Westmont Magazine Meet Westmont’s Newest and Tenure-Track Professors

OGECHI NWAOKELEMEH stepped into a full-time, tenure-track role. After serving for the past few years in short-term appointments, she 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. “It is my continual prayer that as I assist people in meeting physical, public health needs, that avenues to meet any spiritual needs can be established as well,” Ogechi says. She 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.

BARBARA DE VIVO, who has wide marketing and management experience with medical device companies, becomes a full-time professor after serving as an adjunct professor at Westmont the past two years. “Organizational behavior offers insight into how groups work and the ways in which organizations can become more effective and efficient in their operations with their people and processes,” she says. “It’s helpful for anyone to amass an understanding of workplace dynamics, not only business students as they settle into their own careers. I’m delighted to integrate my professional experience and academic knowledge of such subjects into a Christian liberal arts learning environment from which all students, business and nonbusiness, can have the opportunity to learn and benefit.” A Cornell graduate, she completed her doctorate at the State University of New York in Albany and earned an MBA from Mercer College. She served as director of MBA marketing at the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis, helping shape and market an MBA program that serves the metropolitan Memphis region.

ADAM GOODWORTH, a biomedical engineer who applies technical approaches to human movement science, looks forward to teaching and studying from a Christian perspective. In the past several years, he has conducted research on prosthetics, including efforts to assist the nonprofit LIMB International on projects in Africa. “My research also explores disabilities like cerebral palsy, studying impaired human movement from an engineering perspective,” he says. Goodworth recently won a $350,000 grant from the Department of Defense to study how microprocessor knees impact perturbed walking and standing balance. The National Science Foundation has given him $300,000 to study mechanisms of balance in children with severe cerebral palsy. He looks forward to engaging students in both research projects. He earned a doctorate from the Oregon Health and Sciences University and undergraduate and master’s degrees at the Colorado School of Mines. Most recently, he served in the Rehabilitation Sciences Department at the University of Hartford.

CAROLYN MITTEN, whose research focuses on preparing teachers to examine their beliefs about mathematics and to adopt equitable teaching practices that serve all students, studies how formative assessments can help teachers adapt instructional practices to motivate and serve individual learners. “God’s calling for my life is teaching and studying the integration of faith and teaching and the benefits of faith for teachers,” the Messiah College graduate says. “I’ve experienced the environment that shuts down conversation about your faith, so I can help students navigate that space and engage in a new way.” She earned a master’s degree at Penn State University and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction at the University of Florida. She served on the faculty of Moravian College for the past two years and has taught courses at all levels, including graduate courses in data analysis and probability.

BRUCE WYDICK, the new director of Westmont in San Francisco, brings a wealth of global and local expertise as he seeks to transform the program at the Clunie House into a hub for students doing intensive work in poverty and development studies. “We’ll transform young adult lives by teaching students how Christian discipleship leads to meaningful and effective engagement with the global poor,” he says. A highly esteemed writer and scholar, Wydick has taught economics for 23 years at the University of San Francisco and is a distinguished research affiliate at the University of Notre Dame and at the Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley. “I’ve learned about God’s heart for the poor and what it means to live out the Christian life with a focus on others, particularly the marginalized,” he says. He earned a doctorate at UC Berkeley after completing undergraduate and master’s degrees at UC Davis. His latest book is “Shrewd Samaritan: Faith, Economics, and the Road to Loving our Global Neighbor.”