Odell lives active life
“I love to run marathons,” said Camille Odell, Utah State University psychology professor.
Odell is a very active person. The last marathon she participated in was the Top of Utah Marathon where she placed second in her division.
“Typically I run 5 miles three times a week,” she said. “When I was in training for the Top of Utah Marathon, the preparation was five 20-mile runs.”
Along with running, Odell is an avid downhill skier and enjoys tennis as well.
Odell teaches psychology at USU, but, like many USU students, she didn’t start out in that field. Odell was raised in central Utah and received her master’s from USU. Before her studies here, she spent considerable amount of time out of state.
Odell began her education with two and one half years at BYU as an English major.
From there, she took a change of scenery.
“I spent three years in Chicago … where I took classes and worked at the University of Chicago as a research associate,” Odell said.
Her research focused on determining if hormone therapy was beneficial to pregnant women threatening to miscarry, to whom it was prescribed at the time.
The research found that not only did the hormone not help, it actually caused adverse effects to female babies once they reached their teens.
After her time in Chicago, Odell moved on to Palo Alto, Calif. Her previous research fueled an interest in microbiology, which she studied in California for three years.
It was the interviewing process of her research which got Odell interested in psychology, “hearing their heartaches,” Odell said, along with a general psychology class at USU taught by Dr. Powers, a former USU professor.
“He was inspirational to me,” Odell said, “I loved the scientific approach to studying human behavior … I took my first psychology class and I never had doubts again.”
Odell said the hardest class she take for her major was a Physiological Psychology class.
“It was very, very challenging, but incredibly interesting. I later taught that class, by the way,” she said.
Her favorite class to teach is developmental psychology, but she enjoys psychology in general.
“I find it challenging but extremely rewarding,” Odell said.
Odell has spent a total of 16 years at USU, both as a student and as a teacher of psychology. She has been a counselor for the Preston, Idaho, School District, where she counseled grades K-12, and she was the Cache County School psychologist as well. Currently, Odell teaches at USU and is the counselor coordinator for the psychology department.
Her immediate future goals include completing her doctorate in psychology, writing a book (“with application of the principles of psychology,” Odell said) and learning how to snowboard.
“It looks like so much fun,” Odell said.