Each year, the Academy of Sciences and Arts recognizes alumni who have brought distinction to themselves, the College of Sciences and Arts, their departments, and Michigan Technological University through their outstanding contributions to and leadership in their chosen professions and/or through distinguished public service.
The College of Sciences and Arts announces nine new faculty appointments for this academic year. These faculty bring a wide variety of knowledge and skills to the College, our students, and our research. Their individual areas of expertise include dark-room photography, photonics characterization techniques, human-AI interactions, political science and jazz history. Please join us in welcoming these Huskies to their new positions!
Mark Rhodes, associate professor of geography in Tech’s social sciences department, is one of two scholars selected as a 2025-26 Fulbright US Scholar within the Fulbright-Schuman European Union Affairs Program.
Rhodes’s research leverages Michigan Tech’s unique focus on industrial heritage and archaeology and environmental and energy policy to understand the policy process behind Europe’s industrial heritage. Tech offers the world’s only industrial heritage and archaeology PhD program in the world.
“So many communities around the world, including those in our own back yard and where I’m from in the Illinois Rust Belt, are struggling to navigate deindustrialization,” said Rhodes. “Europe seems to have gotten much more creative in how to not only continue sustainable industrial production but use those former facilities in innovative ways that preserve communities and economic livelihoods.”
Mark Rhodes is spending six months continuing his work on European heritage site policies, designation, and narratives.
Rhodes noted that Europe, known as one of the first regions in the world to begin a shift away from extractive and manufacturing economic activities, has also been a global leader in preserving, interpreting, and managing difficult cultural and economic transitions. Europe has 48 industrial World Heritage Sites, as designated by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In addition, the European Route of Industrial Heritage connects more than 2,400 individual sites. Rhodes’s work explores how EU policy shapes the relationships and laws impacting site designation and narrative, along with understanding how the two are interconnected. His research—spanning the EU—combines in-depth interviews, archival work, and institutional analysis to better understand and inform industrial heritage best practices.
He’ll spend six months in Halle, Germany, hosted by Martin Luther University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Area Studies and Institute of Geosciences and Geography. The Fulbright-Schuman Program, is administered by the Fulbright Commission in Belgium, is jointly financed by the US Department of State and the European Union’s (EU) European Commission. The fellowship aims to strengthen international relations between the US and EU by supporting policymakers and scholars focused on US-EU relations, EU Policy, or EU institutions.
Nyasha Milanzi wasn’t entirely surprised to win the Rising Black Scientists Award. She had a feeling. And she’d worked hard on her application.
“This is probably coincidental, but I actually wrote in my diary that I was going to win the prize after I submitted it,” said the graduate research assistant, who is slated to receive her master’s degree in sustainable communities this year. “I felt my essay was well written and thought I was going to win the prize, so I wrote it down.”
For the fifth year, Huskies attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference to observe the world’s only multilateral decision-making forum on climate change, also known as COP 29. COP 29 stands for the 29th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a landmark international treaty agreed in 1992, and parent treaty to the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Michigan Tech alumnus Niigaanii-Animikii Inini Kalvin Hartwig ’10 continues his career-long dedication to supporting Indigenous language and cultural revitalization as one of the main cast voice actors in an Ojibwe dubbing of Star Wars: A New Hope.
Hartwig is an award-winning filmmaker, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and a Tech graduate in social sciences, humanities and German. He voices the Red Leader character, originally played by the late Gordan “Drewe” Henley in the dub, which began streaming on Disney+ on Oct. 27.
Read more about Hartwig’s passion for the project, how he got involved, and the recording process in the full feature by Jordan Shawhan, Husky Makes History with Voice Role in Ojibwe Dubbing of Star Wars, at Michigan Tech Alumni Stories.
Deep-mapping projects like Keweenaw Time Traveler can engage communities in meaningful, multi-generational explorations. (Image courtesy KeTT)
An advanced institute in the spatial and digital humanities is coming to Michigan Tech.
Don Lafreniere, a professor of geography and geographic information science (GIS) in Tech’s Department of Social Sciences is leading a team of researchers, staff, and students from Michigan Tech and Wayne State University on project that will develop the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Community Deep Mapping Institute. The project is supported by a $250,000 NEH grant.
Kathy Halvorsen and Quiying Sha have been honored for their substantial contributions to teaching, research, and service and are among seven professors recognized through Michigan Tech’s Distinguished and University Professorships. They represent a small percentage of faculty recognized with these awards by the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.
University Professors represent no more than two percent of the total number of tenured and tenure-track faculty at Michigan Tech. Since its inception in 2020, four of the seven University Professors have hailed from the College of Sciences and Arts, including three from the Department of Physics. Halvorsen is the first recipient from the Department of Social Sciences.
Distinguished Professors represent no more than 10 percent of the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty in a specific college or school. Since its inception in 2018, four of the 11 Distinguished Professors have been chosen from the College of Sciences and Arts. Sha is the first recipient from the Department of Mathematical Sciences.
