Motivating and Engaging Allied Health Chemistry Students: A Comprehensive New Digital Course
Explore a new digital course that enhances student engagement, promotes effective study habits, and teaches critical skills for allied health careers by connecting chemistry to real-world issues.
Kalyn Owens, Author, North Seattle College
Jeff Owens, Author, Senior Scientist, Cardinal Health
Ann Murkowski, Author, North Seattle College
Join our authors for an engaging webinar to discuss their highly interactive, interdisciplinary digital product and course. This innovative tool connects fundamental chemistry topics to modern medical, biological, and environmental issues, helping students see the relevance to their future careers. Through visual learning opportunities and ongoing, just-in-time feedback, this course ensures students focus on what they need to learn, promoting effective and efficient study habits. With this course, students will develop the critical-thinking and diagnostic decision-making skills essential for success in the allied health workforce.
About the speakers
Kalyn Owens, Author, North Seattle College
Kalyn Shea Owens earned her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego, and her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Davis. She then transitioned to chemical education research as a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington, College of Education. This transition to education research was the point in her pathway that she found her true passion and calling. Combining chemistry content knowledge with the tools to investigate how people learn chemistry is her life-long mission, and she is particularly interested in how diverse student populations can thrive and find success in early gateway courses. Owens is currently a professor at North Seattle College where she teaches a range of chemistry courses. She and co-author Murkowski have collaborated for years to conduct research that focuses on designing and assessing interdisciplinary STEM curriculum, investigating students' conceptions of the representational nature of chemistry, and exploring how early research experiences promote equity and inclusion.
Jeff Owens, Author, Senior Scientist, Cardinal Health
Jeff Owens received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of California Santa Barbara in the College of Creative Studies, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of California Davis and the National Institute of Genetics, Japan. After conducting post-doctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, he helped start a successful biotech company that was acquired by Axis-Shield and is currently owned by Abbott Labs. He then worked on process development of antibody-based drugs in support of clinical trials at Lilly ICOS and Biogen IDEC. Owens returned to academics and taught allied health GOB courses and organic chemistry for STEM majors as a tenured faculty member and department head in Seattle area colleges for 16 years. Owens is now a Senior Scientist at Cardinal Health and remains engaged in chemistry education.
Ann Murkowski, Author, North Seattle College
Ann Murkowski earned her B.S. degree in Biology from the University of Puget Sound and her M.S. in Molecular and Evolutionary Biology from Western Washington University. She spent seven years working in biotechnology for both the University of Washington and a private start-up before returning to her first love, teaching. Murkowski is currently a faculty member at North Seattle College in Seattle Washington where she teaches a broad range of biology courses for both majors and non-majors. Murkowski is passionate about the power of interdisciplinary teaching and learning to engage all students and promote equity in all STEM disciplines.