The Northwestern University community in Illinois experienced hours of uncertainty after the disappearance of 72-year-old professor Nina Kraus, who was last seen Monday morning when she left her home in Evanston to go for a walk.

Her family reported her missing that same day, which started a search operation led by the Evanston Police Department.

Search Operation

Authorities said the teacher was located Tuesday and taken to a local hospital. Details about her condition were not immediately released.

During the search, police deployed teams along the Lake Michigan shoreline and said they would use drones to search the area in case the teacher had continued walking in that direction.

When she was reported missing, Kraus was reported to have been wearing long pants, a windbreaker, and carrying a dark backpack. Police also said she is 5'2" (162 cm) tall, weighs about 135 pounds (63 kilos), and has long, silver hair.

Prominent Academic Figure

Kraus is a professor at Northwestern’s School of Communication and a renowned researcher in the field of auditory learning neuroscience.

In her academic biography, she describes herself as a “scientist, inventor, and amateur musician” with the goal of understanding how experiences with sound impact the brain and shape people’s identities.

“My research on sound and the brain aims to understand how our life in sound, for better or worse, alters sound processing in the brain, makes us who we are, and affects the world we live in,” Kraus wrote in her academic profile.