Our Opportunities

Associate professor of psychology and neuroscience Dr. Michael T. Stefanik received a $632,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to support his work examining novel treatments for prescription opioid craving and relapse. North Central not only competed with much larger universities for the grant but is also one of just a few liberal arts schools in the U.S. to ever receive this research grant. 

This provides the opportunity for our undergraduate students to get involved in nationally recognized research that will have real-world applications and outcomes, whereas most of the institutions have full-time teams of masters, Ph.D., or post-doctoral trainees conducting their studies. 

As an Honors student, Ian LaPat ’24 was required to integrate his classroom learning with a domestic or international immersion experience. Although he was nervous at first, he culminated his college career having studied in four different countries. 

Hailey Poe ’25 thrives when she can use her multitudes of talents in different ways. A four-time individual national champion in triathlon and three-time team national champion, she is also the first Cardinal to win the same women’s national championship four consecutive years. She doesn’t just excel in athletics, either. As an Honors student, she is studying ethical leadership and sport management, is a first-year mentor and also volunteers with the Special Olympics. 

Justin Simbol ’20/M’24 took his experience from brewing coffee in North Central’s Coffee Lab to his job as a demand planning specialist with Dutch Bros. Coffee. His degrees in economics and finance and his graduate assistantship in the Coffee Lab is a combination only North Central can offer, since it’s one of a few collegiate facilities of its kind in the United States and the first laboratory with a primary focus on the business of coffee!