Cynthia Ogden

Cynthia is an epidemiologist who manages a team of medical and research epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her own research relates to obesity and growth in children. She joined CDC as a disease detective in the Epidemic Intelligence Service. Cynthia also teaches nutritional epidemiology and obesity at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. In the international arena, she blended nutrition and the diverse disciplines of forestry and fisheries at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome. Cynthia earned her PhD and master’s degree from Cornell University, where her research focused on malnutrition among young children in Kigali, Rwanda. She has a BA in intercultural studies from Trinity College. Cynthia is a member of Bethesda Friends Meeting, where she taught First Day School for several years. Her father, Hugh Ogden, a poet and professor, was a member of Hartford Monthly Meeting in West Hartford, Connecticut, having returned to his grandparents’ Quaker roots when Cynthia was a teenager. Even as a child growing up in New England, Cynthia knew about Sidwell Friends. Her mother, Ruth Simpson Woodcock ’55, treasured her experience at Friends. The combination of Quakerism in her father’s family and her mother’s rich experience at Sidwell Friends played an important role in Cynthia’s interest in the School for her own children. Cynthia has been an active parent volunteer serving as room parent, co-clerking PA Quaker Life Committees, answering the phone at the Middle School, and acting as Fair Share Fund class parent. Cynthia lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband, Christopher Lord, and their children, Benjamin Ogden-Lord ’15 and Katya Ogden-Lord ’18.