NAU Review — Wait, is that an Ironman suit? + meet the new SAC president and learn about

July 9, 2025

Robotic exoskeletons are the future of helping people with certain disabilities perform daily tasks, but they can be prohibitively difficult and expensive to develop. Mechanical engineering associate professor Zach Lerner, whose research has focused on developing this technology, led a team that created OpenExo, an open-source exoskeleton framework, which will open doors for researchers globally to help speed up life-changing robotic discoveries. Want to see the exoskeletons at work? Check out this video from NAU-TV.

NAU’s Flagstaff mountain campus is home to an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 trees. We all love them—so shouldn’t we learn more about them? With help from state grant funds, Lumberjack researchers are working on a campuswide tree inventory this summer. The project won’t just help NAU take better care of its trees—it’ll also provide student research opportunities for years to come and will help the university achieve its sustainability goals.