2024 Outstanding Alumni Awards & Recognition Recipients
Peter Cooley
Class Year: Shimer College 1962
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 2024
Peter Cooley is director of creative writing, a professor of English, and Senior Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Tulane University in New Orleans. He has written nine books of poetry and his work has appeared in three editions of The Best American Poetry, and in more than 700 magazines, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review. He has given readings of his poetry throughout the U.S., as well as in Paris, London, Madrid, Prague, and Melbourne, and he served as a U.S. representative to the International Poetry Festival in Wellington, New Zealand.
Cooley served as poetry editor of the North American Review from 1970 to 2000. He is a past recipient of the Pushcart Prize and the Marble Faun First Place Prize in Poetry given by the Faulkner Society. Cooley has also been recognized as an Atlantic Younger Poet and the Robert Frost Fellow at the Breadloaf Writers' Conference.
Cooley received a bachelor’s degree in humanities from Shimer College, a master’s degree in art and literature from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in modern letters from the University of Iowa. Prior to Tulane, he taught at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, Warren Wilson College, Vermont College, Western Michigan University, and the University of New Orleans. He has taught creative writing workshops to the elderly, the socially disadvantaged, and the illiterate.
Judith Brown El-Amin, JD
Class Year: 1969
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 2024
Judith El-Amin describes her time at North Central College as “being in the right place at the right time.” Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, she was attracted to North Central College in part due to its proximity to Chicago. Once on campus, she was exposed to civil rights activities that were taking place at the time through the work of Rev. George St. Angelo, the College chaplain. It was this exposure, along with taking part in an exchange program with Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Atlanta, that sparked her career as a community organizer, mediator, and restorative justice practitioner.
El-Amin founded her own mediation services organization to help resolve disputes and improve decision-making among groups and individuals within communities, including small businesses, neighbors, and young adults. She also served as assistant corporation counsel for the City of Chicago’s Department of Law, providing legal counsel on infrastructure financing and community development, including affordable housing initiatives. She is an active member of North Central’s African American Alumni Association, and volunteers as a mediator for the Center for Conflict Resolution.
El-Amin earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology from North Central, and her J.D. in health law from the St. Louis University School of Law.
Major General Stacy Jo Huser, AIR FORCE
Class Year: 1994
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 2024
Maj. Gen. Stacy Jo Huser is commander of the 20th Air Force at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base (AFB) in Wyoming. She is responsible for more than 13,500 Airmen providing nuclear global strike and nuclear weapons sustainment for the U.S. Air Force. She previously commanded the 625th Strategic Operations Squadron at Offutt AFB in Nebraska; the 91st Missile Operations Group at Minot AFB in North Dakota; and the 90th Missile Wing at Francis E. Warren AFB.
Maj. Gen. Huser commissioned through Officer Training School in 1996 after earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology from North Central College. She has extensive experience in space and missile operations. Maj. Gen. Huser has served as a space operations crew member, instructor, and training manager, as well as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) combat crew commander, evaluator, and chief of emergency war order plans. She also completed staff tours in the Secretary of the Air Force's Legislative Liaison Office and at United States Strategic Command.
Prior to her current assignment, Maj. Gen. Huser served as principal assistant deputy administrator for military application at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration in Washington, D.C., where she assisted the deputy administrator for defense programs to maintain the safety, security, and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
Rick Guzman, JD
Class Year: 1999
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 2024
Rick Guzman is the executive director of The Neighbor Project, a housing and community development organization formed through the 2018 merger of two Aurora-based non-profits. One of those non-profits was Emmanuel House, which Guzman co-founded with his wife in 2002. In 2016, Emmanuel House was recognized as a Classy Award finalist for being one of the “100 most innovative non-profit or social enterprise programs in the world.”
In April 2020, The Neighbor Project co-launched Illinois’ first-ever financial empowerment center in partnership with the City of Aurora. Previously, Guzman served as deputy chief of staff to two Aurora mayors, working on housing, economic development, and neighborhood planning projects. Guzman also worked as a policy advisor to the Governor of Illinois on issues of human rights, criminal justice, and the death penalty moratorium.
