earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry under the tutelage of Dr. David Wright. His research was focused on developing new and improving existing diagnostics for the 鈥渂ig three鈥� infectious diseases most closely linked to poverty: Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. This research pursuit afforded him the opportunity to travel to sub-Saharan Africa in collaboration with the Macha Research Trust to evaluate new malarial diagnostics tools and to South Africa in an effort to develop next-generation tuberculosis diagnostics in collaboration with the Blackburn group at the University of Cape Town. While at 91吃瓜网, Westley was active in the Graduate Study Council and a VINSE-supported outreach program that brought hands-on lessons to rural Tennessee middle schools. He then accepted a role as a senior scientist at H.B. Fuller in the Twin Cities where he worked for 2.5 years developing sustainable adhesives for food packaging. When the COVID-19 pandemic intensified, he decided to jump back into the in-vitro diagnostic space as a Senior Scientist for Immunoassay Development at Qorvo Biotechnologies. He is currently developing high-performance COVID-19 assays that function at point of care to help understand and combat the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.