College of Arts and Sciences
Biological Sciences
Naureen Javeed, M.S. '11
Naureen earned her doctoral degree from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine following her master's work at ISU. Now a faculty member at Mayo, she studies the role of intracellular communication as it relates to the role of extracellular vesicles in the pathophysiology of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. She is funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and JDRF.
Communication
Jennifer Detweiler '11, M.S. '14
Jennifer has a solid record of professional achievements because she is a Redbird from ISU’s School of Communication. Her capstone master’s project was instrumental to launching her career in internal public relations. She progressed steadily in the PR profession, having worked for RLI Insurance, Aon Corporation, Edelman Public Relations, and now Expedia Group, where she is the director of employee communications. She also earned prestigious awards for her public relations work.
Adam Jones '99, M.S. '02
Originally from Arthur, Adam has been a faculty member at Illinois College since 2008 and served as department chair since 2012. His research interests include instructional communication focusing on first-generation college students and out-of-class support. He has taught various courses at the collegiate level and was recently awarded the 2019 Harry Joy Dunbaugh Distinguished Professor Award, which is considered the greatest honor bestowed upon an Illinois College faculty member.
Jennifer McDade, M.S. '04
Jennifer serves in a consulting role in the People Advisory Services practice at Ernst & Young. She advises clients on how to build a better working world through impactful communication and workforce plans that keep humans at the center of decision-making. Jennifer credits ISU’s School of Communication with developing the curiosity and critical thinking skills that she uses to ask questions and develop solutions for the firm’s clients.
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Quintin Hecht '07, Au.D. '11
Quintin received his bachelor’s degree and Doctor of Audiology from Illinois State University. He served as an audiologist for the United States Air Force from 2011-2016. Since then, he has served as an audiologist for the Defense Health Agency and the United States Army Reserves. Dr. Hecht is a published author and presenter, and he comes from a Redbird Legacy family
Economics
Dominic Colletti '12
In December of 2012, Dominic graduated from Illinois State with an undergraduate degree in economics. From there, he spent time earning the Certified Financial Planner® designation and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame while working within the wealth management industry.
Currently, he leads both business development and strategic expansion efforts for an independent wealth management firm with $2 billion in assets under management.
English
Faith Overall '19
Faith is a Chicago Public Schools English teacher and spoken word artist who finds sustainability and liberation in artistic expression.
Since graduating from Illinois State University, Faith has dedicated her time as an educator and poet to amplifying and connecting the ways in which emotion can become the driving force for intense and necessary conversations. Her teaching practice requires young scholars to not only examine themselves but examine and respond to the ways in which our intersectional identities play an integral role in broadening and deepening our understanding of what it means to be human.
Demetrice Worley, Ph.D. '90
Demetrice is a full professor of English at Bradley University. She holds a bachelor's, cum laude, in English from Bradley University, a master's in English from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a doctorate in English Studies, from Illinois State University.
She authored Tongues in My Mouth and co-edited Language and Image in the Reading-Writing Classroom, and African American Literature. Her poetry appears in literary journals and anthologies. In addition, her poem "Femicide/Femicidio: The Murdered and Disappeared Women of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico," won third place in the 2009 Split This Rock Poetry Contest.
Geography, Geology, and the Environment
Rob Kowalski '91
Rob is the assistant planning and development director for the City of Champaign. He has over 25 years of municipal planning experience in both Illinois and Kentucky. He graduated from Illinois State University in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in geography and has a master's in urban planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Rob is also an adjunct instructor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Kate Krischke-Grobart '07
Kate is a 12th-grade environmental science teacher at the Waukegan High School in Waukegan. In addition to her classes, Mrs. Krischke-Grobart has organized local and national field trips offering her students unique learning opportunities. With Lake Michigan only one mile from the school, Mrs. Krischke-Grobart developed the Lake Michigan Literacy Curriculum, in coordination with the Lake Forest Open Lands Association, to teach students about the environmental, economic, and historical significance of the lake.
Kate also received the 2022 Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators. The award was established by the 1990 National Environmental Education Act and seeks to recognize, support, and bring public attention to the outstanding environmental projects performed by teachers who go beyond textbook instruction to incorporate methods and materials that utilize creative experiences and enrich student learning in K-12 education.
