Quest for healing discoveries

Scientists. Groundbreakers. Teacher-scholars. As they work on the frontiers of human health and performance, Marquette professors inhabit all of these roles at once.

Marquette Magazine Spring 2025 cover story. Illustrations by SHOUT.

In doing so, they achieve amazing results. Think of serious conditions that can affect any of our families: cancer, addiction, depression, stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Faculty research impacts all of them - revealing inner workings and root causes, pointing the way to improved therapies and healthier outcomes. "Identifying and solving challenging human-health problems is embedded within the Jesuit tradition," says Dr. Nicholas Reiter, professor of chemistry, whose research on enzyme structure is unlocking keys to cancer therapies.

Yet life-altering results are only part of the story. As determined as they are in driving science forward, these faculty members are just as committed to engaging students - undergraduate and graduate - in this work. "In my proudest moments, I can remember the light of first insight in my former students' eyes, the smile of joy during that first discovery and the new connections they made during their time in the lab," says Dr. Jennifer Evans, professor of biomedical sciences, describing alumni who have progressed to careers of their own in medicine, dentistry and genetic counseling. In these ways, she and her many colleagues help transform lives and seed the breakthroughs of the future.

Click on the images and links below to learn about several professors, their groundbreaking projects and their students.

Dr. Matthew Hearing: Easing addiction's differing grip on men and womenDr. Bing Yu: Detecting the cancer that can lurk after surgeriesDr. Jennifer Evans: Decoding the body's circadian clock and its connections to mental healthDr. Deanna Arble: Decoding the circadian clock's connections to physical healthDr. Jordan Williams: Using coded light pulses to help restore function after spinal cord injuries

More Research That Heals: Additional discoveries from across Marquette