To our French partners, it’s incroyable. For most Wildcats, our newest voyage into trans-Atlantic science research partnerships is simply “incredible.”

The University of Arizona has been chosen as the first formal overseas partner of the top European basic research group, called the French National Center for Scientific Research, or CNRS. 

In Paris, some scientists call it “the beast,” said UArizona professor Régis Ferrière during a break from teaching ecology and evolutionary biology at a partner site during an assignment in Paris’ Quartier Latin. 

“When it comes to delivering science that is transforming our lives and reshaping our future,” Ferrière says, “CNRS stands as a global powerhouse.” 

Powerhouse indeed: A CNRS member just won this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for work in quantum information.

The French science “beast” counts over 1,000 labs in France and 100 more around the world. Its labs operate from the Arctic Ocean to Antarctica to the Amazon. 

Already, the French have joined UArizona teammates in sending instruments to Mars and using the James Webb Space Telescope to provide stunning images of galaxies. 

A project based in Lyon looks for ancient forms of coronavirus and is trying to decipher how they evolved. Two joint labs in Paris are looking into the secrets of dark matter and advancing quantum technology. In Bordeaux, a UArizona-French team is examining cultural responses of native communities to resource extraction. 

In short, UArizona and CNRS are digging into some of the world’s greatest issues, now with a formal pledge to back the relationship.

The pledge builds on a long history of joint efforts by UArizona and CNRS, which in fact has been UArizona’s top international research partner for decades.

The new framework is known as the France-Arizona Institute for Global Grand Challenges, or FA Institute. The “grand challenges” of the name include such pressing issues as climate change, biodiversity loss, exoplanet detection, research into black holes, and advancements in quantum technology and supercomputers.

To begin, a dozen research projects were selected in 2021 from 70 initial proposals to become the initial works of the FA Institute. The topics ranged from the future of a quantum internet to the unraveling of dark energy.

“The project leaders and their students made us dream about the science they were conducting and the discoveries that are in the making,” Ferrière says.

For 2023, he says, the FA Institute is seeking projects that tackle “habitability and environmental resilience, the food-energy-water nexus, and climate change and health.”

CNRS had quarters at UArizona as early as 2008, called the International Research Laboratory (IRL). It has studied issues such as water security in extreme climate events, and it has been co-sponsored since 2017 by the elite École Normale Supérieure (ENS) and Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL). 

In 2017, Ferrière was appointed director of the IRL. The next year, the new president of CNRS, Antoine Petit, announced an international strategy that involved selecting and fostering a small number of privileged relationships with partners with whom CNRS had strong collaborations. Ferrière thought, “That’s UArizona!” and started working toward that goal.

By 2020, UArizona was CNRS’s No. 2 university partner in the U.S., as measured by the impact of joint publications. (No. 1 was Harvard.) 

In 2021, the FA Institute was born, and UArizona was designated as CNRS’s first International Research Center. CNRS provided $1 million in seed funding, which UArizona matched.

Joaquin Ruiz, UArizona vice president of global environmental futures, was appointed executive director of the institute, and Ferrière was named deputy director. 

The launch by UArizona in March 2021 included an address by the French ambassador to the U.S., Philippe Étienne, and an endorsement by Edith Heard, head of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

Along the way, Ruiz has supplied “his unsurpassable vision and contagious enthusiasm” and become the university’s champion, Ferrière says. And the FA Institute, he adds, has delivered “the platinum standard of cooperation” between CNRS and UArizona.

In September 2022, the joint venture reaffirmed its major goals: to study what makes a world habitable and how to keep our world that way. In the years ahead, UArizona and CNRS will expand their research to “push the science of habitability, sustainability and resilience to new highs,” Ferrière says.

“Revolutionary science will lead to revolutionary solutions — for sustainable removal of carbon from the atmosphere, sustainable and resilient production of food and energy at scale, or preparedness for pandemics and other climate-change related extremes.”

A big draw for CNRS was Biosphere 2, the three-acre glass and steel climate-study facility outside Tucson. Its indoor, controlled environments include a tropical rainforest, a desert, an ocean with a coral reef, a mangrove forest, a savannah and agricultural land. 

In France, some CNRS institutions have a smaller version, called an Ecotron, and matching up Biosphere 2 and the Ecotrons was something the French saw as a tool to help answer otherwise-puzzling mysteries.

When he first arrived at UArizona from France in 1992, Ferrière’s focus was on life adaptation to changing environments. Now, 30 years later, he is facilitating the “amazing work of UArizona scientists and their French collaborators” as they unravel the potential for life to exist and persist in the face of extreme environmental challenges. “On Earth... and maybe beyond,” he adds. 
 

