Our core facilities and high-performance labs provide researchers with the resources and technologies they need to achieve world-class scientific outcomes, such as Monsoon, the high-performance computing cluster, the Research Greenhouse Complex, and the Imaging and Histology Core Facility.
Our researchers don’t confine their studies to the labs. They conduct field projects all over the world, including the Arctic tundra, the caves of Easter Island, the waters off southern Argentina, a rainforest in Ghana, and the Anindilyakwa communities on Groote Island, Australia. Many researchers offer opportunities for their students to participate in these projects, too.
At NAU, faculty take advantage of the many opportunities to study in the field right in our own backyard. Here, students learn to conduct research beyond the traditional classroom and lab in settings including the highest mountain range in Arizona, the Colorado Plateau, and the world’s largest ponderosa pine forest—all conveniently located in and around Flagstaff.
There are five life zones within 50 miles of NAU’s main campus, and six in the state of Arizona: Lower Sonoran (low, hot desert), Upper Sonoran (desert steppe or chaparral), Transition (open woodlands), Canadian (fir forest), Hudsonian (spruce forest), and Arctic-Alpine (alpine meadows or tundra).