{"id":78755,"date":"2026-09-08T16:27:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T23:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=78755"},"modified":"2026-09-08T17:07:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T00:07:04","slug":"in-the-spotlight-sept-8-11-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/in-the-spotlight-sept-8-11-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Spotlight: Sept. 8-11, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In the Spotlight: September 1 &#8211; 4 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Kudos to these faculty,\u00a0staff\u00a0and programs.<\/p>\n<p>Do you have a spotlight item to share with the NAU community?<\/p>\n<p>E-mail your announcements to\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:Inside@nau.edu\">Inside@nau.edu<\/a>,\u00a0or use\u00a0our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.nau.edu\/news-tip\/#.YEjwNWhKg2w\">online submission form<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>Jessie K. Finch<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, chair of sociology, authored a journal article titled <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/intellectdiscover.com\/content\/journals\/10.1386\/jptv_00157_1?originator=authorOffprint&amp;identity=33392413&amp;ts=20270713143709&amp;signature=7bdf6dc4af5ba9b8b2b250ab24f94c0b\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Foreigners, fraud, and falling in love: 90 Day Fianc\u00e9 viewer perceptions<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Presidential Alumni Award recipient from the College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural Sciences (CEFNS), <\/span><b>Wayne Ranney, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">was interviewed by a Chicago television station regarding the recent flash flooding event in the Grand Canyon. The interview provides an example of his role as a well-known public educator and interpreter of the geology and natural history of the Colorado Plateau.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>NAU women\u2019s golf<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> ranked No. 1 in the Big Sky Women\u2019s Golf Preseason Coaches\u2019 Poll. The team was selected to repeat as women\u2019s champions after winning the Big Sky Tournament last year.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guided by faculty advisor <\/span><b>Ben Dymond<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, students <\/span><b>Kaylnn Calvin, David Lucas Macaraeg, Lander Porter <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and<\/span><b> Jonah Simminger<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> finished in second place in the nation in the 2026 PCI Big Beam competition. They also won the Keith Kaufman Award for Best Report.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><b>Sam Hemmelgarn, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">a<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ph.D. student in the Department of Astronomy and Planetary (DAPS) Science, co-authored a study titled, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2608.00424\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Non-Principal-Axis Rotation and Convex Shape Model of Earth Quasi-Satellite and the Target of China\u2019s Tianwen-2 Mission.<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>Will Grundy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a research professor in DAPS, co-authored a study titled<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2608.05509\"> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beyond Point Masses. VI. Spin-Orbit Evolution of the Centaur Binary Typhon-Echidna.<\/span><\/i><\/a><b><\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>NAU <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">is a partner in the national node of the Asteroid 2029 International Year of Asteroid Awareness and Planetary Defense, sponsored by the United Nations. At NAU, both the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science and the Center for STEM Teaching and Learning (CSTL) are partners in this national and international network.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><b>Steve Tegler, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">professor in DAPS, is the lead author of an article titled <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/PSJ\/ae8c34\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Titania\u2019s Deuterium Abundance and the Origin of Its Water<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> which includes Grundy, Ph.D. student <\/span><b>Will Burris, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">professor <\/span><b>Mark Loeffler, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">recent undergraduate <\/span><b>Ryan Wochner <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and Hemmelgarn as co-authors.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Several students from assistant professor <\/span><b>Haley Saper&#8217;s<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> research team received awards. Ph.D. student <\/span><b>Michael Strane<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was awarded a Geological Society of America Graduate Student Research Grant. Undergraduate student <\/span><b>Eli Resnick <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">was awarded the NOAA Ernest F. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship and will be joining the research group as a Space Grant Student. Undergraduate student<\/span><b> Kate Killebrew<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was awarded a CrustNet Seed Banks NASA summer Space Grant.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saper is a senior author of an invited paper published in mSphere summarizing the inaugural<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.asm.org\/doi\/10.1128\/msphere.00587-25\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Microbial Dark Matter Symposium<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> held last fall and featuring a full page illustration by Ecoss\u2019 <\/span><b>Victor Leshyk<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">; a co-scientific organizer of the 2nd annual Microbial Dark Matter Symposium taking place in Laguna Beach this September; and a collaborator on a student paper titled <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0019103526003337?via%3Dihub\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Numerical validation of the impact-related sources of hydrothermal alterations in Toro crater<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">which was recently released in Icarus.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">DAPS chair <\/span><b>David Triling <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">co-authored a paper, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2608.28779\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Probing the Taxonomic Diversity of the Small Near-Earth Object Population<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">along with Ph.D. alum <\/span><b>Andy Lopez-Oquendo <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and former NAU postdoctoral<\/span><b> Michael Mommert.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Soccer players<\/span> <b>Micala Boex <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">and <\/span><b>Lexi Saveski <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">were named the Big Sky\u2019s Player of the Week. Saveski earned Defensive Player of the Week, and Boex earned Offensive Player of the Week.<\/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-8-11-2026\/\">In the Spotlight: September 1 &#8211; 4 Kudos to these faculty,\u00a0staff\u00a0and programs. Do you have a spotlight item to share with the NAU community? E-mail your announcements to\u00a0Inside@nau.edu,\u00a0or use\u00a0our\u00a0online submission form. Jessie K. Finch, chair of sociology, authored a journal article titled Foreigners, fraud, and falling in love: 90 Day Fianc\u00e9 viewer perceptions.\u00a0 Presidential Alumni&hellip;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3036,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78755","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\/3036"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78761,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78755\/revisions\/78761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}