When she was in her 30s, Molly Cassidy was handed a death sentence. Traditional treatments failed to fight the aggressive head and neck cancer that was running rampant through her body. Doctors were out of options, until a clinical trial at University of Arizona Health Sciences offered a glimmer of hope and, eventually, a second chance at life thanks to immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses a person’s own immune system to fight cancer. In Cassidy’s case, she received a personalized cancer vaccine in combination with an immunotherapy drug that helps the immune system fight certain kinds of cancer — and it worked. A year after the UArizona Cancer Center clinical trial ended, there were no traces of cancer left in her body.

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Researchers and physician-scientists are increasingly using precision medicine to develop new cell- and gene-based therapeutical options for diseases, building on the idea that the most effective defense against health issues is the body’s own immune system. Immunotherapy is one type of precision medicine; another is molecular therapy, in which drugs and other substances target specific molecules involved in disease progression.

At UArizona Health Sciences, the Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies, or CAMI, is being developed to advance knowledge of the immunology of cancers, infectious diseases and autoimmune conditions to develop novel strategies for diagnosis, prevention and treatment.

CAMI will be housed at the Phoenix Bioscience Core — a downtown Phoenix initiative that also is home to the UArizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. It will include space for academic and research activities as well as collaboration spaces to serve academic, research and community needs.

Changing the way doctors treat disease

Immunotherapy is one of the most promising approaches to cancer treatment, as it has the potential to sidestep the effects of other therapies that can compromise patients’ long-term health and wellness. But cancer isn’t the only target researchers, including bioengineer Michael Kuhns, have in their sights.

“Bioengineers solve fundamental problems with technologies that can have many applications,” says Kuhns, associate professor in the UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson and member of the BIO5 Institute. “If you can make something run more efficiently in certain circumstances — for example, make T-cells in the immune system more effective at combating a particular disease — then the only limit to immunotherapy is your imagination.”

Kuhns’ research in the Department of Immunobiology focuses on engineering chimeric antigen receptors, or CARs, a relatively new type of gene therapy. He built a biomimetic five-module chimeric antigen receptor, or 5MCAR, to direct killer T-cells to target and destroy autoimmune T-cells. When tested in an animal model, the 5MCAR T-cells recognized and destroyed pathogenic T-cells, effectively preventing Type 1 diabetes.

CAMI will focus on developing precision therapies that stimulate or suppress the immune system to fight diseases including cancers, infectious diseases and autoimmune conditions.

“This technology has clear implications for autoimmune disease, but also for cancer,” says Kuhns, who serves on the 21-member CAMI Advisory Council. “This technology emerged from basic science, is taking hold in the laboratory, and is showing promise to go to the clinic. This is a prime example of what we can do.” 

Other examples of potential research include identifying biomarkers for response to immunotherapy that may help determine the precise drugs to fight specific cancers in individual patients; understanding individual immune responses to autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease; and creating ways to analyze immune health at the cellular level to identify how individuals might respond to a disease and to predict their health outcomes.

Creating a biosciences innovation hub in Phoenix

CAMI will serve as the anchor for an innovation district that aims to differentiate Phoenix from other emerging life sciences hubs by establishing the Phoenix Bioscience Core as a center for cell and gene therapy research, startup activity and corporate engagement. Its location is expected to facilitate strong connections with partners like Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, the Mayo Clinic and the Translational Genomics Research Institute, among others.

“We expect CAMI to be nothing short of a national biomedical research hub,” says Michael D. Dake, senior vice president for UArizona Health Sciences. “CAMI will be a beacon for people who are involved in this type of research to work, collaborate and engage on the Phoenix Bioscience Core.”

The research will take place in connected buildings that will include laboratories to support translational research, clinical research space and startup incubator space to create a synergistic environment for commercialization opportunities. Student education will be prioritized in learning spaces dedicated to academic programs that will allow CAMI faculty and researchers to mentor and train the next generation of scientists.

“There is not a field with more explosive growth than immunotherapy. There is rapid growth in research investment and increased formation of academic and industry partnerships around the world,” Dake said during a Tomorrow is Here Lecture Series presentation in Phoenix. “My hopes are that CAMI is going to provide opportunities to accelerate the development and delivery of revolutionary treatments for the management of cancer [and] autoimmune and infectious diseases.

“We are going to see diversification of drug classes and different types of combination therapies, delivery mechanisms and monitoring,” he added. “Going forward, I think we’re going to see a wide array of therapies that are going to be vastly different than any past generations ever had. Suffice it to say, in the future, pills and syringes are going to be obsolete.”

