Faculty, Premedicine Program, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies: School of Professional Studies

Premedicine Faculty

Erin Cable

Erin Cable completed her B.S. in Brain, Behavior and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Michigan in 2010. Following her undergraduate work, she completed her PhD in Psychology with a focus on Integrative Neuroscience from the University of Chicago in 2016. Her research primarily focused on the neural mechanisms by which circadian disruption affects the function of the reproductive and immune systems. During her graduate education, Erin worked as a lecturer at the University of Chicago in the Department of Psychology, and as a Preceptor for the Career Advancement Office at the University of Chicago. Following completion of her doctorate, Erin began her current role at Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies as an Academic and Career Adviser and Lecturer in Biology and Psychology courses.

Roberto Lopez-Rosado

Roberto Lopez-Rosado is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences and Northwestern University Prosthetics and Orthotics Center. His job has three components:
1) Teaching. Instructor of Gross Anatomy, Neuroscience, Physiology, and Clinical Skills for two graduate programs. Roberto also teaches undergraduates and post-baccalaureate students at the School of Professional Studies. He holds visiting professor appointments with Rocky Mountain University in Utah, and Florida Gulf Coast University in Ft. Myers, Florida.
2) Research. Roberto researches in the area of biomechanics of the lower extremity for post-stroke individuals to prevent falls and improve their walking ability, as well as health services and outcomes research.
3) Service. Roberto is the Chair of Diversity and Inclusion at the Department of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences. Additionally, he works in the recruitment and retention of students and promotes physical therapy as a viable health care profession by reaching out to underserved areas in Chicago.

Michele McDonough

Michele McDonough is the Assistant Chair in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Professor McDonough joined the Northwestern faculty in 2008 and has been teaching with SPS for the last ten years. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Cornell University and earned her PhD in Biochemistry while studying signaling pathways regulating cytoskeleton rearrangements at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Michael Mutehart

Michael Mutehart completed the B.A. in Anthropology at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, IL in 2008. He began graduate school in the fall of 2008 in the Driskill Graduate Program in the Life Sciences here at Northwestern University. He completed the PhD in evolutionary biology in May of 2018. His research focus is on the locomotor morphology of primates, particularly the small and medium-sized monkeys of South America. Since 2012, Michael has been teaching as an adjunct instructor in the School of Professional Studies. Michael designed and developed a lab-based version of the Human Anatomy course; which, with the help of SPS administration, has been taught each spring quarter. Michael continues to teach as an adjunct instructor in Human Anatomy lecture and lab courses within SPS; furthermore, Michael serves as an adjunct instructor in the anatomy lab at Feinberg. Michael currently has an appointment with the Physician’s Assistant program at Feinberg, as well.

Derek Nelson

Derek Nelson is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Chemistry Department. He received a BS in Chemistry from Miami University in Ohio. He then earned a PhD in Organic Chemistry (focusing on physical organic chemistry and mechanistic studies) from the University of Minnesota. After postdoctoral experience in asymmetric catalysis and molecular recognition at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, he started an academic career at Loyola University in Chicago. His research at Loyola focused on organic synthesis and fluorine chemistry. He later worked at Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie as a medicinal chemist developing novel pain therapies. Upon retiring from AbbVie in 2014, he returned to academia as a member of the instructional faculty in the Chemistry Department of Northwestern University.

Owen Priest

Owen Priest is a Professor of Instruction in WCAS. He earned his A.B. from Bowdoin College in 1987 and then taught high school for four years before he attended the University of Minnesota and was awarded his Doctor of Philosophy in 1996. After teaching at Grinnell College in Iowa and Hobart and William Smith in upstate New York, Dr. Priest joined Northwestern’s Chemistry Department in 2000. While he initially served as the Director of the Organic Chemistry Teaching Laboratories, a position he held for 13 years, he now devotes his attention to teaching organic chemistry classes, first-year seminars, and upper-level chemistry courses for chemistry majors. Dr. Priest has been a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) for 24 years. During that time, he served on the Executive Committee of the Professional Relations Division and performed a year of service as the Committee Chair of the LGBT Chemists and Allies Committee. He was a member of two committees that wrote national standardized exams before he was appointed to serve as the chair of two more committees; each was tasked with writing a national standardized exam. Presently, he is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Chemical Education, an ACS journal that is the premier journal for publishing chemical education research.

