LaNell Williams

Last updated
LaNell Williams
BornJanuary 1, 1993
Memphis, Tennessee
Other namesLaNell Alexandria Williams LaNell Threatt-Williams
Alma materFisk University; Wesleyan University
Known forFounder of Women+ of Color Project; LaNell Williams Day
AwardsNational Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow Program (2016)
Scientific career
Doctoral advisor Vinothan N. Manoharan

LaNell Williams (born January 1, 1993) is an American physicist and virologist. She is the third African American woman to pursue a PhD in physics from Harvard University. She founded the Women+ of Color Project, which helps women of color gain the resources to apply to graduate programs as well as giving advice about life as a graduate student. Her research focuses on the self assembly of the virus, bacteriophage MS2.

Contents

Early life and education

Williams was born in Memphis, Tennessee. [1] She attended high school at City University School of Liberal Arts, graduating in 2011. [2] She completed a bachelor's degree in physics at Wesleyan University in 2015. [1] Williams was awarded a NSF-GRFP in 2016 to fund her graduate research at an accredited U.S. institution. [3] She joined the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's to PhD Bridge Program where she was a dual student at Fisk University and Vanderbilt University. She earned a Master's degree at Fisk University in 2017. [1] [4] [5] Williams continued on to become the third African American woman to attend Harvard University for a graduate degree where she studied under Professor Vinothan N. Manoharan. [6]

Career

She currently works on understanding the life cycle of viruses from the physics perspective in the Manoharan Lab at Harvard University. [7] Her research is on the self assembly of the bacteriophage MS2 virus where she focuses on why these systems are able to survive without external interactions by looking at multiple ways a virus can assemble itself; her research falls under soft condensed matter physics. [2] [8] [9]

Science advocacy

Williams founded the Women+ of Color Project (W+OCP) in 2019 to raise the diversity in the graduate application process for under-represented racial minority women and nonbinary individuals. [10] [11] This project was created to help women of color learn and share experiences about applying and surviving in graduate school. [12] In the first year, the program had 20 participants and in 2020 there were 50 active participants who met virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [11] [13] This program allowed African American, Latinx, and Native American individuals to learn about the graduate school application and admission process to improve the applicant pool for under-represented racial minority women and nonbinary groups. [13] [14] She continued her activism work by being a co-organizer in #BlackinPhysics week in 2020, which highlighted and celebrated Black physicists. [15] Starting January 2021, Williams serves on the American Physical Society's Board of Directors. [10]

Honors

In 2011, to recognize her academic excellence and achievements within the community, she was presented with a Resolution that dubbed August 16 'LaNell Williams Day' in Memphis. [16] This day acknowledged her work within the Memphis community as a volunteer for multiple organizations from Children's Museum of Memphis to Books to Birth; it also recognized her academic awards and honors which included the Academic All-Star Award from Cellular South to receiving the Sam Walton Scholarship, and being a member of the National Honors Society. [17] [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bacteriophage</span> Virus that infects and replicates within bacteria

A bacteriophage, also known informally as a phage, is a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν, meaning "to devour". Bacteriophages are composed of proteins that encapsulate a DNA or RNA genome, and may have structures that are either simple or elaborate. Their genomes may encode as few as four genes and as many as hundreds of genes. Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into its cytoplasm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandra Faber</span> American astrophysicist

Sandra Moore Faber is an American astrophysicist known for her research on the evolution of galaxies. She is the University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and works at the Lick Observatory. She has made discoveries linking the brightness of galaxies to the speed of stars within them and was the co-discoverer of the Faber–Jackson relation. Faber was also instrumental in designing the Keck telescopes in Hawaii.

Helen Vivian "Nell" Scovell is an American television and magazine writer, and producer. She is the creator of the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which aired on ABC and The WB from 1996 until 2003 and co-author of the book Lean In.

