Dr. Hadiyah Nicole Green is one of less than a hundred Black women physicists in the United States. With her accomplishment, she's embraced a particular responsibility not only to her profession but to the underrepresented communities of which she's a part.
She told AL.com, "It takes a village to raise a child," she said. "I repeat that because a village of people helped raise me and instill values in me, and encouraged me to get to this point. I did not get here by myself. Because of that clarity, I know my responsibility to encourage and mentor the next generation."
Right now she's working on a new way to fight cancer. As an alternative to chemotherapy, Green's technique has a cancer patient injected with a drug that contains nanoparticles. This will cause the patient's tumor to glow and a laser will be used to heat up the nanoparticles.
The goal is a cancer treatment that is less expensive with fewer side effects.
"Because of their need to work together and their inability to work apart, I can insure that the treatment is only happening to the cancer cells we target and identify," she told AL.com..
She began the work as a master's student at University of Alabama at Birmingham and continued while pursuing her Ph.D. In November, Tuskegee was awarded a $1.1M grant to continue Dr. Green's research.
Photo Courtesy: Hadiyah-Nicole Green