UArizona Health Sciences center receives $150M state investment 

The University of Arizona Health Sciences Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies, or CAMI, received a vote of support from former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who designated $150 million in new funding for the Phoenix-based center. CAMI, to be constructed at the Phoenix Bioscience Core in downtown Phoenix, will advance lifesaving research into precision medicine, a rapidly growing field within health care promoting individualized cell- and gene-based treatments for cancer as well as infectious and autoimmune diseases. 

CAMI also is expected to draw an estimated 150 companies to the Phoenix area over the next decade, generating more than 20,000 jobs and boosting economic activity in Arizona by at least $3.9 billion. 

“It is not often that an opportunity to benefit Arizonans in such diverse ways presents itself, as it has with CAMI,” Ducey said. “As it grows, CAMI is poised to bring new jobs and businesses to Arizona, bolstering the economy not only in Maricopa County but also across the state. More importantly, the research CAMI will advance and bring to fruition offers Arizona residents the hope of new treatments that will positively impact their health and well-being. My thanks to President Robbins and the University of Arizona for their dedication to building a healthier Arizona.” 
 

Fifteen years ago, Marianne Cracchiolo Mago ’93, then a comedy executive at Warner Bros. Television, opted for a career pivot. She departed Hollywood, where she’d started as the personal assistant to late-night host Jon Stewart, and headed for Phoenix, the less-glitzy city where she was raised. 

Her reasons for the change were far too sincere for a punchline. 

A few years earlier, her father, Daniel Cracchiolo ’52 — a self-described “dirty shirt” attorney who co-founded the firm Burch & Cracchiolo in 1970 and whose guiding axiom was “give a damn” — had made a request. Now, his TV-exec daughter had said, “Yes.” 

Since 1985, Dan Cracchiolo had served as executive director of the Steele Foundation, a charity honoring his late friend Horace Steele, who’d amassed a fortune in oil and trucking alongside his wife, Ethel, after serving in England during World War I. The foundation had already made progress in its goal to aid Arizona’s underserved children. 

The moment had arrived for a passing of the baton. And with Cracchiolo Mago at the helm, Steele has been nothing if not durable. 

After Dan Cracchiolo died at age 93 in June 2022, the foundation made its largest-ever gift, contributing $10 million to the University of Arizona’s Steele Children’s Research Center, where Fayez Ghishan, Cracchiolo’s longtime friend and pen pal, is director. 

The money, to be disbursed over the next five years, will create the Daniel Cracchiolo Institute for Pediatric Autoimmune Disease Research, aiding in the fight against diseases such as lupus, juvenile arthritis and Type 1 diabetes. It includes the Daniel Cracchiolo Endowed Chair for Pediatric Autoimmune Disease Research and will provide financial support for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, as well as the Pamela Grant Endowed Professorship and the Fayez K. Ghishan, MD Endowed Professorship. Ghishan, in addition to directing the Steele Center, is head of the Department of Pediatrics at the UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson, of which the Steele Center is an offshoot.

Of the gift, $2 million will go to the Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies, or CAMI, to be located at the Phoenix Bioscience Core. The Steele Foundation gift is the first private investment in CAMI, which will serve as a hub to advance knowledge of the immunology of autoimmune conditions, inflammation, cancers and infectious diseases. Through CAMI, researchers will develop new strategies to diagnose, treat and prevent diseases. 

“I am so moved and grateful to honor my father, Dan, through this commitment, as well as pay tribute to his close friend, Dr. Fayez Ghishan,” Cracchiolo Mago says. “The Daniel Cracchiolo Institute will help advance lifesaving research while also providing vital support for families through in-person clinical care.” 

The Steele Center hasn’t always borne the Steele name. But since 1992, when the foundation offered the then-Children’s Research Center a $2 million naming gift, it has been Steele’s most-awarded grantee.

“When I first arrived in 1995 and met Dan, I knew that the Steele Children’s Research Center was destined to be successful,” Ghishan says. “His vision for science was futuristic, and he believed that only through scientific discovery can we improve the lives of children. I am forever grateful for his friendship, generosity and support. 

“Marianne’s leadership truly demonstrates that she is her father’s daughter.”

Dear Wildcats,

As you may know, our community experienced a devastating loss Oct. 5, 2022, when our beloved colleague and alumnus, Dr. Thomas Meixner, was shot on campus, just weeks before the 20th anniversary of a shooting at the College of Nursing in which three clinical professors, Robin E. Rogers, Barbara S. Monroe and Cheryl M. McGaffic, were killed. 

