Do you have a spotlight item to share with the NAU community?
E-mail your announcements to Inside@nau.edu.

• Luke Reynolds, a graduate student in English, published a non-fiction book, A New Man: Reclaiming Authentic Masculinity from a Culture of Pornography.
• Senior forestry major Jacob Wesley Sprinkle received a $3,000 scholarship from the Arizona Hydrological Society at its annual symposium Aug. 29-Sept. 1 in Tucson. The award encourages students interested in water resources-related fields to excel in their area of study. Awards are based on the applicants' GPA, letters of recommendation, experience in hydrology and career goals. Sprinkle's award also included a plaque, one year membership in the society and free registration and hotel accommodations at the symposium.
• Honors student Hesham Elnagar, a dual degree student in music and math, was selected as one of 50 winners of the 2007 Merit Award from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. The award includes a $1,000 scholarship. Merit Award recipients are selected based on how they exemplify the society's mission to "honor and inspire academic excellence and engaged citizenship for a lifetime." The National Society of Collegiate Scholars is the nation's premier honor organization for high achieving students.
• Daniel Laughlin, a doctoral student in forestry and a research specialist for the Ecological Restoration Institute, is this year's winner of the Ecological Society of America's E.C. Pielou Student Award in Statistical Ecology. The award recognizes students who give an outstanding oral presentation in the area of statistical ecology at the society's annual meeting. Laughlin presented "Explaining gradients in plant community composition with a general multivariate model" at the Aug. 6-10 annual meeting in San Jose, Calif.
  
  Laughlin's co-author was Scott Abella, who received his Ph.D. in Forestry from NAU in 2005. Abella is assistant research professor with the Public Lands Institute and School of Life Sciences at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
• J. Judson Wynne, cave research scientist of the Merriam-Powell Center of Environmental Research and NAU biology doctoral student, presented a summary paper on Phase 1 of the NASA-funded Earth-Mars Cave Detection Program at the 10th annual Mars Society Conference, held in Los Angeles, Aug. 30-Sept. 3. His team's finding include demonstrating detection of caves in the thermal infrared is possible on Earth and identifying the most compelling evidence of cave-like structures on Mars.
• Mary I. Dereshiwsky, associate professor of educational leadership, had an article, "How to Get Your Online Courses Started Out Right," published in the August 2007 E-LERN newsletter.