The NAU Review Welcome to the space cam! + real-life CSI and an award for service to humanity

Nov. 3, 2022

It’s a tight fit in the cleanroom, but the students wearing “bunny suits,” who move around each other and all the equipment, are too focused on the work to worry about personal space. They’re part of a new project called VISIONS—a mission to design, build and test a new dual wavelength camera system that could go into space. Planetary sciences professor Christopher Edwards is leading a team of 27 students on the project, which is being done to NASA’s exacting standards, with the dual goals of getting it onto a spacecraft in upcoming years and giving students unparalleled hands-on experience that will prepare them for graduate school or industry careers.

Sharon Moses started her career in archaeology halfway around the world, digging up 9,000-year-old bones and piecing together why this ancient society buried children in the walls of mud homes. Today, she focuses on newer mysteries—the NAU professor is often called to help law enforcement recover bodies, identify murder victims and create behavioral models of murderers. She’s also teaching these ideas to the next generation of crime scene investigators through NAU’s forensic archaeology minor, which has increased in enrollment more than 700 percent since its inception in 2017.