Florence Cole Talbert-McCleave, also known as Madame Florence Cole-Talbert, was an American operatic soprano, music educator, and musician. Called "The First Lady in Grand Opera" by the National Negro Opera Guild, she was one of the first African American women and black opera artists performing abroad who received success and critical acclaim in classical and operatic music in the 20th century. Through her career as a singer, a music educator, and an active member of the National Association of Negro Musicians, she became a legendary figure within the African American music community, also earning the titles of "Queen of the Concert Stage" and "Our Divine Florence."

Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing is the nursing school of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The school awards the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), Master of Nursing (MN), Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD). The school is named after Nell Hodgson Woodruff, wife of long-time president of The Coca-Cola Company Robert W. Woodruff. Mrs. Woodruff left nursing school when she married, but she supported nursing causes throughout her life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nell Irvin Painter</span> American historian

Nell Irvin Painter is an American historian notable for her works on United States Southern history of the nineteenth century. She is retired from Princeton University as the Edwards Professor of American History Emerita. She has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and as president of the Southern Historical Association, and was appointed as chair of MacDowell's board of directors in 2020.

Elmer Samuel Imes was an internationally renowned American physicist who made important contributions in quantum, demonstrating for the first time that Quantum Theory could be applied to the rotational energy states of molecules, as well as the vibration and electronic levels, Imes' work provided an early verification of Quantum Theory, and his spectroscopy instrumentation inventions, which include one of the earliest applications of high resolution infrared spectroscopy led to development of the field of study of molecular structure through infrared spectroscopy; he was also the second African American to earn a Ph.D. in physics and the first in the 20th century. He was among the first known African-American scientists to make important contributions to modern physics, others' prior work unrecorded or uncredited. While working in industry, he gained four patents for instruments to be used for measuring magnetic and electric properties. As an academic, he developed and chaired the department of physics at Fisk University, serving from 1930 to 1941.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret G. Kivelson</span> American geophysicist, planetary scientist (born 1928)

Margaret Galland Kivelson is an American space physicist, planetary scientist, and distinguished professor emerita of space physics at the University of California, Los Angeles. From 2010 to the present, concurrent with her appointment at UCLA, Kivelson has been a research scientist and scholar at the University of Michigan. Her primary research interests include the magnetospheres of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vera Kistiakowsky</span> American physicist (1928–2021)

Vera Kistiakowsky was an American research physicist, teacher, and arms control activist. She was professor emerita at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the physics department and Laboratory for Nuclear Science, and was an activist for women's participation in the sciences. Kistiakowsky was an expert in experimental particle physics and observational astrophysics. She was the first woman appointed MIT professor of physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reidun Twarock</span> German mathematician

Reidun Twarock is a German-born mathematical biologist at the University of York. She is known for developing mathematical models of viruses based on higher-dimensional lattices.

Jedidah C. Isler is an American astrophysicist, educator, and an active advocate for diversity in STEM. She became the first African-American woman to complete her PhD in astrophysics at Yale in 2014. She is currently an assistant professor of astrophysics at Dartmouth College. Her research explores the physics of blazars and examines the jet streams emanating from them. In November 2020, Isler was named a member of Joe Biden's presidential transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blair Imani</span> American author and historian (born 1993)

Blair Imani is an American author, historian, and activist. She identifies as queer, Black, bisexual and Muslim. She is a member of the Black Lives Matter movement, and is known for protesting the shooting of Alton Sterling and Executive Order 13769.

Jenny Hoffman is an American quantum physicist and professor at Harvard University. She is interested in nanoscale engineering and imaging of materials, using molecular beam epitaxy and scanning probe microscopy. Hoffman has received several awards for her research and teaching, including the 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and 2010 Sloan Research Fellowship.

Morénike Giwa Onaiwu is an American educator, author, and autism and HIV advocate. Alongside E. Ashkenazy and Lydia Brown, Onaiwu is an editor of All the Weight of Our Dreams, an anthology of art and writing entirely by autistic people of color published by the Autism Women's Network in June 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashley Walker (astrochemist)</span> Astrochemist, science communicator, and activist

Ashley Lindalía Walker is an astrochemist, science communicator, and activist. In response to police brutality against Black Americans and sparked by the success of Black Birders Week, Walker co-organized #BlackinChem, #BlackInAstro, and #BlackInPhysics to highlight and amplify the voices of Black researchers and scholars in these fields.

