The NAU Review — How NAU is revolutionizing stroke care, a quilt that symbolizes belonging and getting to know Zane Jacobs

June 12, 2024

One bioengineer says yes. Tim Becker and a team of NAU students are designing groundbreaking medical devices with the goal of increasing survival rates—currently at 30-60%—for stroke patients. With a focus on reducing racial and gender disparities in health outcomes for stroke patients and creating adaptable, functional medical devices that can go from the lab to the surgical suite, the students are getting hands-on experience that is turning into inventions and job offers.

For psychology faculty member Jason Whetten, teaching and research go hand in hand: The classroom is his laboratory, and the students are his subjects and co-investigators. In his Fall 2023 Introduction to Psychology course, Whetten researched the concept of belonging by asking 1,200 students to design a quilt square describing how they belong at NAU. Throughout Spring 2024, Whetten and his TAs discovered that interactive, hands-on projects like these can help boost students’ sense of inclusion and belonging on campus.