Northeastern Illinois University Honors Program

🎉 The end of one incredible journey, the beginning of the next!🎉 2026 UHP Graduates: Part 2

We are immensely proud to celebrate latest University Honors Program graduates. Each and every one of these students has shown incredible determination, put in countless hours of hard work, and truly showcased what it means to strive for excellence.

Cheers to your bright futures, graduates the entire Honors community is rooting for you! 🎓✨

Olga Shalaeva : Interdisciplinary Studies and Political Science Double Major, NDP
Jocelyn Hrubec : Marketing Major, CBT
Nur Johnson : Justice Studies Major, CAS
Abby Heggem : Communications Management Technology Major, CAS
Marycarmen Hernandez-Mora : Music Education Major, GCOE
Tea Katsman : Biology Major, CAS
Sandra Medina : Justice Studies Major, CAS
Edgar Silva : Psychology Major, CAS

🎉 The end of one incredible journey, the beginning of the next!🎉 2026 UHP Graduates: Part 1

We are immensely proud to celebrate our University Honors Program graduates. Each and every one of these students has shown incredible determination, put in countless hours of hard work, and truly showcased what it means to strive for excellence.

Cheers to your bright futures, graduates the entire Honors community is rooting for you! 🎓✨

Cassaundra Garcia : Marketing Major, CBT
Anika Tracy : Philosophy and Political Science Double Major, CAS
John Sayson : Psychology Major, CAS
Marty Kalas : Psychology and Philosophy Double Major, CAS
Elijah Sweatt : Philosophy Major, CAS
Jess DeMaris : Social Work Major, CAS
Lisa Rodrigues : Community Health Major, GCOE
Nicholas Cykalewicz : Chemistry Major, CAS

Part 2:
NEIU celebrated our outstanding University Honors Program students at the Academic Honors Ceremony!

We want to recognize Tea Katsman, Sandra Medina, Nicholas Cykalewicz, Jocelyn Hrubec, Nur Johnson, Lisa Rodriguez for their hard work, dedication, and passion that have truly set them apart. 🎓✨

Let’s applaud their incredible journey and their bright paths ahead!

Part 1:
NEIU celebrated our outstanding University Honors Program students at the Academic Honors Ceremony!

We want to recognize Abby Heggem, Cassaundra Garcia, Jessica DeMaris, John Sayson, and Anika Tracy for their hard work, dedication, and passion that have truly set them apart. 🎓✨

Let’s applaud their incredible journey and their bright paths ahead!

Celebrating our Honors Program in style!

Join us as we toast to a year of achievements and memories! 🥳 We celebrated hard work, dedication, and the bonds we’ve formed. This was an unforgettable evening filled with inspiring stories from our exceptional journey together.

Congratulations to our soon to be graduating Honors Senior Anika Tracy in presenting her thesis, "Why Does the U.S. Still Practice the Death Penalty? An Application of Waltz’s Three Images" at the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) conference.

Anika is graduating with a double major in Philosophy and Political Science. We could not be more proud of the work Anika has completed with her thesis advisor Dr. Sangmin Bae.🤗

Congratulations to Geysa Tumea, the 2026 recipient of the College of DuPage Honors - University Honors Program Transfer Scholarship.👏

She received this award at the CoD Celebration of Academic Excellence on May 5th, and our very own Dr. H. was there to present her with her first NEIU T-shirt!💛💙 Geysa will start at NEIU in Fall 2026 and pursue a major in Computer Science.

John Sargon Albazi Symposium 2026: Part 4

💙Marty Kalas : "Goodhart's Law in Educational Assessment and The Subversion of Learning"

💙Nur Johnson : "13th amendment; Slavery's brother"

💙Abby (Abigail) Heggem : "Community Resilience In The Absence Of Aid: Recovery After the 2018 Father's Day Flood In Houghton County, MI"

💙Fareeha Fatima : "Exploring the Impact of ALS-Associated TDP-43 Affects the Extracellular Matrix in C. elegans"

💙Lisa Rodriguez : "Improving Maternal and Infant Outcomes Through Mandatory Extended Postpartum Medicaid Benefits as a Health Policy"

💙Olga Shalaeva : "Same-Sex Marriage in Taiwan: Soft Sovereignty, Threat Management, and the Politics of Recognition in Asia"

💙Jessica DeMaris : "Barriers to Mental Health Services for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities"

John Sargon Albazi Symposium 2026: Part 3

Congratulations to our Honors students who showed out and presented this year at the 2026 John Sargon Albazi Symposium! Wonderful works and well presented.👏

💙Tea Katsman : "Bridging Science and Teaching: A Path from Science Student to Science Teacher"

💙Ashley Corey : "Metagenomic Analysis of Microbial Communities in Fertilized and Unfertilized Soil"

💙Jiaming Lou : "Mapping Success: plotting the career of the 19th century’s most famously forgotten woman writer"

💙Elijah Sweatt : "Narratives of the children of addicts and their effects"

💙Miriam Meyrose : "Sentinel of Soot and Sunlight: A Bird’s Eye View of Justice and Hope"

💙Matthew Grydzuk : "The Politics of Renaming in Chicago’s Northalsted"

💙Nicholas Cykalewicz : "Visualizing Light-Driven Structural Dynamics in Myxobacterial Phytochromes Using Time-Resolved Cryo-EM"

💙Cassaundra Garcia : "The Muse of Modern Day Celebrity Endorsements"

Congratulations to this year's Honors LLC for having fun and experiencing college at a different level together!

During the annual Living Learning Communities end of year celebration we spent time appreciating the memories we made together💛