I share in the grief and anger surrounding this senseless loss, and I have commissioned an independent review of campus security, including how the university handled matters involving the shooter, a former student. I expect the first results of that study in early 2023. 

Our community gathered for a candlelight vigil after the shooting, to comfort each other and the Meixner family. I have been heartened and humbled by the outpouring of support to the family’s GoFundMe and to the memorial fund established in his honor.

Our purpose as a university is to work together to expand human potential, explore new horizons and enrich life for all, which Dr. Meixner embodied. One of the last things he retweeted was a quote: “Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.” 

When I think about what’s behind the “A,” I think of kind and compassionate people like Dr. Meixner, who bring dedication to the good that comes with discovery through research, using this knowledge to teach the next generation of graduates.  

The story of the University of Arizona is the story of its people. Arizona Alumni Magazine is now in its 100th year of documenting and celebrating our history and telling the stories of our incredible Wildcats. In this issue, you also will be able to read about a vision for the future of health care, both in the state of Arizona and around the world. The Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies, or CAMI, recently received a $150 million investment from the state of Arizona. This center will place the university at the forefront of what I believe to be the future of medical research as we address the grand challenges of cancer, infectious diseases and autoimmune conditions by advancing our knowledge of the immunology of these serious health issues. 

You also can read about a $10 million gift from the Steele Foundation, which includes $2 million for CAMI. The Steele Foundation has supported pediatrics research at the university for more than three decades, and this new gift not only honors alumnus Daniel Cracchiolo but also will ensure that CAMI’s transformative progress in medicine is applied in pediatric health care. 
 
 

This intricate interactive display featuring iconic campus edifices — among them Old Main, Arizona Stadium and the Stevie Eller Dance Theatre — celebrates the University of Arizona’s clean-energy partnership with Tucson Electric Power, formed in July 2021. Creative Machines, a local firm that also designed and built playful, instructive public art at the Children’s Museum in downtown Tucson, authored the installation, which will be transferred every six months to a new stopping point along the route for prospective-student tours.

In the display, golf balls in Wildcat red and blue roll along steel tracks, symbolizing clean energy flowing from TEP’s Oso Grande Wind Farm in southeast New Mexico and its Wilmot Energy Center solar-plus-storage system south of Tucson. The clean-energy agreement is expected to cut the university’s carbon footprint by a third over its 20-year duration.
 

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In the crisp fall air of the Chiricahua Mountains in Southern Arizona, a group of high school-aged girls strings a net across a stream to catch insects and minnows for study. They dig up soil samples, measure trees and marvel at the wonders of the natural world together. For many of them, this is their first time hiking, camping or being away from home — not to mention being without internet or cellphone service for multiple days. 

This off-grid experience targeted at young women from underfunded Tucson high schools is organized by Girls on outdoor Adventure for Leadership and Science, or GALS, a program directed by Elise Gornish, a specialist in ecological restoration from the University of Arizona’s Cooperative Extension in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Established by Gornish in 2018, GALS aims to increase science proficiency and support self-awareness, teamwork and leadership skills. 

“GALS engages participants as scientists and thinkers,” Gornish says. “The point is to get them involved, discussing and doing science, talking to female scientists, and learning about local ecology. But there’s also the component of enhancing their leadership skills and their confidence. Studies have shown that girls don’t pursue STEM because they don’t think they’re smart enough for it. It’s a lack of confidence.”

Gornish can relate and is passionate about STEM inclusion. “I always thought I was too dumb to be in science, and my home life and culture reinforced that,” Gornish says. “It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I got back into science. Representation and opportunities in science matter. Having access to experiences like GALS can be formative.”

Throughout the weeklong camping trip, the program brings female scientists and other women working in STEM to speak to the participants and lead hands-on activities. Speakers include soil scientists, forest rangers and even scientific artists. The “GALS” learn about local ecology through projects like making plant presses and identifying flora. They also hear from a large-mammal expert to learn about native animals and the trail cameras set up to capture pictures of creatures prowling near their campsites.

“I don’t necessarily want the girls to all want to be scientists,” Gornish says. “I just want them to come back and say, ‘I can do science if I want.’ It’s about giving them the confidence. From birth, girls are told they don’t belong in certain spaces, so I asked myself, ‘What can I do in my little, tiny life to mitigate some of that?’ And this is it.”

As part of the program, each participant is tasked with executing her own scientific experiment and spends the week collecting data. Students have gathered data on aquatic insects in ponds versus creeks and the ratio of different types of rocks in a stream. On returning to Tucson, the participants create posters of their findings and give presentations to a group of peers and family members. For many of them, it is their first time practicing public speaking. 

