[1][2] Woods was born January 29, 1921, in West Palm Beach, Florida, to Susie (King) and Oscar Pittman.

"[2]In 1940, Woods's mother fell ill and was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Woods then attended a Radcliffe College and Harvard University partnership program to earn a master of science degree in 1943 and a Ph.D. in neuro-embryology in 1945.

[3] She was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta, a historically African American sorority, for decades, and she served two terms as national president from 1963 to 1967.

[5] Woods's feats in community development caught the eye of First Lady Claudia Alta Taylor "Lady Bird" Johnson in 1965, thus Woods was invited to the White House to help launch the Head Start Program, a US anti-poverty program, with Delta Sigma Theta.

[11] In 1978, the sixth annual NIGMS Minority Biomedical Support (MBS) symposium held at the Atlanta University Center in Georgia was dedicated to Woods.

This award recognizes individuals who have had a significant impact in promoting the advancement of underrepresented minorities in biomedical science.

[11] During her time as an instructor at Howard, she met and married Robert Woods, a dentistry student at Meharry Medical College.

[3] After he graduated from dentistry school they moved to Los Angeles, California[11] where Woods put her career on hold to raise their three children,[3][11] Jan, Jerri, and Robert.