A Ph.D. student from Kenya was found dead in her apartment Sunday.

Alice Mbugua, who was pursuing a doctorate in rehabilitation after earning a master’s degree from SIUC, was taken to Carbondale’s Memorial Hospital after she was found Sunday. The reasons of death are unknown and an autopsy is scheduled.

The Rev. Robert Gray, SIUC police chaplain, said Mbugua’s family in Kenya

has been contacted.

Carl Flowers, acting director and professor of the Rehabilitation Institute, said Mbugua was a good and responsible student.

“This is a tremendous loss for the university, as well as the Rehabilitation Institute,” Flowers said.

Mbugua was an active member of the Student Rehabilitation Association and was on schedule to graduate this spring. She was also a research assistant for the Rehabilitation Institute.

Flowers said he is shocked by the death, as is everyone else.

“She was the picture of good health,” he said. “She exercised and ate well, so her death was very unexpected.”