Guzman graduated from North Central College with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and public policy. He earned his J.D. from the Northern Illinois University College of Law, where he received the Thurgood Marshall Award for Human Rights in 2009 and was named Young Alumnus of the Year in 2019. Guzman serves on numerous local and regional non-profit boards and in 2019 was elected to a six-year term as a trustee of Waubonsee Community College.
Allison Beckham Davila, M.D.
Class Year: 2009
Alumni Recognition Award Winner 2024
Dr. Allison Beckham Davila is an assistant professor in the Northwestern Medicine Department of Surgery and Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. She graduated from North Central College with a bachelor’s degree in biology and received her M.D. from Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, where she was the recipient of the Mary Beth Richmond, M.D. Scholarship. At North Central, she was recognized as the College’s Outstanding Major in Biology and Outstanding Senior Woman.
With a focus on pediatric cardiac surgery, Dr. Davila matched into a general surgery residency at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Southern California and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles where she studied the embryonic origins of congenital heart disease. She also completed a cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and her surgical training culminated in a fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital specializing in pediatric cardiac surgery.
As a clinician, Dr. Davila is currently investigating neurological outcomes in premature infants after cardiopulmonary bypass, and as a researcher, she has investigated pediatric and adult heart transplant outcomes. Most recently, she investigated outcomes after surgery for pulmonary vein stenosis and presented her findings at The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and The American Association for Thoracic Surgery annual meetings.
Ben Youel, D.D.S.
Class Year: 2009
Alumni Recognition Award Winner 2024
Dr. Ben Youel is the owner of Grayslake Orthodontics in Grayslake, Ill. After graduating from North Central College as the Outstanding Major in Chemistry, he earned his doctor of dental surgery degree and completed a three-year orthodontic residency at University of Illinois Chicago. He then completed a 12-month hospital-based residency at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago where he learned advanced surgical techniques and how to manage medically complex and special needs patients.
Dr. Youel is a specialist in complex surgical orthodontics. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, he serves as a volunteer leader with the American Dental Association, the Illinois State Dental Society, the Chicago Dental Society, and the Illinois Society of Orthodontists. He also volunteers at the Chicago Dental Society Foundation Clinic in Wheaton, Ill., providing free dental care to those unable to afford it.
While competing as a wrestler at North Central, Dr. Youel was a three-time national qualifier and two-time NCAA Division III All-American. He was the first Cardinal wrestler to receive Scholar All-American honors during all four of his competitive seasons. He was inducted into the Cardinal Athletics Hall of Fame in 2021. In April, Dr. Youel ran the Boston Marathon and raised over $10,000 for stroke awareness, research, and patient recovery, in memory of his sister, Maggie Youel ’14.
Rev. Kris Krause Androsky
Class Year: 2001
Wall of Witness Award Winner 2024
Kris Krause Androsky graduated from North Central College with a degree in religious studies and earned a master of divinity degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Rev. Androsky has more than 20 years of local church ministry in the United Methodist Church. She also served as executive director of Hebron House of Hospitality, a homeless shelter system in Wisconsin’s Waukesha County. Under her leadership, Hebron House was named the 2017 Large Non-Profit of the Year by the County Executive, and she was named a Woman of Distinction by the Women and Girls Fund in 2018.
Rev. Androsky’s ministry focuses on building ecumenical and interreligious relationships locally, nationally, and throughout the global church. She serves as the chair of the UM Ecumenical and Interreligious Training Network: USA, assisting the staff of the Council of Bishops. In this role, Rev. Androsky leads monthly training events, is part of the design team for the National Workshop on Christian Unity and serves on the Council of Bishops Advisory Committee. In 2023, she taught at the Parliament of World Religions and attended the 2024 Global Christian Forum held in Accra, Ghana, as one of three UMC representatives.
Rev. Androsky lives in Waukesha, Wisc., with her husband, Steve, and their dog, Cali. She is senior pastor at Community United Methodist Church of Elm Grove.