Distinguished Professors Join Westmont

We have eight new faculty joining Westmont this fall. In this issue we highlight four professors in our Science fields.

We welcome Anna Aboud to the Westmont faculty as an assistant professor of Mathematics. Now finishing her doctorate at Iowa State University, Anna holds an M.A. in Teaching from the University of Alaska at Anchorage and a B.S. from Wheaton College. 

At Wheaton, Anna double-majored in Mathematics and German. She has taught secondary school in Alaska and has been an instructor at three different universities. Currently, she is involved with a National Science Foundation project that is considering “algorithms for threat detection,” which includes work on algorithms involved with detecting anomalies. With funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Anna is also developing active-learning tasks for the Iowa state curriculum.   

Stephanie Cowell, a 2004 graduate of Westmont, will return to her alma mater to assume the role of the lab coordinator and stockroom manager for the Chemistry Department. She has already been back once before (in 2014-2015) as a lab instructor. After finishing her degree at Westmont, Stephanie earned her teaching credential and then completed an M.S. in Chemistry from UCI and an M.S. in Science Education from Cal State Long Beach. For the past several years she has worked at the Environmental Charter High School and Middle School in Inglewood and Lawndale. 

Before her recent work in California, Stephanie spent three years teaching and designing programs for grades 8-12 at a boarding school in Franschhoek, South Africa. That was preceded by three years at American International School in Egypt (Cairo) as a science teacher. While at Westmont, Stephanie was twice named an NAIA Scholar-Athlete and played on three national championship soccer teams.

Adam Goodworth joined the Kinesiology Department over the summer as a biomechanist. He also has considerable mechanical engineering experience and will be helpful as we develop the new program. Adam recently taught in the Rehabilitation Sciences Department at the University of Hartford. He finished his doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from the Oregon Health & Sciences University, and earned his undergraduate and master's degrees at the Colorado School of Mines. 

In the past several years Adam has done extensive research on prosthetics, including his efforts to assist the nonprofit LIMB International on projects in Africa. Just recently he won a major grant from the Department of Defense for study on the treatment of knees among those with perturbed walking and stances. Adam has a superb record on securing grants (NIH, NSF, etc.) and looks forward to engaging our students in his research. Some of his other projects include helping a pediatric physical therapist study trunk control in infants and children with cerebral palsy; he sees his merger of engineering and clinical pediatrics as part of his Christian calling to care for those in need.

Ogechi Nwaokelemeh will be stepping into a full-time, tenure-track role at Westmont. For the past few years she has served in short-term appointments, and has made multiple contributions over this time. Among them has been the two years when she taught an August course in the Global Health semester in Uganda. At Westmont, she has taught classes in nutrition, fitness, public health, dance, and community-based research.

Ogechi has special interests in exercise and nutrition among youth. She has just contributed a chapter on exercise among African Americans to a new book on Physical Activity and Diverse Populations: Evidence and Practice. Ogechi completed her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, her M.S. degree in Exercise Physiology from Howard University, and her doctorate in Kinesiology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.