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“Last year the girls were presenting their posters, and someone in the audience asked, ‘What was the biggest thing that happened to you this week?’ And one girl responded, ‘Now I really believe I can do anything,’” Gornish says. “There are few things in my life so evident that I’m providing a valuable service to people. It makes me feel really good.”

“The end of the trip is bittersweet,” says Kaitlyn Gahl, a master’s student in fisheries management and conservation in the UArizona School of Natural Resources and the Environment. She has been working as a trip leader with GALS for two years. “At the start of the trip, you see these girls that are really shy and kind of uncomfortable or even scared. They’re away from their families, with a bunch of strangers. And by the end, they’re all best friends and so confident. And they all have a science project they’ve completed and are proud of. It’s really cool seeing the transformation in just one week.”

Each year, four undergraduate or graduate students lead the GALS camping trip, helping to direct activities and keep the participants safe in the wilderness. Former GALS leader Marci Caballero-Reynolds, who graduated in 2020 with a degree in natural resource management and now is a recruiter for Arizona Conservation Corps, found it fulfilling to work with young people who had never camped or had access to outdoor spaces.

“There’s just moments of joy, where they’ll say, ‘I didn’t realize you could dig up soil and find all this stuff or find all these microorganisms under a rock,’” she says. “You put the girls in a new situation, and from the beginning they are curious about everything, and you can see the curiosity just continue to grow. We expose them to new worlds they could potentially pursue.”
GALS also offers a mentorship program that matches participants with female STEM graduates and postdoctoral candidates at UArizona. Mentors answer questions, act as sounding boards and help with the college application process. “A lot of these participants are coming from schools that don’t have people there to help them apply for college, and most of them will be first-generation college students,” Gornish says. 

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Mentors and mentees can also attend organized events together, such as touring the Tucson Botanical Gardens and learning from a pollinator expert. Thanks to philanthropic support from grants and private donors, all programming costs, including supplies associated with the camping trip, are free to participants. Faculty have even donated more than 70 pairs of hiking boots to GALS. 

“It’s really nice to be reminded of community and how people want to help,” Gornish says. “My dream would be to secure enough funding so that there could be a GALS college scholarship for some of the participants. A lot of these girls come from lower-income families, and the cost of college is out of reach.”

Not all GALS participants pursue STEM careers, but the impact on their self-esteem is profound. Caballero-Reynolds remembers how one participant, after days of hiking, camping and other activities, shared that for the first time she felt she could survive on her own.

“It was just as empowering for me to hear,” Caballero-Reynolds says. “The stigma that girls can’t pick up heavy things or have survival skills was broken down. They realize that they’re resilient.”

Gahl adds, “What they get the most out of it is the confidence — the confidence to be themselves and be a woman in a difficult world, and go forward and kick ass.” 

To learn more about GALS and to support the program, visit gals.arizona.edu.

Tommy Lloyd sure packed a punch in his first year as a head coach. Last season, he led the Arizona men’s basketball program to a Pac-12 regular-season championship, a Pac-12 Tournament title and a Sweet 16 appearance. He also won multiple national coaching awards and watched three of his star players – Bennedict Mathurin, Christian Koloko and Dalen Terry – depart for the NBA.

This season, Lloyd’s second, the Wildcats have jumped out to yet another hot start. Lloyd spoke with Sarah Kezele ’11 to discuss the challenge of exceeding the high bar he set for himself and navigating the ever-changing landscape of college sports.

You were an assistant coach at Gonzaga for 22 years. What did you learn in your first season as a head coach?

I learned that I loved it. Coaching is a passion and leading a program like Arizona, it’s an honor. It’s something that I take really seriously, and I want to do the best job I can. I want people to be proud of the program. So, you do carry a huge responsibility. And that responsibility is constantly on my mind. You’re constantly mindful of, “Hey, I’m representing the university and this fan base.” So, you know, it keeps you motivated. It keeps you up at night, all those things (laughs).

You lost three major pieces of your roster to the NBA over the summer. What kind of void does that leave behind for this year’s team? 

Well, for one, that’s college basketball. It creates a void, of course, but that void is always filled by transfers coming in or freshmen coming in. So that’s what excites me, is figuring out how we’re going to fill those voids and how they’re going to look. Each team takes on its own identity and its own life. I’m looking forward to helping guide this team through that process.

Conference realignment has been a massive story in college sports this year. [USC and UCLA announced in June that they will be leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024, putting the future of the Pac-12 in limbo.] With those moves being so football-driven, how do you feel watching these changes unfold?