History
Stephanie Braun '05, M.S. '07
Stephanie serves as the dean of academic intervention and support at Joliet Junior College. She oversees testing, tutoring, academic intervention, communication center, university partnerships and transfer initiatives, various federal grants, and the Romeoville Campus.
Stephanie holds bachelor's degrees in marketing and history from Northern Illinois University and Illinois State University respectively, a master's degree in history and women’s studies from Illinois State University, and a doctoral degree in educational leadership from the University of Saint Francis.
Roy Olson '08, M.S. '15
Roy is a board-certified teacher of Advanced Placement US and World History and serves as an Advanced Placement reader. He strives to present history as a discipline in order to foster student engagement and debate and proudly models his classroom based on his experiences completing his master's with the Department of History. Above all, he centers lessons on analyses of political economy and encourages students to interrogate their history through that lens.
Mathematics
Aaron Hillebrandt '07
Aaron earned a bachelor's in mathematics, actuarial sequence in 2007. He became a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society in 2010, only three years after graduation. He had a perfect record in his performance on professional actuarial examinations, having passed all of them on the first trial.
Currently, he is a principal and consulting actuary with Pinnacle Actuarial Resources consulting firm in Bloomington. He is an honorably discharged sergeant and combat veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He served as a vice-chair of the Casualty Actuarial Society Annual and Spring Meeting Planning Committee and a faculty member of the American Academy of Actuaries Seminar on Effective P/C Loss Reserve Opinions.
Brandon Thornton '11, M.S. '16
After graduating in 2011, Brandon joined Bloomington High School (BHS) as a mathematics teacher. While at ISU he was a standout undergraduate student who was a Golden Apple Scholar and active in many extracurricular activities including student government, Alternative Breaks, men’s glee club, and ISU show choir. He brought his varied interests and enthusiasm to BHS where he works to support student development both in and outside of the classroom.
At BHS, Brandon has led many extracurricular activities including mentoring future teachers in Project Students Entering Education (S.E.E.). Along with academic activities like speech and debate, he inspires students to give back to their communities and work toward social justice. He does so by advising BHS Lights On, BHS Beacons of Light, BHS Club Alternative Breaks, and other student-led diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Brandon is currently working toward his doctorate in education with hopes of obtaining it in 2023.
Physics
Manuela Burek '21
Manuela earned her bachelor’s degree in physics from Illinois State University and her bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) as part of ISU’s Engineering Physics Dual Degree Program. Between ISU and UIC, Manuela has conducted research in four research labs, published two peer-reviewed articles, and is an inventor on an international patent application.
Currently, Manuela is a Juris Doctor candidate at Chicago-Kent College of Law, where she is focusing on intellectual property litigation.
Jonathan Sullivan-Wood '20
Jonathan majored in physics, computational physics, and math at ISU, researching space plasma with Dr. Holland. He received his master's in physics in 2022 in cosmology at the University of Iowa. He is currently a Ph.D. student at Purdue studying to one day be a physics professor.
A science communicator, Jonathan writes and edits videos on the YouTube channel Heroic Science and has created videos for both ISU Physics and Iowa Physics.
Politic and Government
Marc Loro '74
After graduating from ISU in 1974, Marc went to Washington University in St. Louis School of Law and graduated in 1977. He began working in the Office of the State's Attorney of McLean County for several years before moving to the Office of the Secretary of State's Department of Administrative Hearings in Springfield until 2018. Here he began as a staff attorney, was promoted to senior legal advisor, and retired as deputy director.
Marc is a charter member of the ISU Attorney Advisory Board and served as chair from 2011-2013. He’s also a member of the Illinois State Bar Association, having served on the Committee on Government Lawyers. He is currently a member of the ISBA Administrative Law Section Council, McLean and Sangamon County Bar Association, as well as a charter member of the Illinois Government Bar Association. Several of these boards he held the position of chair at various times.
Laura Murphy '81
Laura has spent the last 20 years as an active member of the Des Plaines community, including eight years as an alderman for the city’s 3rd Ward. She was appointed to the Illinois State Senate in 2015 to represent the 28th Senate District.
In 2020, she was appointed Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate. Laura also serves as chair of the Committee on Executive Appointments, as vice chair of the Committee on Local Government, and as a member of the Committees on Assignments, Commerce, Environment and Conservation, Executive, Financial Institutions, Higher Education, and Labor.
