{"id":75803,"date":"2025-09-22T10:15:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=75803"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:15:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:15:27","slug":"in-the-spotlight-sept-22-26-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/in-the-spotlight-sept-22-26-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Spotlight: Sept. 22-26, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Do you have a spotlight item to share with the NAU community?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">E-mail your announcements to <\/span><a href=\"mailto:Inside@nau.edu\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Inside@nau.edu<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, or use our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/news-tip\/#.YEjwNWhKg2w\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">online submission form<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\u25cf\" data-font=\"Calibri\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u25cf&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Sierra Bostwick<\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, an undergraduate student majoring in politics and international affairs, earned an honorable mention in the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity\u2019s 2025 Prize in Ethics essay contest for her submission, \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/eliewieselfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Haunting.pdf\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Haunting<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">.\u201d Students who submit essays are encouraged to explore the ethics of a problem, question or issue of their choice. For her piece, Bostwick drew from her experiences growing up in Xinjiang, China, to discuss the genocides committed against the Uyghur people.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\u25cf\" data-font=\"Calibri\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u25cf&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"2\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">After joining the Arizona Housing Analytics Collaborative (AzHAC) as a co-private investigator in March 2025, Department of Mathematics and Statistics assistant professor <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Ben Lucas <\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">and his AzHAC team were awarded $250,000 to continue their research into homelessness. Their initiative aims to predict which individuals are most likely to become homeless based on requests for financial assistance and phone calls to emergency lines.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\u25cf\" data-font=\"Calibri\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u25cf&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"3\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">NAU alumnus <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Geordie Beamish <\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">won gold in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Sept. 15. Beamish claimed the world title by only 0.07 seconds, beating defending champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist Soufiane El Bakkali.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\u25cf\" data-font=\"Calibri\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u25cf&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"4\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">NAU women\u2019s soccer forward <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Micala Boex <\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">was recognized as the Big Sky Co-Offensive Player of the Week on Sept. 16. Boex leads the team in goals, assists and points, and she has scored at least one point in five of the nine matches played so far this season.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\u25cf\" data-font=\"Calibri\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u25cf&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"5\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">NAU quarterback <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Ty Pennington <\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">earned a second consecutive Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week recognition on Sept. 22. Following a career-high passing touchdown performance against Southern Utah University, Pennington matched his record against the University of the Incarnate Word on Saturday. He led NAU to its ninth consecutive win in the Skydome.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\u25cf\" data-font=\"Calibri\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\u25cf&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;multilevel&quot;}\" data-aria-posinset=\"6\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science undergraduate student <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Yves Wood<\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, alumnus <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Hunter Brooks <\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">and lecturer <\/span><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Jasmine Garani <\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">co-authored the paper \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/2515-5172\/ae06fd\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">High Proper Motion Object Discoveries from the Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors Citizen Science Project<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">,\u201d published in Research Notes of the AAS. The paper details the discovery of 11 star and brown dwarf candidates using the archival Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer data set and crowdsourced volunteers.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"search-results-excerpt-link\" href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/in-the-spotlight-sept-22-26-2025\/\">Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs.\u00a0 Do you have a spotlight item to share with the NAU community? E-mail your announcements to Inside@nau.edu, or use our online submission form. Sierra Bostwick, an undergraduate student majoring in politics and international affairs, earned an honorable mention in the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity\u2019s 2025 Prize in&hellip;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}