The calendar shows May, but schools are closed today as a late-season snowstorm hits the Upper Peninsula. Fortunately, it held off long enough to not affect travel for our graduates and their families this past weekend. Our growing enrollment meant that, for the first time ever, we held a separate commencement ceremony for our graduate students on Friday afternoon, followed by an undergraduate ceremony Saturday morning. More than 170 College of Sciences and Arts students walked across the stage, earning bachelors, masters, and PhD degrees from our more than three dozen degree programs. It was a truly joyous occasion and, with the hockey arena packed, I expect we will continue with the separate undergraduate ceremony each spring going forward.
Friday evening was the emotional commissioning ceremony for our Army and Air Force ROTC program, where we celebrated our nation’s newest second lieutenants. Celebrating our students’ accomplishments is one of my favorite jobs as dean.
Graduation also means the final Board of Trustees (BOT) meeting of the year. While we are all saddened by the recent closure of Finlandia University, we are excited that we have managed to, on very short notice, essentially move their nursing program into our Department of Biological Sciences. With the BOT approving this last week, we look forward to welcoming students in the Fall. Also at the BOT meeting, ten CSA faculty received final approval for granting of tenure or promotion to full professor!
Of course, summer means travel, and faculty in CSA are the campus leaders in leading students on study abroad and study away experiences. Three of our Visual and Performing Arts faculty, Lisa Gordillo and Mary and Kent Cyr, are leading students to Vienna, Prague and Dresden, including an opportunity to attend the famous “Prague Quadrennial,” one of the largest international festivals of theatre, design, and architecture in the world. Other students will travel to Germany, including Dresden and Leipzig, under the direction of our Humanities Assistant Teaching Professor Stephanie Rowe.
Social Sciences faculty Kat Hannum and Mark Rhodes will lead students on a 20-day Amtrak adventure across the United States, studying sustainable tourism. Finally, Social Sciences faculty Dan Trepal will lead students to study history and archaeology in Cumbria in the United Kingdom.
Critical to everything we do are our alumni and friend donors. All your donations to our departments, scholarships, and the general fund are vitally important to our success. In particular, support to defray the additional costs of studying abroad is much needed. Thank you so much for supporting Michigan Tech! For CSA giving opportunities please visit: https://www.mtu.edu/sciences-arts/giving/
If you are ever back in town I hope you will stop by, say hello, and share with me your MTU story. Please do not hesitate to email me any time at djhemmer@mtu.edu to share your MTU experience or offer suggestions.
Best wishes,
David Hemmer
Dean- College of Sciences and Arts
Hello Again from the Copper Country!
Its been an interesting fall in the Copper Country. November only added to it. Election Day. My birthday: my new age is the smallest number with 10 distinct divisors, which makes it what mathematicians (like myself) call a “highly composite number”! Blood moon and lunar eclipse (the last for a few years). The first prolonged snowfall (thankfully not as significant as Buffalo’s). And now the mass exodus as students, faculty, and staff leave campus to spend Thanksgiving Day with family and friends.
It has been a magnificent Fall season in Houghton, with an epic leaf-peeping season and beautiful weather, sunny and not too cold, and barely any snow to be seen up until last week. Nevertheless, the crews on the lawn outside my Walker office were busy setting up three broomball courts for the upcoming season! You can view them in real-time on one of our many webcams live streaming from campus, like this one from Walker. Drop me a note. I’d love to hear about your favorite broomball memory.
Our CSA students and faculty continue to excel in the classroom and beyond. Dr. Sarah Green, our chemistry department chair, led a dozen Huskies to the 2022 United Nations climate change summit. Held November 6-18, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, these Huskies joined more than 35,000 participants at the 27th Conference of the Parties United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27). Based on their work in previous summits, they have secured badges granting them insider access to the “blue zone.” Our Visual and Performing Arts faculty are involved as well. Delegates in the VIP lounge listened to a piece, Melusina Calls to the Loon, written by our own composer and Teaching Professor Libby Meyer, with an additional soundscape from MTU Distinguished Professor Christopher Plummer! You can follow their adventures on the Huskies at the Climate Conference blog. We’ll be adding more stories in the coming weeks.
Earlier my wife and I were honored to be formal “guests of the mess” at the Air Force ROTC Dining Out. The event gives the cadets an opportunity to experience a formal dinner but with a twist. The different groups of cadets combined to create a “grog” in a large punch bowl. Ingredients included spicy V8, pickle juice, sardine juice, crunchy peanut butter powder, etc… Throughout the night violations of the elaborate “rules of the mess” were punished by trips to drink from the grog. By the end of the evening, just about every cadet had imbibed at least once!
At this time of year, I am grateful for many things: family and friends; the hard work our faculty and staff put in throughout the year to educate our students and help them to create a future for themselves; the support from our alumni funding facilities, scholarships, fellowships, professorships, and more; the beauty of the Copper Country.
I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!