Katie Stromsland graduated from Gillespie High School (GHS) in 2013, earning a Matt and Marge Turcol Memorial Scholarship. She used the $500 Partnership award at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois.

Katie majored in biology and minored in chemistry and ethics, graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2017. As a junior, Katie earned the university’s highest honor, the Scoville Prize, and as a senior she received the Senior Biology Scholar Award.

While at Millikin, Katie worked as a biology lab assistant for two years and as an anatomy and physiology teaching assistant her senior year. Her summers were spent doing research on the DNA of Slider turtles as predictors of the health of their eco-system, first as a Millikin James Leighty Scholar and then as a grant awardee from the National Great Rivers Research and Educational Center.

In her free time she coached tumbling and trampoline at an off-campus gym for three years, utilizing her past experience as a nationally ranked competitive gymnast. While a member of the Millikin soccer team in 2014, Katie traveled to France, visiting Lyon and Paris. Then in 2016 she spent her spring semester studying at Maynooth University in Maynooth, Ireland. Between classes she found time to travel throughout Ireland, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Norway, enjoying her dual hobbies of traveling and hiking..

Katie is currently a first-year medical student at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University in Maywood, Illinois. As part of her service obligation, she coaches underprivileged children in gymnastics.

Of her college and med school experience, Katie says: “It is allowing me to achieve my dreams while also having incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experiences.”

She reports that The Partnership scholarship helped her family “definitely. Every penny counts in relieving the financial burdens of college.”

Katie is the daughter of Pete and Sue Stromsland of Gillespie.