Northern Michigan University alumnus Jim Hiller ('95 BS) has joined the National Hockey League's LA Kings as an assistant coach. He will primarily work with the forwards and focus on the power play, according to a Kings press release. He most recently served in the same capacity for the New York Islanders, helping the club reach two Eastern Conference Finals.

Alberto Alexander, who earned a master of arts in education (MAE) degree from Northern in 1974, is managing director of the international consulting and training firm Eficiencia Gerencial y Productividad, located in Lima, Peru. He wrote an Aug. 3 online column on the major components of an effective cyber risk management process. Alexander addressed threat categories facing organizations, cyber risk management frameworks and challenges, and best practices related to assessment.

NMU reinstated a mask mandate for in-person classrooms and labs, effective Aug. 1, in response to an uptick in local COVID cases that has elevated Marquette County to the CDC's "high transmission" category. President Kerri Schuiling provided an update of NMU's pandemic protocols heading into the fall semester in an email to the campus community.

J.D. Phillips is drawn to “the intellectual beauty and depth of pure mathematics.” He describes mathematics as closer, in some ways, to poetry, painting and musical composition than to the laboratory sciences.