NAU News — ‘Welcoming President Cruz Rivera to NAU’ and more news

	Welcoming President Cruz Rivera to NAU On Monday, José Luis Cruz Rivera started as the 17th president of Northern Arizona University. A leader in diversity and equity in higher education, he aims to advance NAU’s mission of student success and access, particularly for underrepresented groups.
	Building the Baja: Lumberjack Motorsports dedication, teamwork seal first top five victory in school history An NAU team of 12 mechanical engineering seniors created a baja vehicle for the 2021 Baja SAE Competition, showing off both their strategy for design and teamwork to claim a fifth-place finish.
	‘An unexplored world right beneath our feet:’ NAU cave ecologist on the importance of caves in discussions on conservation Jut Wynne, director of NAU’s Cave Ecology Lab, talks about cave health all the time. But during 2021, the International Year of Caves and Karst, he and other researchers are inviting the rest of us to consider all the ways these ecosystems contribute to society without us even knowing it.
	New study shows a few common bacteria account for majority of carbon use in soil Postdoc Bram Stone from the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society led the study, which was published June 7 in Nature Communications.
	After three decades of giving, Ottens Foundation’s final gift to NAU will help fund Native American health efforts Over the course of three decades, John and Sophie Ottens donated more than $13 million to NAU, helping fund the American Indian Nursing program, the dental hygiene program, diabetes prevention and management among the Navajo Nation and summer internships for Native American students.
	‘4T’ training course becomes virtual clinic for diagnosing climate, Earth system model problems Yiqi Luo and Lifen Jiang from the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society met with students from 26 countries to discuss advances in land carbon cycle modeling. Doing it virtually allowed them to open up the curriculum and boost engagement.