The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable fall 2022 graduates.

From purely materialistic to positively meaningful. 

That’s the shift that holiday gift-giving can take with help from a guide created by Arizona State University students. The 2022 Sustainable Holiday Gift Guide was put together by ASU’s School of Life Sciences Graduate Sustainability Committee and released last week. 

Five faculty members from Arizona State University's Hugh Downs School of Human Communication received honors of distinction at the National Communication Association’s 108th annual convention in New Orleans on Nov. 17–20. 

The NCA is the largest national academic organization that focuses on communication. More than 7,000 communication researchers, practitioners, faculty and students are members of the NCA, and more than 4,000 attended the convention. 

For decades, the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes have provided us with spectacular images of galaxies. This all changed when the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched in December 2021 and successfully completed commissioning during the first half of 2022. For astronomers, the universe, as we had seen it, is now revealed in a new way never imagined by the telescopes's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument.

Drylands are not only home to more than 2 billion people across the globe but are vital to global food and nutrition security.

Defined as lands having a scarcity of water, they encompass 40% of the global terrestrial surface and include the world’s deserts, savannas and shrublands. They house a variety of unique plant and animal biodiversity, and play an important role in climate regulation, with nearly 35% of carbon sequestration in dryland soils.

In short, the health of our drylands is vital to global sustainability. 

You want to be the first in your family to graduate from college. But how do you navigate a journey that nobody close to you has ever traveled?

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable fall 2022 graduates.

While in high school, Ruwaida Jaylani Abshir took dual enrollment classes and earned an associate degree through South Mountain Community College. Through her science classes, Abshir became interested in medicine, which was noticed by her family, who had immigrated to the U.S. from Somalia.

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable fall 2022 graduates.

Claire Cerniglia, a recipient of the New American University President’s Award, came to Arizona State University from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to pursue her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry with a minor in business. This week, she is graduating from the School of Molecular Sciences.

Two Arizona State University students are among 25 students nationally who have been awarded a Quad Fellowship, an initiative created by the United States, Australia, Japan and India to build ties among the next generation of scientists and technologists.

Samantha Harker, a first-year PhD student in neuroscience, and Xaimarie Hernandez Cruz, who is pursuing her doctorate in industrial engineering, were among the winners named in a joint announcement Friday from the White House and the other Quad governments.