DURHAM – Tamara Terry was a full-time student at NC Central University when she started working in RTI International’s call center – and soon knew she wanted to be part of the impact RTI makes in the world.

But it was NC Central that made her want to make that difference.

“North Carolina Central required us to complete a certain amount of community service hours every semester. Those hours made a significant impact on my life, because it connected me further to my civic responsibility of making impact on the world and truly helping out my community,” Terry, now a senior research manager at RTI, says in the accompanying video.

“That’s a really great feeling.”

Terry credits an NCCU professor, Dr. Sabrina Thomas, for pushing her beyond her comfort zone. 

“She really propelled me to be extraordinarily amazing in her classes,” Terry says.

“Oftentimes people say that, ‘If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.’ But she really taught me that it doesn’t have to be broken to be better. And so those are lessons that I’ve learned and taken with me throughout my career at RTI.”

Terry’s current responsibilities include providing strategic support to large-scale projects teams, managing a research department in her division, supporting proposals and creating budgets for extensive research projects at RTI. She also was recently named RTI’s relationship manager with NCCU.

“North Carolina Central is where I grew up and became the woman that I am today. They gave me the foundation to understand science, and they equipped me with the core skills needed to be a working professional,” she says.

“I am forever indebted to North Carolina Central University.”