I think at Arizona, our basketball brand will be relevant in any conference we’re involved in. So, you know, whenever they tell me where we land, we will be ready to do the best job we can. We’re not going to sit around and waste a bunch of time speculating or worrying about things that may or may not happen. We’re just going to make sure that when that hits, we’re well positioned.

Name, image and likeness (NIL) deals are a huge part of the college landscape now, too. How has Arizona basketball handled all of that so far?

We’ve been definitely more conservative in our approach, just kind of learning about it and making sure that we’re staying within the guardrails of what’s allowable. Once we get that solidified I know that the Tucson community, the University of Arizona and the alumni base want great support programs. We’ll make sure that Arizona’s supercompetitive in the NIL space because it is something that needs to be addressed at some point in the recruitment. Now, we’re not using it as the lead for recruitment, but we understand that if you get down the line with a recruit and he asks questions, you’ve got to be able to answer them.

What do we need to know about this year’s team?

This is a group that has a ton of grit. We’ve got pieces that fit together. I think that they’re going to be great representatives of the university. This is a team that’s effort-based. They play extremely hard. They’re unselfish and they play together. We’re just looking to build on what we did last year.
 

University of Arizona student-athletes’ passions and pursuits are as varied as their sporting strengths and talents. They experience the rigors of training while balancing academic and personal lives. Many live structured lives, heading from workouts to class, back to practice, and then to dedicated study time. The schedule repeats day after day, mixed with competition, personal time and pursuing career interests. 

Arizona volleyball player Jaleesa Caroccio spent her summer as a Nike intern. Track and field thrower Grace Hala’ufia researches neurodegenerative diseases as an undergraduate student researcher. Volleyballer Kamaile Hiapo shares her passion for Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) culture. And international swimmer Amalie Mortensen, from Denmark, has overcome language barriers to find success in the classroom.

They are all supported by the academic, personal development, strength and conditioning, medical, and sports psychology resources found in the Commitment to an Athlete’s Total Success (C.A.T.S.) programs. And thanks in part to the C.A.T.S. programs, Wildcat student-athletes have collectively surpassed a 3.0 GPA for 13 consecutive semesters.

Jaleesa Caroccio 

Caroccio, a business management major in the Eller College of Management, worked closely with C.A.T.S. to prepare for her Nike interviews and eventually land an internship in sports marketing at Nike Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. 
Nike has offered a summer internship to two student-athletes from Arizona each year since 2014. After several interviews, Caroccio was chosen for a 2022 internship, along with Arizona softball’s Carlie Scupin.

“The Nike internship is incredibly competitive, including a rigorous application process for students,” says Sofia Read, associate director of C.A.T.S. Student-Athlete Development. “Students have to be on top of their game for all interviews. Nike does a great job matching students to areas that will be challenging, yet also allowing them to excel and thrive. 

“The whole experience is hugely impactful for each student’s current and future careers.”

Caroccio says she chose a sports marketing internship at Nike to take advantage of her background in athletics while also learning about corporate business. 

“I wanted to get the experience and the feel for what it was like to be working in a corporate company and the fact that Nike pairs its corporation with athletics,” she says. “I knew being a sports marketing intern would be something that I would enjoy learning about and being a part of.”

At Nike, Caroccio worked with fellow interns on a team focused on Nike’s brand in Asia, the Pacific and Latin America, a region known as APLA. She also learned valuable leadership and communication skills that she shares on the volleyball court.

“I learned so much about so many different cultures being on the APLA team, but I am also learning about many different sports, not just the mainstream sports,” Caroccio says. “I learned to be patient with tough situations and think through finding the best solution for an issue, not just the quickest solution. Playing on a team brings different perspectives and ideas, and I learned at Nike to make sure to appreciate everyone’s perspective.”

Now she’s bringing those lessons back to the court. “Someone might have more pressure than another on a team,” she says. “So, you should always be there to lift your teammates up and support them.”

Grace Hala’ufia

Thrower Hala’ufia takes the drive and focus honed in her sport to the lab, where she works with university researchers to decode the makings of neurodegenerative diseases.

Hala’ufia is part of the Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program. She plans to earn a doctorate in neurobiology after completing her undergraduate degree so that she can one day teach and run a lab of her own, uncovering the biological formation of neurological disorders.

“She has the curiosity, the drive and the talent to become a successful researcher, and it’s a pleasure to work with such a talented student. She gracefully juggles her academic efforts with her activities as an athlete and her research in the laboratory,” says Daniela Zarnescu, a professor in molecular and cellular biology and neuroscience.

Hala’ufia may manage gracefully, but her daily schedule is packed: practice in the morning, class in the afternoons, and evening lab time maintaining fly stocks. After homework, she works on data analysis. How does she handle it all? She says communication is key.

