In May of 2014, Claudia Hernandez earned her bachelor’s degree in social work from Northeastern Illinois University. It was the first major step in realizing her lifelong goal of becoming a social worker—a goal born from tragedy. When she was just seven years old, Claudia’s father passed away unexpectedly. “My father’s death made me a sensitive child,” Hernandez said. “I remember crying in bed every night and out of nowhere in my second-grade class. For that reason I was referred to the school social worker. Her help during that time motivated me to become a social worker.”

According to Alireza Dorestani, associate professor of accounting at Northeastern Illinois University, his greatest scholarly accomplishment isn’t his three master’s degrees or his two Ph.D.s—one in economics and one in accounting. It’s not his 10 publications in refereed journals or the 12 presentations he’s given in the last four-and-a-half years alone. It’s not even the teaching awards he’s earned—the College of Business and Management Excellence in Teaching Award or the Northeastern Illinois University Student Choice Award.

Every morning after breakfast, Chielezona Eze, associate professor of English at Northeastern Illinois University, spends three hours reading and writing. “Those are holy hours,” Eze said.

In 2006, Rodrigo Garcia was lifting weights with a friend at the Northeastern gym. Garcia had just come off five years of service in the Marine Corps, during which he had three separate deployments in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Having spent the majority of his last five years on military bases and in combat zones, Garcia was having a tough time adjusting to life at Northeastern.

Every year since 1986, the Golden Apple Awards for Excellence in Teaching selects 10 outstanding teachers in the Chicago area to be recipients of this prestigious award. In 2013, Gregory Regalado, ’05, was one of those 10 teachers.

If you’ve ever walked past the Music Box Theatre or sat in the sun beside the statues of the “Happy Family” in the Healing Garden at Ronan Park; if you’ve ever dropped your kids off at Avoca West Elementary School or glimpsed “Gourd Man” in Village Green Park, you’re familiar with the work of Shencheng Xu. Since he began teaching sculpture at Northeastern Illinois University in 2003, Xu has been selected every year—that’s 12 straight years—to have his art publicly displayed around Chicago. 

Stijepko “Step” Tokic recently delivered a paper at PatCon 4—the largest annual conference for patent scholars in the world—on reverse payment settlements in the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to his international presentations, he has published widely, most recently in top rated journals like Stanford Technology Law Review, the Federal Circuit Bar Journal, and the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s AIPLA Quarterly Journal.

What makes a great teacher or an exceptional coach? Is it the physical act of teaching? The assessment of athletes? The nature—and frequency—of feedback? The practice schedule? These are all questions Assistant Professor of Physical Education and Exercise Science Tom Parry is exploring. 

Cyberbullying, “net banging” (the practice of recruiting gang members via social media), cultivating culturally sensitive learning environments—what do these wide-ranging topics have in common? They can all be studied through the prism of emotional behavior disorders—and Mickie Wong-Lo, assistant professor of special education at Northeastern Illinois University, is doing just that.

Dr. Jon Hageman, Associate Professor in Anthropology, has been appointed Research Associate at the Chicago Field Museum, in recognition of his work with the museum's Searle Herbarium. Dr. Hageman also received a National Science Foundation grant from the area of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (Archeaology-Senior Research Program) to complete an online Mesoamerican ethnobotanical database.