Her father aspired to become an engineer, after studying chemistry and mathematics, but was unable to attend the segregated Georgia Institute of Technology.

[4] A National Merit Scholar, Hammonds attended Spelman College where she enrolled in a joint engineering program with Georgia Institute of Technology.

While she was an undergraduate, she spent two summers working at Bell Labs through a research fellowship program that recruited minorities in the sciences.

[5] The program provided structured mentorship and placement within a lab group, and she recalls, "... it was my first exposure to the world of big science.

Then, because of the Society of Physics Students at Spelman College, Hammond was introduced to Shirley Ann Jackson and Ronald McNair.

"[6] Following graduation, she attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a PhD program but left the course of study early in 1980, earning a master's degree in physics.

Upon leaving academia, she began a five-year career as a software engineer, but found this to be unchallenging and returned to Harvard University.

[11] After students filed a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff's actions and the university's failure to respond, Hammonds was one of several signatories to say that she wished to retract her signature.

Hammonds mainly studies the time period of the 17th century to present while focusing on history of diseases and African-American feminism.

In 1997, Hammond's article "Toward a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic of Silence" was published in Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader.

Hammonds believes black women are capable of more than their socially acceptable definition of their own sexuality, but yet they are unable to express it.

[13] This was a black woman who was put on display and seen as vulgar because she had larger anatomical body parts than those of her white counterparts.

Hammonds and Smith had asked the administrators whether or not they leaked any information to anybody, in response to The Crimson publishing a description of an internal email regarding the cheating scandal and athletes' eligibility.

In April, Hammonds announced that her earlier statement had not been complete as she had failed to recollect a second email search, this time of the account of the specific Allston Burr Resident Dean responsible for the leak.

Hammonds did not inform Smith of this second search, violating the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' email privacy policy.