Hadiyah-Nicole Green likens her story to that of The Little Engine That Could.
The 34-year-old assistant professor is the first in her family to go to college, let alone earn a doctorate. She’s also broken ground at her alma mater as the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. And by now, you’ve probably heard that Green is the recipient of a $1.1 million grant to develop a cancer treatment. This woman is on fire.