Merritt Moore is an American ballerina and quantum physicist. She studied at both the University of Oxford and Harvard University. Moore works to combine her interests in physics and ballet through her research and dedication in both the arts and sciences. She is completing her residency at Harvard University's ArtLab where her work combines science and dance through the use of robots. Moore has a Bachelor's Degree in Physics from Harvard University and a PhD in Atomic and Laser Physics from the University of Oxford. Merritt Moore has danced professionally for many ballet companies across the world including English National Ballet and Norwegian National Ballet. She has performed in Swan Lake and The Nutcracker among other ballets.

Nicola Jane Stonehouse is a British virologist who is a professor in molecular virology at the University of Leeds. Her research investigates viral diseases and the use of RNA aptamers to study viral proteins. She has worked on the development of a novel poliovirus vaccine that makes use of virus-like particles.

Marsha Rhea Williams is an American educator and researcher, she is known for being the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science. She held many academic positions and was most recently a tenured professor at Tennessee State University. Additionally, she advocates for greater minority representation in STEM fields.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brittany Kamai</span> American astronomer

Brittany Lehua Kamai is an American astrophysicist and racial justice activist. Kamai is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the California Institute of Technology. She was the founder of #ShutDownSTEM, part of the Strike for Black Lives held on June 10, 2020. A native Hawaiian, Kamai grew up in Honolulu and graduated from President Theodore Roosevelt High School and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She completed her Master of Arts from Fisk University and her PhD from Vanderbilt University. Kamai is only the second native Hawaiian to earn a doctorate in astrophysics and the third to earn a PhD in physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mabel Augusta Chase</span> American physicist (1986–1939)

Mabel Augusta Chase was an American physicist and university professor.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Roberson, Stephen (December 8, 2020). "LaNell Williams and Duane Valz". National Society of Black Physicists. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
  2. 1 2 "LaNell Williams". TEDxBeaconStreet. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  3. ↑ "Williams '15 Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship". News @ Wesleyan. Retrieved 2021-09-06.
  4. ↑ "LaNell Williams | ColorLines". www.ColorLines.com. Retrieved 2021-08-23.
  5. ↑ "Astronomy in Color". astronomyincolor.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  6. ↑ Williams, Colleen (2019-12-04). "Harvard Ph.D. Candidate LaNell Williams Champions Black Women in Physics". AfroTech. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  7. ↑ "Virus physics" . Retrieved 2021-09-09.
  8. ↑ Wu, Katherine J. (2021-01-26). "If You Squeeze the Coronavirus, Does It Shatter?". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  9. ↑ "#BlackInPhysics Week at Yale Seminar: LaNell Williams, Harvard University, "Bulk light-scattering measurements of viral capsid self-assembly around RNA" | Department of Physics". physics.yale.edu. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  10. 1 2 "APS-IDEA Virtual Meeting Speakers". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  11. 1 2 "Women+ of Color Project Hosts Three-Day Virtual STEM Application Workshop | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 2021-09-05.
  12. ↑ Elsevier. "A Harvard PhD candidate is helping women of color succeed in academia". Elsevier Connect. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  13. 1 2 "New Face of Physics: Women+ of Color Project launches at Harvard". quantbio.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2021-09-05.
  14. ↑ "The Women+ of Color Project @ Harvard". dib.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2021-09-05.
  15. ↑ Aut, D. Brown II Charles author; Aut, Esquivel Jessica author; Aut, Gonzales Eileen author; Aut, Quichocho Xandria author; Aut, Polius Cheyenne author (2020-10-26). "Meet the organizers of #BlackInPhysics Week". Physics Today. 2020 (4): 1026b. Bibcode:2020PhT..2020R1026.. doi:10.1063/PT.6.4.20201026b. S2CID   243455670 . Retrieved 17 August 2021.{{cite journal}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  16. 1 2 "Commission Meeting - 8/22/2011 - Aug 22nd, 2011". shelby.granicus.com. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  17. ↑ "HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 578" (PDF). January 25, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.