Chelsea Stewart returned to the Upper School Science Department as a chemistry teacher following a two-year absence.

After departing the school in 2018, Stewart spent two years teaching chemistry to high school students at the Lakeside School in Seattle, her hometown. Stewart earned her bachelor’s degree in both biochemistry and microbiology from the University of Washington and continued on to earn her doctorate in biomedical science from the University of California San Diego. Prior to teaching high school students, Stewart taught Pharmaceutical Biochemistry at the University of California San Diego.

Stewart said she became a chemistry teacher because of her passion for learning.

“I became a chemistry teacher because I loved the puzzle of using data to learn about a world that we cannot see which we interact with on a daily basis,” Stewart said.

Stewart speaks about COVID-19’s effect on teaching Chemistry

Looking forward to the upcoming school year, Stewart said she feels the COVID-19 pandemic will significantly affect how teachers approach teaching chemistry classes, which are often very lab-intensive. However, Stewart she said she is confident the chemistry teachers will be able to adjust successfully.

“We did have to get creative this year in how to perform labs,” Stewart said. “The beauty of chemistry is that it is happening everywhere all of the time, so we are trying to incorporate more observations and labs you can do at home. There are also a lot of resources online where we can simulate labs and data collection and videos of really cool demos we can analyze.”

Stewart enjoys reading and gardening, as well as learning how to speak Spanish.

Stewart said she is excited to virtually interact with students.

“The thing I am looking forward to the most this year is the fantastic versions of ‘Happy Birthday’ or other songs we will be singing on Zoom together,” Stewart said.