Heeg-Truesdell, who joined the NWC faculty last fall, was awarded a Ph.D. in biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Heeg-Truesdell, who earned her bachelor’s degree at Northwestern College in 2001, has published several articles with her graduate program mentor in journals like Current Biology and Developmental Biology. As a graduate student, she received training grants from the National Institutes of Health for her research. She also was a teaching assistant in Northwestern University’s developmental biology department, earning the Teaching Assistant of the Year Award in 2003.