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Homelessness in Arizona has reached a new crisis point. In 2023, more than 14,000 people were without shelter—a 29% increase since 2020.Help could be on the way, thanks to grant funds that are fueling new research projects based at NAU and developed alongside community partners.Laura Noll and Robert Wickham, both associate professors of psychological sciences at NAU, recently received more than $1 million in grants from the Garcia Family Foundation to lead three projects aimed at not only finding housing and support for unsheltered Arizonans but also preventing future homelessness in the state.

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Bioengineering Ph.D. student Holly Berns won a grant from the Brain Aneurysm Foundation to study how AI and other new technologies can change how aneurysms are discovered and treated. Her project will use AI and machine learning to examine how arteries leading to the brain are tilted and whether that tilt contributes to the formation and rupture of brain aneurysms.

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An NAU physicist is spearheading groundbreaking new quantum physics research, a field with the potential to revolutionize computing, communication, security and sensing on a global scale

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Students, alumni and faculty from the School of Earth and Sustainability leveraged the power of big data to take another look at the 4.2 ka event—a historic megadrought thought to have Earth-altering effects. What they found in the data pointed to a different conclusion, not only about that event but about how the climate may change in the future.

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Why do so many consumers purchase far more than they need during weather emergencies, causing stores to run out of products before everyone has a chance to stock up? Cony Ho, an assistant professor of marketing and business analytics at Northern Arizona University, recently led a series of five studies to find out why—and to find a solution to the problem.

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New research shows that backyard bird feeders, although done with the best of intentions, is changing the chemistry of local ecosystems, including introducing a potentially harmful amount of phosphorus into the environment.

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Three recent papers authored by Ted Schuur, Regents’ professor of biological sciences at Northern Arizona University, organized through the Permafrost Carbon Network, investigate the biological processes taking place in the warming Arctic tundra and provide insight into what we can expect from that region as the climate continues to change.

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Microbes that live in tree bark are sucking greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, making trees an even more critical part of combating climate change than scientists previously thought, according to a study published today in Nature.

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Ishmael Munene, a professor in NAU’s Department of Educational Leadership, has received a prestigious Fulbright Scholar Award to teach and conduct research in Kenya for the 2024-25 school year. Munene will compare the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in African universities to DEI initiatives at universities in the United States.

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In 1996, John Paul Roccaforte and his colleagues at NAU's Ecological Research Institute embarked on a 20-year restoration study restoration across more than 5,000 acres of dense ponderosa pine forests in northern Arizona.

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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.

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The Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer (EDGE)—a newly proposed NASA satellite mission to monitor the three-dimensional structure of global vegetation and ice—is one of four finalists selected for NASA’s next generation of Earth-observing satellites under the Earth System Explorers Program.

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The Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona and northern Mexico has long been largely immune to fires, despite its intense heat. There simply wasn't enough fuel to feed severe fires. In the last two decades, wetter winters and the increase of invasive species have caused a rapid shift to the desert environment.

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NAU’s Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy shared a free, downloadable document that provides guidance on teaching and learning with generative AI, developed in collaboration with teachers, parents and technology experts across the state and nation.

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Increased warming in tundra ecosystems is resulting the release of carbon into the atmosphere through ecosystem respiration, contributing additionally to climate change. A recent meta-analysis published Nature revealed factors that contribute to ecosystem respiration, including soil nitrogen concentration, pH and ratio of carbon to nitrogen.

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More than half of the American West’s iconic river is being diverted, mostly for use in irrigated agriculture, according to a study released today.