Kyha D. Williams, DVM

It was 2005, and life was good in Orlando. Williams, who had graduated from N.C. A&T eight years before, was working as a veterinarian, and she and her husband had just welcomed their first child into the world.

But the caller was Tracy Hanner, a faculty member and former Animal Sciences department chair. He had been Williams’ college advisor and mentor. He had news.

I just talked to the HR manager over at Duke, and they’re looking for a clinical veterinarian, Hanner told her. I think this is a good chance for you to get back into lab animal work.

So Williams applied and got the job.

“The rest is history,” Williams said. “And I’ve been here ever since.”

For her first 16 years at Duke University, Williams held several roles with progressively more responsibility in the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources, which cares for animal models used by researchers across the university.

Last summer, Williams moved to a new position: director of the Duke Surgery Large Animal Core and assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Surgical Sciences. In this role, she works primarily with Duke’s transplant researchers.

Williams has long been interested in animals. As a middle school student in Hampton, Va., she plowed through veterinary books to see if she could diagnose the mysterious ailment that had sickened her dog, Dexter. In high school, Williams worked with a veterinarian, the father of a good friend, Nicole McKelvin, who would later graduate from A&T a year ahead of her. And when McKelvin suggested she consider A&T, Williams came to Greensboro for a visit.

There, Williams met Hanner, a lab animal science instructor and clinical veterinarian and the first Black person to graduate from the N.C. State University College of Veterinary Medicine. She also met Alfreda Webb, an A&T professor and the first Black woman in the United States to become a licensed veterinarian. (Webb’s husband was Burleigh Webb, former dean of A&T’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and the namesake for Webb Hall.)

“The sense I got that I was going to be supported, that I was going to be mentored, that my career would be nurtured, that they were going to look out for me,” Williams said. “I just knew that’s where I wanted to go.”

At A&T, Williams joined Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, took part in student government and met her future husband, Greensboro native Nikolas Spaulding, now a chef in Durham. She majored in laboratory animal science and, after graduating in 1997, got her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at N.C. State four years later.

Williams later gained Diplomate status with the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine. She’s also an adjunct instructor at A&T and N.C. State and works as a relief veterinarian in Durham, where she lives with Spaulding and their two children.

Hanner, now retired, has been a constant throughout Williams’ life. In addition to teaching her at A&T and telling her about the Duke job, Hanner helped her get an internship while she was in vet school. He also served as Williams’ mentor throughout her career and brought her into his network of former students.

“That’s one of the benefits of being an Aggie,” Williams said. “It’s a strong network of people and that family feeling — which is a real palpable feeling when you’re there. It’s knowing that wherever you go, if there’s an Aggie there, you’re going to have an ally.”