Arts & Sciences students bring an array of talents to campus. Cherish Amby-Okolo, for example, has a knack for seven-letter words and triple-word scores. The junior majoring in chemistry and minoring in biomedical data science is also a nationally ranked Scrabble player capable of mopping the floor with almost any casual enthusiast. Her path to WashU reflects the same determination she brings to the board, along with a deep commitment to serving others.

A decade ago, Amby-Okolo left Lagos, Nigeria, with her mother and brother for Houston, Texas. Her mother, now a nurse in Amarillo, Texas, supported the family with odd jobs and occasional trips to the food bank. “We’d queue up for hours to get our food for the week,” Amby-Okolo said. 

Even as a 10-year-old adjusting to a new country, Amby-Okolo had a clear sense of her future. “I always knew I wanted to be a doctor,” she said. “My mother went through a lot of hardship in Nigeria after a relatively benign condition was misdiagnosed, leading to harmful and unnecessary treatments. I wanted to help other people avoid that situation.” 

That ambition led her to a highly competitive magnet high school for students pursuing medical careers at the Texas Medical Center. She spent her senior year at the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire on a full scholarship. 

After high school, Amby-Okolo earned a full QuestBridge scholarship that connects high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds with leading universities. But she still had to decide which university was right for her. 

She considered several Ivy League institutions and other highly selective universities, but a visit to WashU through the FLY-In program helped her make her choice. “I wanted a school with a great pre-med program,” she said. “I found out that WashU had a lot of resources and a lot of opportunities for undergraduates to conduct research. I could tell it was very interdisciplinary, and it didn’t feel like people were fighting for spots because there were so many different ways to succeed.” 

At WashU, Amby-Okolo has excelled in the classroom, the laboratory, and the community. She has embraced the challenges of her courses, including the general chemistry course led by Megan Daschbach, a teaching professor of chemistry. 

“Daschbach delved into many physics-related concepts, and the curriculum went deeper than a lot of introductory chemistry courses at other universities,” said Amby-Okolo, who recently finished her first year as a leader in the chemistry department’s Peer-Led Team Learning program. 

As a leader in the PLTL program, Amby-Okolo has a gift for putting students at ease, said Daschbach, the director of the program. “They come to trust her not only for her mastery of the course material, but for her uplifting support and sage advice,” she said. “She is simply one of those students who comes along every few years who is not only exceptionally intellectually gifted and curious, but also compassionate, thoughtful, and generous.”

Many students who aspire to careers in medicine major in biology, but Amby-Okolo chose chemistry because she wanted to understand the fundamental chemical processes underlying health and disease. Starting in her junior year, she plans to switch to the newly created biochemistry major. “My research has become increasingly biochemistry-focused, so I would like a stronger foundation in the field,” she said.

Through biomedical statistics courses at the McKelvey School of Engineering, she is also learning to find meaning in vast seas of data. “Data sets can be beautiful if you can filter out the irrelevant points and see the patterns,” she said. 

First as a Vagelos Undergraduate Research Fellow and later as an ASPIRE Scholar, Amby-Okolo conducted research in the lab of Tom Brett, an associate professor of medicine at WashU Medicine. Most recently, she investigated potential biomarkers of pulmonary dysfunction in lung transplant recipients. “I really appreciate the chance to do such interesting and important research as an undergrad,” she said.

Outside of the classroom and lab, Amby-Okolo has a deeply personal connection to the community. Having received food donations as a child, she now volunteers at food banks in St. Louis and Houston. In her junior year, she will spend 10 weeks addressing local food insecurity as a Civic Fellow with the Gephardt Institute. Her project could involve organizing food drives or partnering with local groups working to combat hunger. “I’ll brainstorm possibilities to find something I’m really passionate about,” she said. “I know what it means to rely on the generosity of others.”

Amid those commitments, Scrabble remains a constant. Her love for the game began during her childhood in Nigeria, where Scrabble is a national pastime and a point of pride. (It’s the birthplace of roughly one-third of the top 200 players in the world.) “The government recognizes Scrabble as a sport and offers grants to players and coaches,” she said. “It gets very intense.”

Amby-Okolo has competed in multiple tournaments in the U.S. and abroad, including a children’s tournament in Dubai when she was just 7 years old. She’s currently ranked as one of the top 100 players in the U.S., but she isn’t complacent. Even with her packed schedule, she devotes about 10 hours a week to studying word lists. “You can never know enough words,” she said.

Her game strategy is simple: Score big early and build a strong lead.

That same drive to keep learning shapes her plans beyond the Scrabble board. With two years at WashU behind her, Amby-Okolo is considering how she can unite her interests in medicine, research, and data science. “I’m planning to go to medical school,” she said. “I want to combine patient care with the data science research skills I’ve gained at WashU. I’ve had an amazing time here.”