The University of Alabama at Huntsville is more than Kimberly Green Hobbs’ alma mater; it’s where she found her heart’s work — and Dr. Adriel Johnson.
“Since the first meeting, I got the feeling he was serious and sincere about seeing students succeed,” Green Hobbs said. “I saw a mentor from the beginning. Coming from Chicago, I was alone, but it comforted me that I had somebody to mentor me in the program.”
Johnson, 52, was one of three professors who died in a Feb. 12 shooting at a UAH biology department faculty meeting. Alleged shooter Dr. Amy Bishop, a biology professor, shot six of her colleagues, killing 52-year-olds Dr. Maria Ragland Davis, a specialist in molecular biology and plant genetics, and Dr. Gopi Podila, the department chair who helped launch the doctoral program in biology. Three others were injured.
As one of the few doctoral students of color in the biology department, Green Hobbs worked with all three of the slain and is intimately acquainted with their mission to bring under-represented minorities into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
“It was a close-knit department with a lot of students but not a lot of faculty,” Green Hobbs said. “We worked hard to make the department successful and now pretty much half of our faculty was taken from us.”
It was through Alabama’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program that Green Hobbs came to UAH, where she is now working toward a Ph.D. The program is the primary pipeline for students of color to earn degrees in STEM disciplines. Johnson, a specialist in cell biology and nutritional physiology, ran the UAH chapter.
LSAMP, funded by the National Science Foundation, operates in dozens of colleges and universities in nearly all 50 states.
