Lynika Strozier, a biologist at the Field Museum in Chicago and an adjunct professor at Malcolm X College, died June 7 from complications associated with COVID-19. She was 35.
According to a 2012 article in the Chicago Tribune, Strozier was born in Birmingham, AL, and moved to Chicago with her mother when she was six months old. Her mother struggled with addiction, and Strozier was raised by her grandmother from the age of six years.
It was through research and performing experiments on cell lines at Truman College that Strozier learned she was good with her hands. “Research allowed me to gain the confidence that I never had before,” Strozier told an audience of Field Museum trustees and donors in 2020. She was diagnosed with a learning disability when she was eight, which made reading and writing difficult. With a new motivation for biological research, Strozier graduated from Truman with ...
