Mrs. Richards-Williams, a native of Montgomery, AL, is a doctoral candidate at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics. She received her B.S. from Clark Atlanta University.

 

Clintoria’s life long interest in science truly bloomed with her first research experience at Clark Atlanta University. Learning to translate lecture concepts into relevant experiments was very satisfying and further sparked her interest in research. At the end of her junior year, she was awarded a MARC U*STAR fellowship with the mission to prepare underrepresented minority students for a future in biomedical research. Clintoria considers this fellowship experience a significant milestone in her scientific development.

 

To provide the same support and encouragement to other students, Clintoria found additional ways to achieve this end. The summer after college graduation, she served as a teaching assistant in the Upward Bound Outreach program that was tailored to minority high school students who were interested in majoring in science during college. Prior to entering graduate school, she taught physical science to minority 9^th graders at the high school level for a year. Her goal was to make science fun and relevant. As a graduate student, Clintoria served as a mentor in a local outreach program [UAB Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship] for a minority high school student considering a science career.  The experience was enjoyable and very rewarding for her.

  

Clintoria wishes to continue in her post-doctoral years evolving as both a scientist and as an educator. Her career objectives are to pair the excitement of the research bench with the ability to communicate and share this excitement with young minds.  She believes the love of science must be cultivated early and nurtured long.  Clintoria’s ultimate long term goal is to lead a biomedical research lab that assists in the training of new minority researchers and provides a platform for outreach to young students considering a career in science.

 

Outside the laboratory, Clintoria is a devoted wife and mother, who gives her all to her family.  She is the head cheerleader of her eldest son’s baseball team.