Professor Scholefield was born in Kingston Jamaica and lived there until she left for college.  She bid the island sun goodbye to do her undergraduate work at Boston College, and obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry and Philosophy in 1991. After four east coast winters, Professor Scholefield moved to Los Angeles for graduate studies at the University of Southern California (USC).  She joined the research group of Professor Hanna Reisler in the early 1990s and worked on crossed-beam studies of atomic carbon with small inorganic and organic molecules.  This research was both challenging and exciting.  During this time she obtained novel and interesting results, published several papers, and was awarded a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1998.  The title of her thesis was “Hydrogen-Atom Transfer Reactions of Ground State Atomic Carbon”.

As a TA at USC, Professor Scholefield developed a deep passion for teaching undergraduates and decided to pursue this as her career.  She first began teaching chemistry courses as a part-time instructor at Santa Monica College during her last year of graduate studies (1997-1998).  Upon completion of her Ph.D., she then accepted a full-time lecturer position at California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) in San Luis Obispo for two years (1998-2000).  She worked primarily in their innovative new lecture-lab integrated facility called the Chemistry Studio, and learned a great deal about successfully incorporating technology and active learning into a chemistry curriculum.

After leaving CalPoly, Professor Scholefield joined the full-time chemistry faculty at Santa Monica College (SMC) in 2000, and obtained tenure in 2005.  She teaches introductory and general chemistry to a diverse population of students, and truly believes she has the best job in the world.  She has served on numerous campus-wide committees including the Curriculum Committee and the Professional Development Committee, and currently serves on the Academic Senate.  She is also the lead faculty coordinator of the Introductory Chemistry program at SMC.

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