Research

Northern Michigan University has announced the winners of its recent Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. Caro Els of the School of Health and Human Performance won both first place and people's choice in the graduate student category for her presentation titled “Maximum External Load During Max Squat Protocol with Different Abdominal Stabilizing Maneuvers.” Mandy Bonesteel of Sociology won first place and people's choice among McNair Scholar participants with “The Case Against Meritocracy.”

Northern Michigan University Biology Professor Neil Cumberlidge co-authored a conservation assessment published in the Raffles Bulletin on Zoology on the “vulnerable to extinction” status of the world's largest land crab. The coconut crab, native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, has been disappearing off of the islands it traditionally inhabits.

NMU biology graduate student Hilary Rinsland will participate in a Science Behind the Scenery Webinar Series cohosted by Rocky Mountain National Park and Rocky Mountain Conservancy at 1 p.m. EST Tuesday, Feb. 15. She will present  “Pika surveys to test climate-based predictions of population loss” with Chris Ray from the University of Colorado-Boulder. The series is free and open to the public.

A recent study found a dramatic difference between the microbial diversity in guts of female and male American minks, suggesting an unexpected sexual distinction in the gut microbiomes of carnivores. Diana Lafferty, assistant professor of wildlife ecology at NMU, was first author on the paper. She said the finding is critical to informing future study design. 

Northern Michigan University's indoor agriculture program has received a special delivery to enhance education, research and partnership opportunities. A new shipping container that houses a state-of-the-art growing center is located just outside of the Jacobetti Complex. Its operation will be supervised by students and the produce it generates will be distributed to NMU's hospitality management program and campus dining facilities.

Northern Michigan University English Professor Robert Whalen has been awarded a $300,000 Scholarly Editions and Translations Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The funding will support George Herbert: Complete Works, now under contract with Oxford University Press, the world's leading publisher of scholarly editions. This is the project's fourth NEH award.

Protocols for diagnosing and treating concussions have improved significantly through enhanced education and training, expanded academic research, and more sophisticated technology tools. Maggy Moore of NMU's School of Health and Human Performance is dedicating more time to all of the above as the first five-year recipient of the Mark. R. and Eileen Lovell Endowed Professorship. 

Northern Michigan University professor James McCommons recently published a definitive biography of George Shiras III (1859-1942), the groundbreaking wildlife photographer who honed his techniques in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. But that work often overshadows perhaps Shiras' most notable achievement: establishing the legal foundation for what became the Migratory Bird Treaty Act while serving in Congress. 

A Northern Michigan University student is conducting research on how location can affect the availability of fair trade coffee.

NMU alumna Raven Mitchell ('18 BS) is featured in a magazine cover story that highlights individuals who have “devoted their lives to better understanding the physical world so the rest of us might learn how to protect it.” In conjunction with her master's thesis project, Mitchell is working with NMU alumnus Frederick “Fritz” Nelson ('73 BS) to monitor the changing thickness of permafrost in Arctic regions. Permafrost thaw can releas