Charles Rudick

Charles Rudick is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at Northwestern University School of Professional Studies. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Biopsychology from the University of Michigan. In 2005 at Northwestern University, he earned the Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience, followed by a Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the Departments of Physiology and Urology. He currently teaches Physiology, Pharmacology, and Neuroscience to both undergraduate and medical students.

Arthur Schmidt

Arthur Schmidt is the Lecture Demonstrator for the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the Director of Undergraduate Laboratories. He got his Bachelor of Science degree from DePaul University in 1966 and his PhD from the University of Notre Dame in 1974. He has taught introductory College Physics (Phyx 130-1,2,3) and General Physics 135-2 in the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences for five years and has lectured in the Summer Session and the School of Professional Studies for 16 years. He is also the faculty adviser for the Society of Physics Students and has served as a freshman adviser. Schmidt came to Northwestern in 1984, following teaching appointments at Lake Forest College, Indiana University, the University of Notre Dame, and LaLumiere High School (LaPorte, Indiana). He is currently active in Illinois Project Physics (ISPP), an association that brings together university and high-school physics teachers to share information on the latest laboratory equipment and techniques for presenting lecture demonstrations.

Kate Schultz

Kate Schultz is the assistant director for the Doctor of Speech-Language Pathology program and the MS in Speech, Language, and Learning program in the School of Communication at Northwestern. Prior to joining the School of Communication, she worked as the academic advisor and program manager for the SPS Professional Health Careers program, where she developed the Professional Health Careers Proseminar I and II courses that she teaches in the SPS program. In addition to teaching at SPS, she is an adjunct lecturer for several graduate-level health professions programs. She has also served as a health professions education consultant, working with admissions offices for medical schools and other health professions programs. Kate completed a B.A. in Communication Studies and an M.S. in Higher Education Administration and Policy at Northwestern University. She is currently a PhD Candidate in Health Sciences with a focus on health professions education at Northern Illinois University.

Brian Shea

Brian Shea has been a tenured Professor at Northwestern since 1988, serving in the Department of Cell & Molecular Biology until 2018, and subsequently joining the Feinberg Medical School Department of Medical Education. He was trained in biological anthropology and anatomy at Harvard College (A.B., 1975) and Duke University (PhD,1982), and has been teaching human gross anatomy to medical and dental students since 1983. He has also taught courses in human anatomy and evolutionary biology in SPS for many years, to students interested in pursuing careers in healthcare as well as others with more general interests in the structure, function, and evolution of the human body. He continues his research interest and publication focus on the growth and evolutionary anatomy of the musculoskeletal system of humans and their primate relatives.

Rosa Ventrella

Rosa Ventrella received her B.S. in bioengineering from the University of Illinois-Urbana, Champaign in 2012 and then received her Ph.D. in life sciences from the Driskill Graduate Program (DGP) at Northwestern University in 2018. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cellular and Developmental Biology at Northwestern University studying cilia development and transdifferentiation using Xenopus as a model system. Rosa has been teaching for the Northwestern University School of Professional Studies (SPS) since 2018 and continues to teach the biology lab sequence and biochemistry course.

Thomas Volpe

Thomas Volpe has been teaching science for over 20 years. His graduate research on cell cycle regulation in budding yeast was performed at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. After earning his Ph.D. from SUNY Stony Brook in 2000 he stayed on at Cold Spring Harbor as a post-doc studying gene silencing in fission yeast. He moved to the Midwest to continue his research on gene regulation at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. His current interests include developing new approaches to STEM education, game design and promoting science outreach in the Chicago area. Tom has been teaching at the School of Professional studies since 2014.