Natalie (Bruner) Slezak ’05

GazeboDr. Natalie (Bruner) Slezak ’05 and Dr. Jonathan Slezak were married in Levittown, PA, on June 27th, 2014. IWU alums were in attendance. Natalie and Jon met at West Virginia University, where they attended the same graduate program. After earning their Ph.D.s in Psychology in 2010, both completed Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. While completing her fellowship, Natalie applied for and received NIH’s Loan Repayment Program (LRP). Natalie and Jon now reside in Frederick, MD with their rescue dog, Rosie. Natalie is a Medical Research Analyst for Hayes, Inc, and Jon is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Mount St. Mary’s University.

Student loan repayment

During Sept 1–Nov 17 the NIH Division of Loan Repayment will be accepting applications for student loan repayment program for the areas of clinical research, pediatric research, health disparities research, contraception and infertility research, or clinical research for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

To qualify, an applicant must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, possess a doctoral-level degree (with the exception of the contraception and infertility research LRP), and have educational loan debt equal to or exceeding 20 percent of his/her annual institutional base salary.

In addition, applicants must devote at least 20 hours per week to research that fits within one of five program areas: clinical research, pediatric research, health disparities research, contraception and infertility research, or clinical research for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Dr. Matthew Hendrickson ’05

Dr. Matthew Hendrickson completed a Doctorate in Law & Policy from Northeastern University this past April. His thesis, The Digital Expectation of Privacy: Recommendations and Compromises to Updating Existing Privacy Law, focuses upon updating antiquated laws to protect consumers’ digital rights to privacy.

This August, Matthew took on a new role, Director of Marketing Analytics & Research, within the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University.

Join the new academic tradition known as the Summer Reading Program.  Students, faculty, staff, and alumni are reading:

The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse.

If you would like to participate in an alumni-only book discussion group in Bloomington, Chicago or Washington DC, please register or contact your area Alumni Regional President directly.

RSVP for the campus book discussion group on Friday, August 20, 6-8 p.m.

Wednesday, September 3rd the author will be discussing his book at the President’s Convocation at 11 a.m. at Westbrook Auditorium in Presser Hall, IWU.

Anna Deters ’05 wins essay contest

Anna Deters ’05 won the 2012 international quarterly Eighteenth-Century Fiction Best Graduate Essay contest with her article “‘Glorious Perverseness’: Pride and Domestic Heroism in Richardson’s Novels.” The article appeared in the Fall 2013 edition. In May, she successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation in English literature at Washington University in St. Louis.