“Balancing academics, athletics and lab work can be very overwhelming. However, it isn’t impossible,” Hala’ufia says. 

“I have learned that being open with my coaches, lab mates and professors allows for flexibility in a seemingly rigid and demanding schedule. Whenever another part of my life requires more of my attention, I try to let the right people know, and they’re always understanding and adjust accordingly.”

Kamaile Hiapo

Hiapo’s success as a libero — a volleyball defensive specialist — came fast. She was the first freshman starting libero in program history and set the Arizona freshman record for digs in a season (378). Today, she’s a senior leader and the Wildcats’ main libero, and she has turned her focus to something bigger than sports: inclusion.

Hiapo comes from a family of collegiate volleyball players, and her mom was a member of the U.S. national team. Her grandfather, Fred Hiapo, was a 30-time outrigger canoe All-American. A Pacific Islander, Hiapo views it as her role to pave the way for other APIDA athletes.

“I just want to keep bringing recognition to the islands and let others have the same opportunity that my mom and I had,” Hiapo says. “There’s a lot of talent there, and all we need is to get noticed and be given the chance. I was given an amazing chance to come here, and I’m proud to represent my culture.”

Hiapo has shared her experience during APIDA Heritage Month by exchanging stories with other APIDA student-athletes and Arizona Athletics staff as way to connect and share similarities and differences. For example, she remembers listening to swimming’s Sam Iida talk about his culture and how proud he was to be a member of the APIDA community. “Having our names out there is how we show our pride,” she says.

Hiapo looks at the pride that she, Iida, and others like softball’s Dejah Mulipola and football’s Donovan Laie share as important for representing APIDA athletes and their cultures. As a Pacific Islander, Hiapo describes her pride as “love and aloha. I love my culture and my people. We call everyone our 'ohana, our family. I love that culture of family, love and unity.”

Hiapo has always felt at home with Arizona Athletics. “I feel very noticed and included. I’ve never felt excluded here, and I like that people take an interest in my experiences.”

Inclusion — harnessing the power of diversity — is part of the Arizona Athletics Strategic Plan. It’s important to Hiapo because, as she says, “it makes us feel united despite our differences.” She says her culture of family, love and unity is exactly what she hopes to see in the world, and she knows she can be part of that change.

“One thing we emphasized last year was ‘Together We Bear Down,’” Hiapo says. “Everybody experiences different things, but it helps us come together. I know that I can learn from other people, and it can make me a better person. We can use our differences to come together and unite as one.”

Amalie Mortensen

Mortensen is as quick to adapt as she is quick in the pool. She found success in her first year as a Wildcat, earning College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America All-America second-team honors in the 200-meter freestyle. She also held the fastest time on the team in the 100 free. 

Although Mortensen learned English as a second language from a young age in her native Denmark, she might still have found language differences in the way of her academic success if it weren’t for the support she’s had from the Wildcat community. 

“My biggest challenge was following along in my classes if the professor spoke a bit fast,” she says. “But having an instant community that I belonged to with the swimming and diving team definitely made the transition easier. I always had teammates, coaches and supporting staff around me to help with things I didn’t quite understand. Immediately being a part of that family made a huge difference with my acclimation here in the States.”

Being so far away from home can take a toll on athletes and make them feel uncomfortable, but for Mortensen it’s just the opposite at Arizona. 

“Arizona Athletics has an amazing supporting staff, so not only do we excel in the pool but also in the classroom,” Mortensen says. “They have always been available to help, no matter what the challenge has been. Being foreign, there automatically occurs some different struggles that domestic students and athletes don’t experience to the same extent, and the surrounding staff has been so understanding and helpful with solving them when needed.”

In October 2022, the University of Arizona community mourned the loss of hydrology and atmospheric sciences department head and professor Thomas Meixner, who worked to educate the next generation of water researchers and make our world’s most precious resource safer for all. He was killed in a campus shooting on Oct. 5. He is survived by his wife, Kathleen Cotter Meixner, and sons Sean and Brendan.

Meixner grew up in Maryland, playing in streams and digging in the garden. As an adult, he carried the passion for water and the environment that he had discovered as a child throughout his research.

“He was passionate about hydrology, and one of the last acts he performed on this Earth was to teach a class. He described his work as ‘making the world better through biogeochemistry,’ but to us, he was trying to save the world’s most precious resource,” his family wrote in a statement. 

