The NAU Review — Our Homecoming dedicatee, a beetle’s gut and how to get your NAUPD pink patch

Oct. 6, 2022

Voytek was presenting to a group of campus living staff when the team’s meeting was interrupted by a crowd of people who marched in the room, waving pompoms and cheering loudly. “Um, what’s happening?” she asked. The intruders circled around her, and Voytek’s eyes began to well as she realized the cause for the unannounced parade: she was this year’s Homecoming dedicatee.

Ever since Javier Ceja-Navarro learned about the interconnectedness of organisms at a young age, he’s spent his career as a researcher trying to answer the question his younger brother often asked him growing up: “Why?” By taking a panoramic view of each system that he studies, Ceja-Navarro, a professor of microbiology in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, is hoping to understand microbial food webs in soil and the often-complex relationships among microbes and the visible world.