Working with robots is a substitute for playing with dolls.

Mama would call Dr Will a pervert, but I realize that his project is on the cutting edge of science.

WILLIE WAYNE WILLIAMS, PhD BY CLARA B JONES 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 36

1 Not In Poor Taste

When I told Mama I wanted to major in psychology, she laughed herself off the chair. “You always were mental!” she hollered, thinking I wouldn’t be able to earn a living. But I have known that Human Factors is a competitive field since Sophomore Year when USC sent a rep to talk with AP students. I picked up a handout listing salaries of graduates with diverse degrees, and Human Factors ranked just below Engineering. I signed up to receive information from the Psychology Department and the Affirmative Action Office, confident that I had found a way to combine my God-given talent for mathematics with Mama’s desire for me to help people. I wasn’t sure what skills I needed, but, based on my SAT scores, my minority student counselor assigned me to Dr Willie Williams’s robotics lab.

Dr Will is a short…