Valerie Bennett

Biography

Dr. Valerie Bennett has served as Director of Bradley University’s Health Professions Advising Center since 2013.  Dr. Bennett brings over 15 years of experience teaching, mentoring, and advising students, and is an active member of both the National and Central Associations of  Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP and CAAHP).  She serves as Vice-President of CAAHP and as a mentor to new pre-health advisors.

Before coming to Bradley, Dr. Bennett was Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology, and Chair of the Pre-Professional Committee for the Healing Arts at Clarion University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. Bennett earned a B.A. in Biology and an Education minor from Colgate University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. from the Department of Zoology at Miami University of Ohio. Her doctoral research focused on overwintering physiology of insects, and included field work in the Canadian Arctic.  She then spent two years as a Post-doctoral Research Associate with a joint appointment at the University of Notre Dame and University of Alaska-Fairbanks, studying insect antifreeze proteins, and spent one year as a visiting assistant professor of Biology at Colorado State University-Pueblo.  She has taught courses such as Human Anatomy and Physiology, Animal Physiology, General Zoology, Principles of Biology, and developed a First-year Biology Seminar and a Career Development in the Health Professions course while at Clarion, and now teaches HS 110 Introduction to Health Science here at Bradley, with some new courses under development for pre-health students.  

In her spare time, Dr. Bennett is an avid skier, enjoys cooking and home improvement with her husband, and long walks with their dog, Roswell.