Psychology
Sarah Gerson '06
After completing her degree at Illinois State University, Sarah pursued a doctorate's degree in developmental psychology at the University of Maryland, focusing her research on how infants come to understand their social worlds. She undertook a postdoctoral position at Radboud University's Donders Centre for Cognition before taking up faculty posts in the United Kingdom. She is currently an associate professor and the center manager for the Cardiff University Center for Human Developmental Science at Cardiff University in Wales.
Her work has been published and presented internationally and has been funded by research councils in the UK and industry partners worldwide.
Paula Williams, M.S.' 88
Paula completed her bachelor's in genetics and psychology at the University of Illinois, a master's in clinical psychology at Illinois State University, and a doctorate in clinical health psychology at the University of Utah.
Following internship/postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University Medical Center and faculty positions at Loyola University Chicago and Washington State University, she returned to the University of Utah. Her research focuses on individual differences in stress risk and resilience, with a recent focus on restoration and stress, including 1) phenotypic and endophenotypic characteristics of habitual short sleepers; and 2) individual differences in the experience of aesthetic stimuli (i.e., art, nature, and beauty). She has authored over 70 journal articles and book chapters, received funding from the Department of Defense, and has been an associate editor at the Journal of Behavioral Medicine and the Journal of Research in Personality.
Social Work
Kimberly Klepec '89, M.S. '15
Kimberly is a licensed clinical social worker and proud graduate of the ISU School of Social Work, earning her master's in 2015. She completed a bachelor's degree in 1989 in special education for students, like herself, with blindness or low vision. She then pursued a social service career serving people with disabilities.
Having raised five children of her own, Kimberly returned to ISU while in her 40s. She reports that while her low vision did place obstacles along her way, she is now very satisfied as a mental health clinician in Carle Physicians Group, Behavioral Health.
Diane Zosky '80
Diane graduated from Illinois State University’s first Bachelor of Social Work accredited program in 1980. She went on to earn a master's in social work from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a doctorate from Loyola University, Chicago. After her work in medical social work, and with survivors and perpetrators of intimate partner violence, she joined the Illinois State University School of Social Work faculty. From there she served as an administrator in the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology as well as History and as the director of the School of Social Work. She recently retired in 2022 after serving four years as interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at ISU.
Sociology and Anthropolgy
Cristian Casanova '17
After graduating from Illinois State University, Cristian completed a summer CDC fellowship at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Following his fellowship, Cristian completed a year of service to support at-risk students as an AmeriCorps member at City Year.
Pursuing his set goals in public health, he completed his master’s in health informatics and master’s in public policy at the University of Michigan. He currently works as a senior consulting strategy analyst at Accenture’s Applied Intelligence, helping organizations utilize artificial intelligence technology, data analytics, and automation to solve their complex problems and deliver intelligent insights.
Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development
Amy Deal, M.S. '10
Amy builds sexuality education curricula for national governments. To do so, she manages budgets and project deliverables for federal and corporate grants to other governments and agencies overseas. She worked with USAID, Hewlett-Packard, and Planned Parenthood chapters in South Africa and Liberia.
As a part of her Stevenson Center professional practice, Amy served as an AmeriCorps Member with the Greater Livingston County Economic Development Council in Pontiac. Through its partnership with the county government, the GLCEDC was able to provide small grants to communities and businesses throughout the county. Thanks to Amy, a small community relaunched its own community-run grocery store, filling in a food desert. During Peace Corps, she served in Dulaankhan, Mongolia, teaching English and working with the local women’s organization on leadership and training projects.
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Jody Herman '99
Jody is the Reid Rasmussen Senior Scholar of Public Policy at the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. Her research focuses on measures of gender identity in survey research and the prevalence and impacts of discrimination based on gender identity or expression. At the Williams Institute, her work has included the development of trans-inclusive questions for population-based surveys and research on minority stress, health, violence, and suicidality among transgender people, among other topics. She co-authored Injustice at Every Turn, based on the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, and The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey.
She currently serves as a co-principal investigator on the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey, led by the National Center for Transgender Equality, and as a co-investigator on two NIH-funded studies to improve gender identity data collection through the National Violent Death Reporting System and to assess health disparities among gender minority youth. Her published research is routinely cited, including by major news sources, such as The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and NPR.