Meixner studied water in arid and semi-arid regions, with a focus on the American Southwest, which eventually became his home. His research interests included understanding how water influences the biology and geology of landscapes as well as where rivers source their water, urban hydrology in desert cities, and the effect of climate change on groundwater recharge. His work spanned environments as diverse as desert scrub and Alpine ecosystems, from scales small to large.

Meixner earned his bachelor’s degree in the history of science, as well as soil and water conservation, from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1992. He then came to UArizona, where he earned his doctoral degree in hydrology and water resources in 1999, with work focused on Alpine biogeochemistry.

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He worked as an assistant professor in environmental sciences at the University of California, Riverside, until 2004, before returning to UArizona as an assistant professor. He gained full professorship in 2015 and became department head in 2019.

Meixner Family GoFundMe 

Help lift up Thomas Meixner’s family through a GoFundMe account established by the Meixner family: gofund.me/a3738a14

At the heart of America’s Main Street from the mid-1800s on was a cozy little neighborhood drugstore. A soda fountain provided treats, and a druggist supplied friendly advice and remedies for whatever ailed you.

Today, you can see many of that iconic drugstore’s familiar elements at the Coit Museum of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, which has a new home in the University of Arizona’s R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy, just south of the College of Medicine – Tucson and Banner – University Medical Center. 

As you stand in front of one of the old ceramic drug vases perched behind the glass doors of an antique showcase, one thought may strike you: This is history in a bottle. These same bottles may once have served Arizona’s cowboys, miners or farmers, sold from shops along Congress Street. 

In the museum, you can explore the collection’s 20,000 bottles, tins and boxes, many still filled with potions, tinctures and elixirs that might have had roots in Greece, Babylonia or China. It’s all innocent stuff: The contents are no longer potent. 

Along with fancy wood cabinets with stained glass in the doors, visitors also will see all sorts of mortar and pestles, symbols of pharmacy’s past. 

The museum was opened in 1966 by the College of Pharmacy after it received a collection from a 1930s pharmacist and inspector for the Arizona pharmacy board. The gift included treasures mainly from the 1850s to the 1950s. In 2006, the museum acquired a large collection from Disneyland’s Main Street USA model Upjohn Pharmacy. Today, the collection is one of the world’s top representations of the profession’s history.

For decades, these fascinating museum exhibits were scattered on various floors of two buildings. But in the museum’s new 2,000-square-foot home, the Disneyland items and other exhibits will finally have a grand permanent home.

In 2021, the College of Pharmacy received a transformative $50 million gift from alumnus R. Ken Coit. A portion of his investment funded the museum’s newly dedicated space. 

The gift also led to the museum’s name being changed from the History of Pharmacy Museum to the Coit Museum of Pharmacy & Health Sciences. The new name also reflects an expansion in the museum’s focus — no longer solely history or exclusively pharmacy but including the other UArizona Health Sciences colleges and beyond.

In addition to its new home, the museum recently welcomed Alexis Peregoy, its new director. Throughout the museum’s history, it has had four curators. Peregoy looks forward to contributing to the legacy cared for by her predecessors. 

“I’m elated to lead the Coit Museum through the coming years in its new space,” Peregoy says. “I believe visitors will be surprised by the uniqueness of the museum, as well as its range, and I hope they will walk away excited about the history and contemporary practices of pharmacy and health sciences.”

One of the must-see exhibits is “Great Moments in Pharmacy,” a video display featuring 40 paintings from the 1950s that have been digitized and made into stunning animations that “fly” the viewer in and around each painting while a narration describes its story.

The exhibit won a silver award in the 2021 Telly Awards, which honor excellence in video and television.

In contrast to that cutting-edge technology, an elegant showcase from a Tennessee pharmacy, made in 1870, is the museum’s oldest furniture piece. The collection also includes glass “show globes” filled with colorful liquids, an elegant feature of early drugstores and apothecary shops.

Also on display are packets of early “cigarettes” used to convey medicines for lung diseases. They had no tobacco, mainly just paper and drugs, and worked a bit like current inhalers. 

Cans of Indian hemp or cannabis had varied applications in those days before strict regulations were put in place after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was created with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Many labels on the bottles, tins and boxes are truly fascinating. “Pastor Koenig’s Nervine” promised to cure epilepsy and the “aftereffects of inebriety,” common on the Arizona frontier. For “costiveness” (constipation), you might have bought “McLean’s Universal Pills.”

“You never know what you will encounter in archival collections — it isn’t always what you would expect, like manuscripts, correspondence and photographs,” Peregoy says. “I’ve had dentures, death masks, human remains and even severed fingers in a collection. Now, with stewarding this new collection, I can say I have worked with antique apothecary jars and 100-year-old chewed gum.”