The NAU Review — Celebrating standout seniors, Louie volunteers, supply chain worries and Notes from the President

November 18, 2021

The NAU Review. The official news source for Northern Arizona University.

Group photo of Gold Axe and President Prize Winners

Senior standouts

NAU and President Cruz Rivera honored the Class of 2021 President’s Prize recipients, Maree Mahkewa and Angel Marshall, 29 Gold Axe Award winners and nine Distinguished Seniors at a formal ceremony on Nov. 16 at the High Country Conference Center.

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Louie gives back

Announced earlier this week, the Staff Community Engagement Time Policy will allow NAU staff to use 16 paid work hours to volunteer in their communities. For Louie, that means spending a day at High Country Humane, the Flagstaff Family Food Center and the Boys & Girls Club.

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Supply chain worries?

Booking a flight, buying goods from China or gearing up for a cold winter? The supply chain may not do you any favors. Data scientist and FEWSION director Ben Ruddell provides a list of things that may be especially hard to find or cost more than normal.

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Week in review

Writing from the Board of Regents meeting in Tucson, President Cruz Rivera reflects on World Kindness Day, shares a powerful message from NAU’s Veterans Day celebration and discusses meetings with education and Lumberjack supporters from throughout the state.

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Decoding biological mysteries with algae

The tiny cosmos of organisms living on a streamer of algae in a river could help scientists learn what turns an environment from healthy to toxic and back again. A multidisciplinary team led by NAU has won $3 million from the NSF to translate the codex contained in the microbiome of common algae into computer algorithms that can predict a wide range of microbial interactions. The team will combine field experiments with high-tech molecular tools and machine learning to unravel the complex interactions among bacteria and algae into a set of predictive rules. The experiments they conduct and computer models they develop will illumine which interactions among micro-organisms have the power to change the health of a river or a human gut.

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