May 21, 2019
“Today I am talking the Flux Puppy for a walk at @HarvardForest to measure stem respiration,” NAU postdoctoral researcher Tim Rademacher recently tweeted. With it, a photo of a small white chamber fastened to a tree trunk (think half Dixie cup, half electrode) and hooked at the other end to a handheld tablet sporting a clear, clean graph of CO2 in parts per million. The wire between seems charged… Read more
Crystal Hepp
Illnesses from mosquito bites have tripled in the United States since 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Northern Arizona University evolutionary biologist Crystal Hepp is on the front lines of fighting mosquito-borne pathogens in the region. She recently received a New Investigator Award grant—$75,000 per year for three years—from the Arizona Biomedical Research Centre (ABRC), a unit of the Arizona Department of Health Services, for… Read more
Ben Ruddell,
Director and Associate Professor
Experts estimate that snowmelt accounts for as much as 75 percent of water supplies in the western United States. As the climate warms, however, it’s not hard to imagine a future when declining snowpack on western mountain ranges means less snowmelt. Scientists and water managers have already seen worrying changes in the timing and amount of runoff from season to season.
These shifts pose… Read more
As utility customers go, Northern Arizona University is complicated.
The dozens of buildings serve thousands of students, faculty and staff in a variety of ways—there are places to work, study, live, do experiments, play, eat and more. The campus is filled with people from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but activity doesn’t end with a traditional workday. Even the work done on campus varies among buildings—some house office workers on computers, others… Read more
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), flooding is the most damaging natural hazard in the world, and most flood damage occurs in cities. As exemplified by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, this damage is projected to rapidly increase, both due to increasing extreme precipitation events and urban sprawl into marshes and floodplains—so it is critical that cities learn to adapt and respond more quickly to floods to save lives and… Read more
Northern Arizona University hit the top 100 for the first time, moving to No. 96 in the National Science Foundation’s latest national research rankings of universities without a medical school. NAU also moved to No. 201 for all universities in the United States, a new high for the university, up from No. 213 in 2016.
The NSF’s annual ranking of U.S. universities by level of research activity, released in late November, looks… Read more