Golden West College professor honored as O.C. Teacher of the Year
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Golden West College chemistry professor Kate Green got to design her laboratory on the third floor of the Math Science building on campus.
She had a meeting with the lab planner, and she had a list ready — she wanted a certain amount of cupboards to hold centrifuges, hot plates and more and specific numbers of gas inlets and plugs.
That attention to detail, along with her enthusiasm for the topic of chemistry, are two things that set Green apart. She has been honored as one of six Orange County Teachers of the Year for 2027, by the Orange County Department of Education.
Green was surprised with the award on campus in late April by county Department of Education representatives, including Superintendent Stefan Bean. She was presented with an Orange County Teacher of the Year award and a $25,000 check, courtesy of the William, Jeff and Jennifer Gross Family Foundation.
“It was such a surprise,” said Green, who has been teaching at the junior college for 19 years. “I want to say it took a good 24 hours for it to really sink in, like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m one of the Orange County Teachers of the Year.’”
Green is known on campus for her energetic and practice-based approach to teaching chemistry. She also makes it relatable to her students.
She said that chemistry is often made to seem obscure and abstract, but it’s something that we use every day.
“Cooking is chemistry, you know,” Green said. “One of the things I love to tell [my students] is that if you’re making muffins, you’re actually making a liquid go to a solid at a specific temperature. As it’s solidifying, the carbon dioxide is making the liquid rise up, and it’s becoming a solid to trap those air bubbles in and make a nice fluffy cake, or a fluffy muffin.
“I mean, think about the kinetics and the timing of that. You’ve got a chemistry reaction happening, releasing carbon dioxide, and you’re having a state change simultaneously in your oven, and people do this like it’s nothing, right?
“So, I kind of want to rehab the image, if I could do a rebranding of chemistry. DuPont had it when they said, ‘Better living through chemistry.’”
Green formerly worked in manufacturing for Arlon Graphics, but it became tougher to travel after she had two children. She got out of the industry, but began teaching chemistry and physics to kids at Murdy Community Center in Huntington Beach.
She then started teaching labs at Golden West College, and became a faculty member in 2008.
“Professor Green’s passion for teaching is evident in every interaction she has with students,” Golden West College President Meridith Randall said in a statement. “She creates a learning environment rooted in encouragement, discipline and genuine care for student success. This recognition is incredibly well deserved.”
Green is the second Golden West faculty member in the last three years to receive Orange County Teacher of the Year accolades, joining Keisha Cosand, an English professor who was honored for 2025. Green will be formally recognized at a gala at the Disneyland Hotel on Nov. 1.
She said she views every semester as a new puzzle, with a new group of students to consider, and she also loves seeing her students around town later in life. One of her biggest surprises came when she took her son to a drugstore to get a COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic, and the pharmacist behind the counter recognized her.
“She was one of my former students, and she remembered me all those years later,” Green said. “She’d taken me like 10 years before that, and then she went to pharmacy school, and now she’s a pharmacist. I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ She was so excited to see me, and she told my son that he better behave in school. It was a very sweet moment.”
Green lives in Huntington Beach with her husband. Her daughter is at Carnegie Mellon University pursuing a doctorate, while her son is at Massachusetts Institute of Technology finishing up his engineering degree.
