in action
What started as a project to help High Country Humane keep their cat population happy became an opportunity for students, community members and local businesses to come together with one shared purr-pose: giving cats their best (nine) lives in the shelter. Jessica “J.R.” MacKenzie, a professor of practice of interior design at the School of Art + Design (SoA+D), was contacted by Tresban Rivera, former executive director of High Country Humane, to volunteer her time…
Taking an AXE to the cost of course materials for NAU students
A partnership between Northern Arizona University and Follett, NAU’s campus store partner, will make course materials available at a single price for NAU students this fall. The program, known as NAU Axe/ess, ensures that all participating students receive their required course materials at the start of the term for a predictable price, regardless of their major or the retail price of individual materials. With Axe/ess, all required course materials are available to all students immediately at the…
Research and academics
The Shand Garden: collaborating to create a shared future
The School of Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM) and the Department of Biological Sciences are working together to revive an outdoor learning space that connects their learning with food production. The Shand Garden, named after late biology professor Richard Shand, was established about 15 years ago as a teaching and research-focused garden. Last spring, most…
Helping people with disabilities maintain their independence
For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), technology can play an important role in making everyday life more accessible and independent. NAU’s Institute for Human Development is looking for participants for a study that could help improve their quality of life and support their independence. The retrospective study called Living Independently Via Enabling Technology…
Mapping the past and preserving the future
With a grant from Western National Parks, a team from the Department of Anthropology and NAU’s Radiant Center for Remote Sensing has partnered with the National Park Service (NPS) on the architectural documentation and digital mapping of Wukoki Pueblo, a site 30 miles north of Flagstaff within Wupatki National Monument. Kaitlyn Davis and Kellam Throgmorton,…
Rethinking history
For centuries, historians have drawn the boundaries of where ancient people lived based on the evidence they left behind; by studying their remains, burial practices and other archaeological clues, they can determine the types of relationships they had with other people in the area. However, this can all change when new archaeological evidence is found. …
A trail to healthier communities
NAU is putting Arizona on the trail to a healthier future. With a grant from the National Park Service (NPS), researchers from the university are collaborating with the Sun Corridor Trail Association, the NPS Rivers and Trails Conservation Assistance Program (RTCA) and counties throughout the state to build the Sun Corridor Trail, an unbroken 1,500-mile…
Sparking community connection with AI
This summer, NAU welcomed 17 first-generation high school students to campus for a month-long journey to explore how AI, social media and communications can be used to address health issues that matter to their communities. The AI-Advocate Teen Program, developed by Zhan Xu, associate professor in the School of Communication, with support from a National…
Is a nearby advanced alien civilization out there waiting to pounce on Earth? Unlikely, says new study
Science fiction suggests that life on other planets, if it exists, is likely far more advanced than life on Earth. A recent study suggests otherwise. This new study, led by Chris Doughty, a professor of ecoinformatics at Northern Arizona University, proposes that the extent to which life on potentially habitable exoplanets in Earth’s stellar neighbors is advanced is likely related to plant energy,…
How NAU is developing better disease forecasting
Pandemics are unpredictable. An NAU epidemiologist is part of an international effort to make the diseases, or at least their dynamics, a little less so. Spencer Fox, an assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, uses mathematical and statistical models to predict the behavior of illnesses like COVID-19, influenza, Ebola and Zika. For more than a decade he has been forecasting influenza dynamics in the…
Where anthropology meets disease
History not only lives in books. It can be found in the physical traces people leave behind, including their bones. A class at NAU teaches students how disease outbreaks can be understood through an anthropological lens, focusing on what human remains and historical accounts reveal about the spread of disease and the impact of epidemics. In ANT 105: Plagues, Bones and History, students study the relationship…
Study finds that far-out solar system objects ‘remember’ their past
What can distant, tiny objects in space tell us about how our solar system formed? As it turns out, quite a lot. A pair of new studies, one of which was led by NAU Ph.D. candidate Anastasia Morgan, examined Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs)—some of the most far-flung bodies in the solar system—in an effort to better understand how…
Messages from the NAU President
Welcome to the Spring 2026 semester, Lumberjacks
January 12, 2026 Dear Lumberjacks, Happy New Year, and welcome to the Spring 2026 semester at Northern Arizona University! I hope you had time over the break to rest and recharge. As classes begin today, our NAU community remains focused on what matters most: excellence in teaching and learning, impactful scholarship and creative activity, meaningful…
Generating our own light: Our focus for the year ahead
August 25, 2025 Dear colleagues, Welcome to the start of the 2025-2026 academic year! As our classrooms, campus, and community fill with the energy of our students and the start of a new semester, I want to thank all of you who joined me for last week’s Convocation, whether in person or online. Your engagement…
Announcing Uri Farkas as NAU’s new Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics
June 30, 2025 Dear Lumberjacks, I am pleased to announce that Uri Farkas has been appointed Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics at Northern Arizona University, effective July 1. Since stepping into the interim role in March, Uri has led with integrity, energy, and vision—qualities that have inspired excellence across Lumberjack Athletics. Under his leadership, our…
Steady steps. Bold moves. Our year at NAU.
May 8, 2025 Dear Lumberjacks, As this academic year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on what it means to lead a public university during a time of complexity, change, and deep need. I hope you’ll take a couple of minutes to watch the short video below—a collection of moments from the past…