Meet the Pre-Health Program Director
Some Facts About the Pre-Health Program Director for Lehman College
- He was the bottom student in his high school chemistry class
- He received an F in a physics course at Brooklyn College
- He was once placed on academic probation at CUNY
- He took gap years--eight of them--between his undergraduate degree and entering graduate school
- He has bounced his share of checks, and at one point had tens of thousands of dollars of debt
- When he was on the verge of losing his housing, he applied to the 92nd Y. They turned him down because he "didn't do anything productive with his time."
- He was once fired from a job before he'd even worked one day at it
More Facts About the Pre-Health Program Director for Lehman College
- He has a bachelor's degree in physics and astronomy, with a minor in classics, from the University of California at Berkeley
- He has a Ph.D. in physics from the City University of New York
- He did post-doctoral work on magnetic nanoparticles at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC
- He has taught at the Hayden Planetarium
- He was one of the first instructors for the Examkrackers test prep company, and co-wrote 1001 Questions in MCAT Chemistry, a best-selling test prep book
- He has also written XAFS for Everyone, an advanced textbook on x-ray spectroscopy, We Can Do It! A Problem Solving Graphic Novel Guide for General Physics, and Beyond Curie: Four Women in Physics and Their Remarkable Discoveries, 1903 to 1963
- He was a tenured professor of physics at Sarah Lawrence College
- His scientific work has been cited more than a thousand times
Why Bring This Up?
Successful people have rarely, if ever, been successful at everything they have tried from the start. Overcoming challenges and responding to setbacks and changes of course is part of what makes them successful. As the pre-health program director for Lehman College, Dr. Calvin believes in helping students find ways to move forward and excel, even if the line of their career is not always a straight one.
Meet the Pre-Health Program Coordinator
Dr. Lyda Williams received her B.A. in Biology from Lehman College and then went on to do research at the National Institutes of Health as a Postbac IRTA awardee, followed by a Ph.D. in Biomedical Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, during which she received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award. Although trained as a scientist in the fields of metabolic physiology, molecular genetics, and biochemistry; while in graduate school, Lyda realized that she wanted to utilize her STEM degree to play an instrumental role in strenghtening national and regional STEM learning opportunities by promoting interest and success in STEM. Lyda has worked as a science tutor, volunteered with the New York Academy of Sciences, and has worked as an educational consultant with Mentoring in Medicine. Lyda is also an adjunct assistant professor in the Biology Department at Lehman College.
As a proud Lehman alum and part of the first generation in her
family to go to college, she identifies with many of the same challenges that our student population faces. She strongly believes that education is a vehicle to success and with her extensive teaching, tutoring, mentoring, and outreach experience at the elementary through college level, Lyda co-founded and helped develop special initiatives, including the SMART MDs program and MCAT Academy, to increase success on the MCAT exam and student matriculation to medical school. She is also the lead advisor for Lehman's HealthBridge post-bac program. Her goal is to ensure student engagement, retention, and success with the ultimate goal of diversifying the STEM and health profession workforce.
