Although he is a full-time professor, Wall last year opened the Danja Fistula Center in Niger, a 42-bed hospital specializing in fistula repair surgeries with an operating room, outpatient clinic and hostel facilities for about 100 women.

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Before she "dropped out" merely to become a full-time professor, write books and make 40 to 50 speeches each year, Slaughter left Trenton, New Jersey, every Monday on the 5:30 a.m. train to Washington and didn't get back until late Friday night.

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He persisted and eventually became a full-time assistant professor at MIT.

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