Ann Chester
Assistant vice president for education partnerships at West Virginia University and director of the Health Science and Technology Academy
Ann Chester is the founder and director of the Health Sciences and Technology Academy. Initiated in 1994, HSTA brings together high school students from groups underrepresented in college—and their teachers—at multiple university campuses for laboratory and classroom training and enrichment activities during the summer. It also provides the infrastructure and support for community-based science club projects mentored by teachers, scientists, health professions, students and volunteer community leaders during the school year. A distinctive piece of HSTA is its students’ development of research projects that examine and address health issues that their communities face. These projects form the core of the HSTA experience and drive the academic learning the program promotes.
Trained as a plant ecologist at Virginia Polytechnic and State University, San Diego State University and Duke University, Chester has taken her love of science and her expertise in engaging communities in partnership with higher education to help others capture their own potential. This has fostered grassroots change in science education and health literacy in West Virginia. She has done this with the help of many enthusiastic partners and by raising more than $2,500,000 per year from federal, state, foundation, business and local funders. Chester’s work has been recognized nationally and regionally by the Association of Public Land-grant Universities (2010), Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2010, 2006) and Crisis magazine (2006). In 2018, she recieved the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, the nation’s highest mentoring honor.
During her downtime, she snowboards, golfs, bikes, runs half marathons and visits her three grandchildren with her husband.
