The NAU Review — Introducing Access2Excellence, a new cybersecurity partnership and a career in wildlife ecology for Nicaraguan grad

April 28, 2022

President José Luis Cruz Rivera announced today that, starting in Fall 2023, NAU will provide tuition-free college education for Arizona residents with household incomes at or below $65,000. This new Access2Excellence initiative reflects the urgent need to broaden participation and increase educational attainment in Arizona, helping students gain the knowledge and skills needed to participate in the state’s booming economy.

There aren’t a lot of wildlife ecologist jobs in Nicaragua. So José Martinez-Fonseca made his own. He’s loved biology since he was a boy, and he was always looking for opportunities to study reptiles and amphibians, track down bats, work in nonprofits to conserve their habitats and photograph nature both up close and far away. He’s a published author, he’s helped identify bat species and next week he’ll graduate with a doctorate from NAU and plans to continue his biodiversity research in Latin America.