NAU Graduate College

Grad school, elevated

A better world is waiting. If you’re ready to pursue your next opportunity—whether intellectual, professional, or personal—then Northern Arizona University’s flexible, challenging graduate programs will help you get to your next level. Study in Flagstaff, online or statewide.

Graduate Student of the Month

August 2020

Stéphanie Arcusa, who is originally from Aix-en-Provence, France, embodies the true spirit of what it means to be a graduate student at NAU: she is a student leader, a researcher, and a scholar. Stéphanie has a Presidential Fellowship Program fellowship, which provides her with funding and professional development opportunities reserved exclusively for highly qualified Ph.D. students; her research is also supported through the Robert and Judith Braudy Collaboration Award.

As a doctoral candidate in the Earth Science & Environmental Sustainability Ph.D. program, Stéphanie’s dissertation project looks at the relationship between drought and dust storms in the southwest over the past 15,000 years using lake mud from the Rocky Mountains. The risk of drought will increase with climate change, but the effects of increasing drought on dust are not well known. As dust impacts water availability and public health in our region, Stephanie’s work is crucial for risk planning.

Stéphanie is actively involved in campus initiatives that target climate change and support sustainable resource management in the face of climate change.

For example, in 2019-2020, Stéphanie worked tirelessly as the Vice President of External Affairs for the Graduate Student Government (GSG). In her leadership efforts on the Environmental Sustainability and Climate Action Committee (ESCAC), she worked in collaboration with Anona Miller (GSG Director of Climate Action) and the Green Fund to design and propose a live dashboard for NAU that collects and displays campus resource usage including energy, renewable energy, waste, water, and so on to increase campus efficiency and reduce the environmental footprint of NAU. This project has been tied into larger campus-wide projects including the Internet Of Things Smart Campus Initiative and the Sustainable Campus Ecosystem Initiative. The dashboard will provide and display the most comprehensive set of data than any other university in the United States.

Also in collaboration with the Green Fund, Stéphanie and the ESCAC provided support in a proposal to buy a $22,000 high-tech weather station that will be installed on NAU’s International Pavilion. The station will have state-of-the-art weather sensors and radar for lightning and rain and provide some of the best data in the Flagstaff area.

It is clear that Stéphanie impacts the world around her, no matter what particular project she is involved in. Her leadership skills and her dedication to our university, community, and planet exemplify the qualities that are valued in our NAU graduate students. It is with great pride that the Graduate College recognizes Stéphanie Arcusa as the Graduate College’s Graduate Student of the Month Award recipient.

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Whether you pursue graduate studies at the Flagstaff Mountain Campus, a statewide location, or online, NAU offers graduate students outstanding programs, hands-on mentoring, and exceptional research, scholarship, and creative activities. The NAU Graduate College supports all aspects of graduate education and provides robust professional development opportunities.

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